Rusty VW bothering …. Totally exhausting

[Tickman]

That is a beast

[Dyslexic Viking]

That looks nice and a major upgrade from a van.

[mk2_craig]

1 hour ago, rusty_vw_man said:

so money paid, tax taxed and insurance insuranced and I’m away…. 

Now it may have left the factory as a two seater, but bugger me some stuff has been added to the back since! 2007 boxer/Ducato chassis with a whole shed plonked on the back. 

Reason I can afford it - one rear leaf spring is cracked at the eye end and it’s sitting on its arse. New springs and shocks in the way……

That is exactly what I expected/was hoping you’d be buying. 

[rusty_vw_man]

It is indeed a beast - it is 7.2m long and the overhang from the back axle is ridiculous, I can see a grounding in my future!  

Its a proper departure from What I’m used to, its the second newest vehicle I have ever owned and is powered by the devils fuel which I know nothing about other than it’s the black one I don’t touch at the pumps! Proper learning curve ahead I think, hopefully cure my fear of having a ‘modern’ thing with an ecu (which autocorrect just changes to evil!). 
 

In other news the reupholstered seats for the T25 were shite, the foams weren’t replaced (as per contract) instead they’d just lobbed in a load of cotton wadding that slowly moved around and formed a ridge right where a man doesn’t need a ridge to be. Awful. This improved it slightly:

but after a full and frank discussion we have been refunded. Just weighing up if it’s best to get someone else to have a go, or just bite the bulllet and get the ready made covers and fit them myself. I chickened out last time but having seen what an expert does (for a grand!) I’m confident I can do at least as well! The ‘repaired’ bolster on the drivers side is worse than it was when it went in looking at the photos side by side. Why is it so hard to get stuff done properly?! 

[Fabergé Greggs]

Nice to see someone properly using their T25! 22 Mpg makes me feel better about the 20 Mpg I get out of my air cooled auto. 
 

Have you put sound proofing in yours? The most tiring aspect of long trips in mine is the road noise- I need to dynamat the cab and under the seats methinks 

[rusty_vw_man]

32 minutes ago, Fabergé Greggs said:

Nice to see someone properly using their T25! 22 Mpg makes me feel better about the 20 Mpg I get out of my air cooled auto. 
 

Have you put sound proofing in yours? The most tiring aspect of long trips in mine is the road noise- I need to dynamat the cab and under the seats methinks 

The back is caravelle so it is factory lined to an extent, but cab is just rubber mat over the metal floor. Under the front seats is just bare metal.

Noise is definitely an issue - the worst is actually the gearbox whine that transmits up through the gear change rod. It is quite tiring on a long run. 

[High Jetter]

Looks like it's got legs tho, should give you (& us) some adventures!

[rusty_vw_man]

Ordered leaf springs, new 'rear suspension rebound blocks' (or bump stops?!), new rubber mounts and new shocks. New heavier duty axle stands await at Halfords. 

All parts on 24 hour dispatch. Most have arrived apart from shocks, as apparently they have to check compatibility before shipping and their system was down. Did suggest that maybe if they offer parts specificlaly for an '07 boxer then if I have an 07 boxer and order these parts the hard work should already have been done surely. Now arriving Monday which is 5 day shipping not 24 hours. Never mind, they can be done later, but why does it always seem to be so hard to actually buy stuff now. 

So mostly set, and the weather is looking spot on for groveling around in the gutter: 

I can almost feel the water entering my trouser legs and running back out through my collar now..... Got to love street mechanics as a hobby....

[rusty_vw_man]

I fear after today I may have become amphibious - even in waterproofs I have been able to wring out my under crackers form the rain that’s come in. 

How it started - wheel off and jacked up, with a little stream running down the kerb:

 

old things - life expired bump stop/spring assister thing, shock without a dust cover (and it’s got a small kink in the rod which ain’t ideal) and is leaking oil, although it is till surprisingly tough to operate  

 

So was it bust, I reckon yes, seller agreed discount but said he thought it was supposed to be like that -

nice to be right. It’s actually fractured where the part number was stamped on it, so well done fiat for creating a stress fracture propagation  point during manufacture. Been like it for some time as both faces are well corroded. Been through a recent MOT as well. 

New spring and assistor thing, shocks still in the post but have cracked off both bolts so it’s an easy job when they arrive

Back on it’s wheels,

The old springs had the much shorter assistors resting on them, have gained almost 2 inches in height. 

Finishes the broken side at about 15:30, not time to do the other side before we were due out for dinner, so that awaits tomorrow….. yay. 

Also found there is a hole in the back box which I missed during inspection so need to have a better look and see if it’s omg replace now or it’s actually a bit of paste and give a while! 

