'03 High Mileage EV Red Refurb

[Abscate]

Watch those trans oil hoses where the go around that rad corner for chafe. , and replace those clamps with oetikers.


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[SambaBurnsRed]

Got the PowerFLEX bushings installed but the shop only did 1/2 of the kit I ordered.

They said the rest of the bushings where good and didn't need to be replaced.
Price for labor was $400, very reasonable.

The parts they replaced were in really bad shape for sure.

Drives great now. Still a firm ride but feels like a normal SUV vs the harshness that was there before.

[SambaBurnsRed]

Transmission temp is just under 90DegC after a good drive.

Based on another forum member's post, I ordered the full Powerflex USA bushing kit F&R. It was around $900. Super nice to deal with.

The ride is harsh in a way that feels like the chassis contact points are toast to me.

[SambaBurnsRed]

The JB Weld on the trans cooler started to leak again. They say "engine block repair" on the package but I have had two hot oil faiures using epoxy. I had a really clean and well prepped area on this one too.

In any case, the cooler from GTA is a rough looking fused thing. So Amazon to the rescue got a robust and slim 4 pipe cooler for $35/sale price. There are larger ones out there but this one is suitable for an XC90. Our climate around here PACNW isn't very hot. Fits in there nicely too.

And while I had the grill out I changed the front end look from something that looked like a puffer fish to a wider, lower and more whimsical style, that will augment the daisies (?) being sketched in for the sides

[SambaBurnsRed]

Cupholders are complicated. But whoever molded the stock console was bonkers. Most useless thing ever.

Daughter has a big YETI thing at just under 3.5", max size. I like a dbl shot xtra dry short cap, so need to fit that on the small end. Hacked in a configurable double cup system, cut out the old mini cup mold, dropped in a leather over an insulated wood box, then cup inserts (walmart tumblers) and foam blocks. Whew!

Fixed the airbag light. It was the slider plug connection into the steering column. That connection looks like it's designed to allow some movement, hence the contacts over rails. The airbag ECU was clean overall but the one power lead pin was a little greenish.

And have not had any running issues since replacing the engine speed sensor.
Catalytic pipes are arriving today and should have new exhaust in next couple of weeks.
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[SambaBurnsRed]

OMG two solid days of a punch list & putting it all back together for the first surf-camping weekend. My hands are toast! And an N95 Airbag fault popped up as I handed it off (to my daughter). I went up for a surf today at Cox Bay stopped by to check things out, and yeah it's cool.

I wrote this video on the way back. Obviously invoking the "beet" counter culture of the 60's frame into today's time. It's too bad the ID buzz isn't as cool,

https://youtu.be/foE0fSDZm7U?si=QWbfEzF1cnYN5yOU

PS: I seemed to struggle with everything, wrap, paint etc working against the clock. Dirty beast this was. But it's running well. The exhaust is a bit stinky on start-up, might be the injectors are dirty/leaky. Need to find some head rests for the rear seat too. Do people replace their suspension bushings? Ride is pretty firm, has Bilsteins too.

[SambaBurnsRed]

Had a trans fluid drip up front, and uh oh what's this? I did see a TON of old oil on the engine pan and fluid around the rad bottom. It was small fissure in the German Transaxle cooler at one of the hose fittings, which was slightly bent. That explains why the trans was low-fluid when I got it. AND it looks like it's been leaking for years, which might explain why the transmission failed - cooked on chronic low fluid. In the service record there is fills and fluid changes as well.

I pulled the cooler, cleaned and roughened the area, and blocked the leak are out with a pad of JB weld.

I reset the transmission adaptations using the Key ON floor it method. Shifts pretty nice now, very wheezy compared to the more abrupt shifting it did before. My guess is the pressures were near max on some routes.

The back-up camera install... ah man...no fun that. The driver's door well has power/audio, so I ran the wires from the hatch, down and under the van coming up into the door well. I did not want to pull apart those interior panels. I traced sw/bl everywhere but could not locate the actual reverse light wire @ front, so ran that from the tailight.

