'03 High Mileage EV Red Refurb

[SambaBurnsRed]

Of course it starts on a trailer Got this 2 owner Colorado Red with a crazy religious service history. Oil changes every 5K, etc. It's Californian, not Canadian. Sitting at 300K miles. Some nice kit with the Rhino rack, ladder, solar shower, pro audio install, nice wood table.

Transmission is toast. Pulled codes with VCDS - not too much.

Of note: Tranmission was done @ 150K. Timing chain was 100K miles back.
New rad/fans. All the major stuff was kept up but...the things that break weren't attended to, which is typical tho of dealer/shop maintained.

Some things I've done to bring it back:
- Added trans fluid & additives; drives OK but slips in 1st
- Very dry so lubed up all hinges, tracks, and brakes
- Fix door arrestor, d-side window, unstick sunroof
- Fix the ABS wiring (G201 Sensor), repl wiper-washer pump
- Super dusty, full wet-vac'd of interior
- Bed was stuck, cables busted
- Got some Pirellis on order.
- Adding a 12V cooler, inverter and shore power connection

Needs a heater core done, probably get a shop to do that.
My buddy has a transmission shop so going to book it in. I can get a used transmission, seller claims its tested as good.

Fix up the dents and might do a top wrap in white (hmm?) These things are very well built. I am surprised at how soild the body construction is.

[kourt]

It's nice to hear someone else say what I've been saying--the T4 platform is a well built vehicle. They are pretty tough.

Thousands of T4s are still the workhorses of the trades in Britain and Europe. I saw quite a few this summer in the Thames valley.

kourt

[mans442]

Good luck with your project. It's clear that a lot of effort was completed before your ownership.

It seems like every owner will be faced with a transmission replacement. You would think they would be less costly to repair.

[Max Welton]

Good thing it isn't any taller.

Max
_________________
1967 Type-3 Fastback
Under the Knife https://shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=151582
Home Stretch https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=767836

[KillerGriller]

Looks like a great launch point, good luck!

[SambaBurnsRed]

Was at the tranny shop yesterday. My buddy said they did these on the regular, in Vancouver back in the day. Depends on what it needs, but $7K CAD retail is typical for a full refresh. IDK my cost as we trade for stuff.

I want to learn to wrap without my head exploding (folds, bubbles, dust @^#%$) . The hood, top surfaces were painted and are sunbeaten. Perfect line for the two-tone scheme. Ordered high gloss charcoal metallic vivid vinyl. Going to take some sanding prep.

I did offer a guy $8K for an MV with shifting issues. I told him the trans was hooped. "I have too much into this van to accept" So they end up going to a shop, and it does need a full rebuild. Good thing the deal didn't go down! But the prices are very high. Like $20K for a high-miles camper, asked about the transmission, and it's crickets.

- 5x7 Walmart shag rug, trimmed to fit, flamed the edges. Fits great!
- Mobicool 45W 12V retro style
- Dewalt 1000W inverter on sale at Crappy tire

[shirk]

I really think we're at a point where the Eurovan community needs to look at alternate transmission options to keep these on the road long term.

A kit to swamp in the trans from an Atlas would be sweet. It's gotta be cheaper to pull the Altas trans from a wreck an add custom mounts and an adapter plate to adjust the engine angle difference. Modern 8 speed would be nice.

Are you in the Lower Mainland? We've got a 01 Colorado Red MV. The colour has grown on me, but I'd trade it for white version in a heartbeat.

[Stripped66]

[kourt]

Before I bought my EVC I priced the rebuild kits for the 01M/01P trans. Around $1000 to DIY the rebuild on these units. That is in the expensive range for kits, but not terrible.

I've rebuilt a few 090 automatics. The 01P is more complex, but not extraordinary in its complexity.

When the time comes, I will document my rebuild so others can tackle it themselves.

kourt

[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.

[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]

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.

[paddygarcia]

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

[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.

[SambaBurnsRed]

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

[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]

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.

[/youtube]

[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]

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.

[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.