28/08/2019
2019 MOT passed at last... A few more things to fix this year, some trivial others not so.
The handbrake design on the Golf is a known problem. There's a lever on the back of the calliper that gets caked up with mud and rust and then gets stuck. It can sometimes be freed off but eventually it just sticks again as soon as the handbrake is applied. So first job this year was a new rear brake calliper.
The track rod ends needed replacing on both sides as the boots were split. Possibly the original joints as the ball joint threads on both sides were very corroded. Undoing the nuts cracked the taper out of the joint (both sides) and they were too rusty for an allen key in the end to have any chance of counter-holding the shaft to get the nut off. Had to saw them both off.
Sometime between the MOT test and changing the track rods the NS front tyre had been curbed or hit a pot hole and there was a cut in the sidewall down to the cords. So that needed to be replaced. Annoying as the front tyres had only been changed a couple of weeks beforehand.
One of the brackets that holds the back box of the exhaust rusted off a few years ago. It's been held together with jubilee clips and the like for a while but they had broken off too. So, time to take the rear section of the exhaust off and weld a new bracket on. Discovered another annoying thing about Golfs... to get the rear section of the standard exhaust off you need to drop the rear axle/swingarm. Aftermarket replacements come in two parts, with a join, so you can fit them without taking anything else off. 5 minutes with a reciprocating saw and the old exhaust is in two pieces and removed. Made a new bracket and welded it onto the back box (Why are the fittings on stainless steel exhausts made of mild steel?) then put it back on using the joiner from the aftermarket exhaust.
The offside front wing had a big rusty hole in it and that had got bad enough to be a MOT failure. The wings bolt on so they are easy to change, if you can find one in the right colour. With that sorted and a brake light bulb replaced it was ready for re-test. Or it would have been if it hadn't taken so long to sort out the wing that the local MOT tester had gone on holiday.
Instead it went to KwikFit, who found another couple of things to fail it on. The wing mirror cover was cracked and one of the front side lights wasn't working. Changing the wing mirror cover is easy when you know how (pull straight up to remove it) as is the sidelight bulb, in the headlight. All done now and it's been re-tested and passed. Next job is an oil change.