The cable was way too short so janky spliced using some RCA cable I had.
The camera is mounted under the license plate light cover, drilled a hole in the hatch frame to duplicate the OEM path out of the hatch, but I am on driver side. I just ran the wires down along the rubber seal through the bumper gap enroute to upfront. Still took more than a day to complete that work

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[SambaBurnsRed]

Speaking of electrical, I was finishing off the audio and inverter install. The subwoof is powered off the aux sounding fuzzy, and the inverter was beeping low voltage. Power plus SLA1180 hulk battery in there wasn't holding 12V or a good charge.

After looking around at AGM's (nothing fits!) decided it's best to go sideways and drop in an LiTime Slim 100aH Li, pulled from our Airstream. Power wiring looks like it was all redone, nice cabling, fuse holders & the bridging solenoid, which is great.

Have to put in a reverse cam to the BOSS Audio head, prob a good time to do shore power and rig up a charger as well for the LiTime. Saw a new Sprinter and they have their plugs, not hacked in the body but lower down on the rear 1/4 bumper cover.

[SambaBurnsRed]

Here is the LED actually pretty good for drop in. Bulbs do a bit of a side kick on Hi Beam. I popped the power steering tank (that was stuck in there) for P-side and got to the d-side adjuster as well. So now I am able to aim things to optimize.

Unfortunately we drive Range Rover/Audi HID, Audi A8 LED, BMW X5 LED so c'mon, who we kiddin'? Meaning it's not going to be OEM engineered performance. But the bulbs that were in there are a brown-out of the first order.

LED lighting so piercingly bright & low current draw - unbelieveable tech!

PS: Nice work as well Bigfoot. I am going to take a closer look at your electrical, we have an Airstream with Solar, Inv/covnerter, Lithium, etc

[bigfoot_ev]

Wow, you've done lots of great work! Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

Regarding your LEDs, I decided to toss the original headlight assy before I upgraded to LED headlights so I probably have a different lighting experience. Something I noticed, when you pull on the stalk switch it momentarily lights both the low and high beams. Since I was running LEDs I figured I could run both high and low without concern for over current situation.

To test, I found a dark road and drove while holding the switch. The low beam definitely filled in the near vision, but in the end I decided to keep things the way they are. It was as if the low was too bright and actually washed out my distance sight. If I had decided to keep both hi and lo on at the same time I would have tapped into a relay I had installed previously for high wattage bulbs.

A couple of ideas to think about. First and foremost, the OEM headlight lenses suck. If you're happy with the LED upgrade you will be ecstatic when combined with better headlight lenses. Second, see if you can make up a test somehow before committing. And if you do decide to go ahead with fogs + hi you might be able to rig up a relay to control the combination. Maybe the signal wire could come off the high beam bulb.

[SambaBurnsRed]

Here are some photos of the heater core hack. Not sure why the diag shows a both F&R going to the shutoff. From what I see, the 2003 has a rear heat shutoff valve, single pipe in and out. So I clamped the outlet as shown with the blue bread bag clip. It's fuzzy enough to allow flow in any case, there is front and rear heat at the moment.

Now onto the LED light schmozzle. The High beam circuit needs a drain resistance because (as others have noted) 12V feeds back from the foglight circuit to kick the high beams on. I cannot find the schematic or module (?) that controls this. The fog power from the switch does not go directly to the fogs (as shown in wiring diagrams) when I point-point test the ckt.

I want to run the LED fogs as fill-in for the high beams. The high beam cutoff is a little elevated right now, which starves the road in front.

Anyway to work as designed, I installed a drain resistance of 12 ohms atm, using a piggyback fuse thingy off one of the high beam fuses. I had these faux bulb resistors, for LED installs at the shop here, but I wonder if something like just 100 ohms would do this function, therefore using less amps!

I tested a 3 ohm version and you can fry an egg :O.