[stuboy]

On 17/09/2025 at 14:45, rusty_vw_man said:

so money paid, tax taxed and insurance insuranced and I’m away…. 

Now it may have left the factory as a two seater, but bugger me some stuff has been added to the back since! 2007 boxer/Ducato chassis with a whole shed plonked on the back. 

Reason I can afford it - one rear leaf spring is cracked at the eye end and it’s sitting on its arse. New springs and shocks in the way……

how many berth?

[rusty_vw_man]

53 minutes ago, stuboy said:

how many berth?

Six - with six travelling seats. I was amazed how many had 5-6 berths but four or less travelling seats. 

[stuboy]

5 minutes ago, rusty_vw_man said:

Six - with six travelling seats. I was amazed how many had 5-6 berths but four or less travelling seats. 

similer too my Fil's

[rusty_vw_man]

All done - before and after are hilarious:

before its level, now it’s proper ass up, which is great as then when I put all my gear in it will sit level. Laughing. 

Bruised all over now from rolling around in the street. Have just treated  myself to a high quality impact wrench - it was £22 - to ease future adventures…..

[High Jetter]

@puddlethumper might have tips for you

[rusty_vw_man]

T25 is plodding on, and getting much use as a general runabout. Oil and water seem to be mostly staying inside the engine, but the temperature is getting slower to rise, and temp gauge is consistently sitting a bit low so suspect thermostat is on the way out. It’s the later model engine so in a fragile plastic housing, which is in some ways better than the alloy early version which had a habit of welding itself together by corrosion trapping the studs in their holes. Will change when I get a minute. It was also handy transport for the donated pumpkins that required transport to a charity event - this is after most of them had gone;

Found the motor home is leaking a bit, redid the side seals and that improved the situation, but found the roof has small holes thanks to galvanic corrosion between the steel screws and staples in the wood frame and the ally sheet: 

spent the day today painting the roof with magic fibre reinforced goo - the stickiest mankiest stuff that got everywhere. Also stunk, got a bit light headed by the end of the day. Paint was immune to wonder wipes, white spirit, wd40, thinners and water. However I found brake cleaner did shift it, but it does make your skin a bit tingly, and my beard may never fully recover (yes it really did get everywhere!) miserable job, no photos as my hands (even with gloves) were too sticky to use my phone. 

also added Bluetooth to the existing stereo (as changing it is an arse as it’s integral to various systems), but by a plug in the back and a 12v receiver I am a winner

I now have tunes. 

Also done oil and filters, new battery and leisure battery. First trial run is booked in for 2 weeks time, think it’s almost ready. Back end has settled nicely on its new springs, sitting nicely now.

[paulplom]

I have a 2016 Relay and I changed my head unit for a generic 7" android unit about four years ago. It has a reverse camera too which stops me reversing into skips again. I bought an extra cable so I could still use the steering wheel controls.

It doesn't have android auto so I added a 10" extra screen yesterday recommended by L1 and GM as the sat nav on the 7" was shite and too small.

The photo doesn't show it at a good angle but it doesn't get in my view at all.

[rusty_vw_man]

24 minutes ago, paulplom said:

I have a 2016 Relay and I changed my head unit for a generic 7" android unit about four years ago. It has a reverse camera too which stops me reversing into skips again. I bought an extra cable so I could still use the steering wheel controls.

It doesn't have android auto so I added a 10" extra screen yesterday recommended by L1 and GM as the sat nav on the 7" was shite and too small.

The photo doesn't show it at a good angle but it doesn't get in my view at all.

That’s cool - l like the size of the screen, I use my phone at the moment but it’s a bit small! Had a hire transit with car play and it was great. 

I need a magic wire to change mine apparently, something to do with the way it integrates with the van - certainly if you take it out the dash gets grumpy.  Cheapest version of wire is £60. It will get done, just lower down the list of priorities. At least I have Bluetooth now, not sure I was up for a return of the giant wallet of CDs (ah the forgotten skills the Youth will never know!!) 

[Noel Tidybeard]

at work it is not uncommon to find an ipad wearing a nutcase clipped to the pop-up clipboard for navigational duties

[rusty_vw_man]

This morning I popped a new thermostat on the T25 as it was a bit slow to warm up. Had a small incident - the back looks like this

Its a sizeable set of wooden draws/bed support that I prop open with this stick of wood, worked for years just fine until today, now both thumbs/hands look like this and are a touch sore (and about 50% puffier than normal!) 

lucky it wasn’t worse, but still quite sore.

To thank me it shat its temperature sensor in a car park in Bangor, water hissing out.  I had a spare but access was tight, and I had overlooked that the water was at about 80degrees, so it was all a bit hot and ouchy for a few minutes. 

Then the low water light came on, but it was full, I’d just filled it up.

