All Systems Go

The PO (Previous Owner, in forum-speak) warned me.  She said that occasionally the speedometer would quit but would start again when the car traversed a bump in the road or when she rapped gently on the dashboard.  It took a while for me to experience the phenomenon, but as soon as I did, I turned it over to the Master of All Things German Electrical, Jason.  He exhaustively tested all the related circuitry, pulled the instrument cluster, ultimately concluding that there was a irreparable  fault in the flexible circuit layer/wrapper itself, and that the most economical route would be to replace the entire cluster itself.  While we had the cluster out, we replaced the notoriously failure-prone odometer gear with a better-than-stock modern counterpart (I’m told that this substandard plastic piece is a VW-Audi part that eventually disintegrates) as a pre-emptive measure even though the odo worked fine so long as the speedo was running.

Faced with a $940 quote for a new speedometer and a $500 quote for a speedo shop rebuild, especially given Jason’s diagnosis of the cluster circuit flexboard, I soon started shopping eBay, Craigslist and anybody who might be parting out one of these things.  First false start was finding one in Denver, but it had a curious rattle and at least one of the gauges was visibly awry.   Returning it and securing a refund, we pressed on.  Eventually, we sourced a decent-looking cluster from San Diego.   Because Jason had already enhanced the original odometer, we swapped it for the new cluster’s unit, which, sure of enough, had a fragile-looking gear on the verge of collapse.  Happily, this made everything legal, too, as the original odometer’s mileage reading would be intact.

Finally … success.  Everything (well, almost) works beautifully now, a ruggedized odometer gear is in place and Jason even reports that the voltmeter is more accurate than the original.  The qualified success has to do with the fuel level gauge which shows an-always-on reserve light and never-quite-full reading.  Having tested just about every other link, Jason concludes that the issue may be with the fuel tank sending unit, a low priority (and about $200 for a new replacement) that can easily wait for later.  And the parking light warning light (whose absence I had never noticed originally!) works, as does the upshift light (who ever pays much attention to that anyway?).  The crazy MPG gauge works just like the original did … hardly a critical display of essential, actionable information

So we are left with an old cluster that appears to be more or less worthless, except that its tach always worked perfectly and is surely still worth going on to another life.  I see that a new replacement tach (944-641-952-06-OEM) goes for about $765, so it is probably worth salvaging and eBay’ing.

We zip over the mountain to Jason’s house, where we attack the long-overdue issue of the malfunctioning sunroof.  I look in on one of Jason’s personal project cars, a VW Syncro restomod in progress.  I failed to get a decent photo of its to-be-installed late VW-Audi turbo motor sitting nearby, spit-polish clean and said to be capable of well over 220 hp.  Working in a driveway, we are rained out, but are able to relocate to the garage of a friendly neighbor whose own shop sports an amazing array of several hundred beverage bottles and other interesting decor elements.  On the way home, rain and a skiff of snow accompany us.

The sunroof event/extravaganza itself will be the subject of an upcoming post, as will be Jason’s recent action taken on the dash electricals and instrument cluster, so stay tuned.

Taking up where I left off on September 1st, two days ago we visited Ivi for the weekend, staying in the same motel adjoining a freeway.  While I could devote only about three minutes to the task, I resumed my traffic watch.

First, my initial “practice” shot yielded the only decent take of the bunch, albeit with an utterly uninspiring, uninteresting and unintended subject vehicle, a Pontiac Grand Am:

The only other sightings of any interest whatsoever were two- and three-wheelers:

Abandoning the project to join the family, I found myself forced to photograph from the back seat, grabbing stuff like this AMG Mercedes:

On the freeway, we see a sweet little 2002tii … even was running the same Yokohamas that the Blue Rascal wears:

And later on that evening, from the same back seat vantage point, but this time with moving traffic, a 370Z:

Enough.