[SambaBurnsRed]

Had the EV into the shop for the heater core. They called me "it's done but we can't get any heat". I said no problem, I'll research and be there in the morning. So I'll post on the heater core thread, but the deal is the dash heater is the high point in the system. I think it needs a good siphon effect, therefore absolutely void of any air, for it to work alongside the rear heat.

I simply pinched-off the rear heat electric outlet valve, went for a drive on the highway and it was bangin' out heat from the vents no problem. I put a bag clip on the hose for now, not sure if the electric valve is working properly. But we have a nice balance of front and rear.

The shop also skimmed the rotors, as they were good but slightly warped out.

I installed LED 9003 Bulbs from Amazon. Fantastic light upgrade. The fog lights are funny in that it is back-feeding the high beam circuit somehow. So need to look into that. What I would like is the H3's to be on, with the highs anyway, for better fill-in. I'll post some pix soon.

[SambaBurnsRed]

Weekend's work of wrapping and tinting. Body design (imo) is about working with cast light. The headlights are black tint but I didn't want to interrupt the high beam efficacy, so that is one reason for the peekabo cut. Also looks cool and works with the ambient light.

Introducing the b e e t n i k

https://youtu.be/n5dhNDEgTPc?si=vB26W_V3UTivY2Ff


I ran out of material therefore haven't done the roof panel around the sunroof. I ordered light smoke for the taillights. Bit more work on the paint, and some other items.

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[SambaBurnsRed]

Bondo and wrap underway. Two-tone scheme not to be cool (which it is) but to cover the flaked and sun-baked clear coat areas.

The hood turned out amazing, super flat and shiny. I have 1500W hair dryer on the mic stand and that is proving to be money for letting the wrap mold to the contours with gentle persuasion vs having to squeegee it & force.

The rear hatch was pranged pretty good. So straightened that out and have a med size area to paint/blend. And a lot of touch up too. High miles beater it'll never be concours anyway 4 foot rule and work fast.

[SambaBurnsRed]

Weighed in at 2050 kg or 4500 lbs 3/4 tank fuel, no 2x bucket seats

[SambaBurnsRed]

Put the Heritage wheels on last night, 20/25mm spacers (F/R). Shifting is great, very responsive, and good power.

I got these wheels which are like new 215/55 17 94 load tires. I was expecting squishy handling but no... it was very composed. 94 supports 5800 lbs, I'll get it weighed in. My Airstream is on 225/75 16 LTs, 2500lb per tire. The GVW is 10K lbs, funny how RVs go right to limit.

I bought new Pirellis to go on 16's and got 17" for winter tires. But geez these wheels are mint and it would be a shame to subject them to winter . Too many wheel sets already.

Onto the bodywork now.

[paddygarcia]

This is nice to see, and valuable info to boot - thanks.

[SambaBurnsRed]

Rebuild is done. Brian (pictured) installed a TransGO SK VW-01M Shift kit which is a parts package that fixes rough lockup, soft 1-2, 2-3 cutloose and excessive or runaway pressure. also has a tunable boost regulator.

The previous rebuilder did not install this update. The prevous builder also used a grinding brush on the "steels" which is not a good thing to do on the 01M. It's a precision-tolerance, pressure/friction in fluid, I would think a roughened surface over factory-spec would promote wear. Brian also says it hurts shift quality.

Installation a bit later this week.

[SambaBurnsRed]

Trans is apart. The clutch pack is toast. Because of driving on a slipping trans, the fluid is quite contaminated, pan & filter dirtied up. The TC will have to be replaced. The shift body cleaned out, etc. This is a rebuild from 2018 so the ribbon cable and most of the parts are in decent shape otherwise.

[SambaBurnsRed]

Transmission is out. Master tech will dismantle in next few days. Ordered the fork-mount as it was a little worn out. We are a bit perplexed by the violent chattering/shaking when moving off the line. Could be the clutch pack slip and grab. Not sure what else it could be.