Much faffing, found the connector for the sensor was a bit green and crusty, quick polish and all is well. Why it chose then to have a spasm I have no idea, I didn’t touch it or even look at it. 

All seems fixed again now. 

Also tried fixing the motorhome door mechanism. It wouldn’t open from the inside, and then would need a good waggle to get it to stay shut. It’s bloody complicated with various Bowden cables and rods, but basically it’s worn inside the lock mechanism itself so the release bit can skip over its stop. Rebuilt it but it lasted one open before it broke again. New one required. 

This lot has turned up as well for the ‘modern’ 

as per thread in ask a shiter I have had no success in getting anyone to do my wet belt on a puretech engine so I have watched a YouTube video and decided it can’t be that hard….. expensive belt kit, cheap locking kit, which feels like the right way round! 

[rusty_vw_man]

So, no local takers for doing my wet belt change on the ‘modern’ - it’s at 60k and 8 years old, so well under the original service interval, but 2 years overdue in the revised schedule due to the premature failures they see. 

Much is made of how hard they are, so I was feeling confident* and relaxed*

step 1, purchase The Big Purple One from a box of quality street. Ensure it has the 1.2 puretech engine. 

 

step 2 

remove wheel and arch liner, including those push in plastic rivet things, torx screws and a couple of 10mm bolts for luck

 

Step 3 

assemble tools. Consider if a ramp or a gravel driveway is best. I chose gravel driveway for the win.

step 4

Strip all the bits out the way, and remove 16 8mm bolts to expose cams:

Step 5

realise you have a super late model engine, which has a different cam cover arrangement than the online checker thinks, so the cam locking set doesn’t work. Drive to Bangor (or other ECP of your choice) and drop £140 on a second set of c locking tools.

step 6

Fit crank lock (little peg in the gearbox that locks the flywheel) then inlet cam lock

Mmmmm anodised aluminium tool. 

Step 7

Remove exhaust cam driven vacuum pump, and insert exhaust cam locking tool 

as a short side quest, admire the condition of the belt

has all the smooth elasticity of Keith Richards.

Step 8

Remove aux belt, pulley and crank bolt. Crank bolt is quite* tight. Option here to feel the muscle in your shoulder tear just a little, due to too much force in a very poor position. Still happy with my gravel driveway choice  though, who needs a ramp.

 

Step 9

Remove inspection hatch, idler and tensioner that are underneath and lower pulley 

Step 10

Admire this bit of engineering - the bottom pulley when not under full torque of bolt is free to spin. No woodruff key, no machines keyway, just lots of clamping force. 

 

Step 11

Fiddle belt out the top, it does just squeeze round the cams, so no need to remove like the belt kit suggests. Outside is quite cracked 

 

inside is breaking down, the left bit that’s shiny is the original hard rubber, the bit on the right is where bits have fallen off, between each tooth is the same. These are the bits that can block the oil pickup, solenoid valves and brake booster pump. Take a minute to appreciate that despite ordering more gloves, they haven’t turned up, despite everything else from the order arriving.

Step 12

Thread new belt back though, fit idler, tensioner and bottom pulley, but only loosely. As you tension the belt the bottom pulley moves on the crank(which is locked in timing position). Then do up the bottom pulley bolt 50Nm and 180 degrees. The first 90 degrees are fine, the second quite hard going. Fit poxy stretch belt thing over water pump. 

Step 13

Give it all a spin (I removed plugs for ease) a few times. Pop timing tools back in loosely, still fits, nothing clashes so going to call that timed

 

Step 14

Get heavier rain. The drizzle was not enough. Still don’t need a ramp, or a roof. 

 

The photos stop here as it really did come belting down, and with an umbrella in one hand and tools in the other I ran out of hands for the camera, but basically fit new gaskets, reassemble.

You should remove the sump to check for blockage of the oil pump pick up from those bits of rubber, but a sneaky endoscope was used instead as the sump is siliconed on (from the factory) and removal is an arse.

All bits refitted. Twisted the key and it runs, no errors (other than it needs a bit more oil) and drives.

Total cost came in at £360 for the belts, lock kits plus more for the service items like oil and filter. 

It’s done though, and the new belt has 120,000 mile service interval, so it will see the car out I reckon.

It is not the worst cam belt I have done by any stretch, would do another one without worrying about it, so if you are handy I don’t think the Puretech wet belt is nearly as bad a job as people suggest - just remember to use a gravel drive in heavy rain, makes it all so much nicer and easier…… 

 

[Dyslexic Viking]

This is really impressive, well done.

[rusty_vw_man]

Used it in the school run, runs fine. Then I booted it and the dash lit up, engine management light on, running rough as anything.

Disconnected battery, reattached and everything was fine. Booted it again without any ill effect.

It’s all quite wet from the rain, so wonder if it’s just a side effect of that. 

[Tickman]

Well done getting that sorted.

[N Dentressangle]

2 hours ago, rusty_vw_man said:

Used it in the school run, runs fine. Then I booted it and the dash lit up, engine management light on, running rough as anything.

Disconnected battery, reattached and everything was fine. Booted it again without any ill effect.

It’s all quite wet from the rain, so wonder if it’s just a side effect of that. 

Yeah, probably just some angry pixies escaping from a wet multiplug. There'd have been bad noises and it wouldn't have run if it were anything serious.

[rusty_vw_man]

Hmm, well that’s shit. It idles fine and revs fine. Gentle throttle is fine.

However, give it some welly, or a bit of load and it’s misfiring terribly, until engine management light comes on, and the engine fan comes on max speed and doesn’t go off unless you disconnect the battery. Warning message if engine fault - repair. 

Dont have a code reader so that’s the first thing to do. Also going to check the belt timing is correct (it was, want to check it still is!) and the tensioner. After that it’s just got to be something I have touched is dislodged along the way. Very disappointed!! 

[N Dentressangle]

52 minutes ago, rusty_vw_man said:

Hmm, well that’s shit. It idles fine and revs fine. Gentle throttle is fine.

However, give it some welly, or a bit of load and it’s misfiring terribly, until engine management light comes on, and the engine fan comes on max speed and doesn’t go off unless you disconnect the battery. Warning message if engine fault - repair. 

Dont have a code reader so that’s the first thing to do. Also going to check the belt timing is correct (it was, want to check it still is!) and the tensioner. After that it’s just got to be something I have touched is dislodged along the way. Very disappointed!! 

Surely it can only be something dislodged or similar? My money's still on some water having found its way somewhere it shouldn't be, and it'll run fine once it's been really hot a few times. Nothing will dry naturally at this time of year.

[rusty_vw_man]

Quick between work meeting diagnostic session. What’s most affected by water, sparks (in my experience anyway!) Whipped off coil packs:

plug 1 - damp, few drops of water 

plug 2 - bit wet, outside of coils pack soggy

plug 3 - whole ceramic section dripping. Wet enough to shake off water. inside of rubber sleeve on bottom of coil packs soggy. 

Gave them all a good wipe. Engine is nice and warm so have just left them all out sitting on the cam cover to finish drying. Might not be the cause but won’t be helping! 
 

[rusty_vw_man]

Dry spark plus reinstalled, coil packs back on and it now will rev to 5000+rpm under load and also pull from a slow roll in third gear. 

It’s cold and dark out so only done a 1 mile loop as proof of concept but it seems fine , and I can’t recreate the issues from earlier. Got the fear now though which will last for a bit until I’ve done a few miles without issue. 

Might have to reconsider my strategy of an umbrella as an alternative to a workspace with a roof! 

[rusty_vw_man]

Summoned some courage and took the car over to the motor home storage yard, 15 miles each way on 70mph dual carriage ways, including a big hill but no hard shoulders or refuges…..  and it was fine. Going to call that fixed. 

The motorhome needed some attention took to the drivers lock that had bust - this was not really as secure as I liked:

bought a new lock from Fiat as the quality of the generic ones was shocking, and I like to be able to get in and out. The Fiat one was not really much better, it needed some fettling to get it working reliably, and one Bowden cable swapping for the old one as the plastic end stop broke off the new one after one actuation. Took 2 hours to fit, that’s not even refitting the door card or any of the other bits, as I had to take it in and off a billionty times to tweak whatever next needed tweaking next to get it working smoothly. It does now however lock and unlock and I can open the doors again from inside and out. Also found the window guide just rolling around in the door, so refitted that! 

Just need to build the door back up now, and work out why the act of unplugging the switch for the electric windows and plugging it back in has caused it to stop working……

[rusty_vw_man]

Been flying around in the Purple One, got 400 miles on its new cam belt now and I’m finally starting to relax. 

To thank me it has just popped a 6” split in its back box along the seam, just in time for its MOT. It’s proper rusted from inside out, so welding looks unlikely. Sounds shite as well! 

Also need to do the bottom ball joints as they haven’t magically fixed themselves since the last mot and will be a failure as the boots look like a couple of bits of elastic bands. 

Checks weather:

Excellent, my favourite kind of car fixing weather! At least this is all just bits of metal and I shouldn’t mange to soak anything electrical!! 

In happier news the T25 is holding all its fluids at the moment and the new thermostat is working well. Also fixed the awful cold running, turns out the auto choke bimetallic spring had come unhooked (possibly my error from the last lot of fiddling) so the choke was very much doing whatever it liked.