May 2013 – Humble Mechanic

Southern Worthersee VW And Euro Car Show

Every May the small town of Helen, GA hosts a European car show called Southern Worthersee. It is the US’s answer to the car show in Austria called Wothersee. Helen, GA is a replica of an Alpine village, and is one of the top tourist spots in Georgia. It really looks like a German mountain town.

This year I was able to make the trip for part of the show. The little town was packed with Volkswagens and Audis.Everything from brand new Golf Rs, and Audi RS4s to old air cooled Beetles and buses. There were so many cars there, it was hard to take it all in. I know that I missed some really awesome stuff. I think next year we will make a vacation out of it.

Here are the pictures that I took. If you find a your car, please post that it’s yours, and tell us a little about it. If you know who owns the car, please let them know. The one thing I wish people would do is, put a stat sheet on the car. That way people like me can give them the proper shout out and tell folks more about their car.

I did my best to get all the information correct. If I labeled something wrong(mk1 instead of a mk2) PLEASE just post it in the comments.

: APR Audi Race Car

: Low caddy

: VW booth

: Plenty of these older VWs!

: Chattahoochee river

: This is the main show area. It was only about 1/3 of the cars there.

: I would totally drive this Ghia

: I really like the BBS wheels on the red car.

: A MK5 from SOWO

: a very nice Ghia

: Unitronic was also doing on the spot flash updates

: We have seen this VR6 Corrado before.Nice job Apex Tuning.

: nice rige height, and very clean

: This is a 4v VR6 engine swap VERY cool

: There were a few super clean VR6 engine swaps. I like the white intake manifold

: This stinks for the driver, at least he had a scene of humor

: A slammed(air ride) Audi AllRoad

: I likve the right height of this Cabby

: They even had some right hand drive swap from OE

: Great setup for the Beelte Air tanks

: Pure awesome!

: Chattahoochee river runs right through Helen,GA

: Green Van

: This is such a cool little town

: More of the town of Helen, GA

: This is the feel that Helen, Ga has

: There is something so wrong, and so awesome about a lifted Golf

: LOW

: This is a R32 engine in this MK2

: It was good to see the local boys from Black forest industries

: The APR booth was full of performance parts

: VW test drive booth

: This is such a clean VR6 engine swap in this MK2

: I always take VW cabby pictures

: Test drive a VW at a VW car show, redundant, or brilliant

: You could even test drive a VW.

: The folks at APR were doing ehaust and fuel pump installs on site.

: Super clean Golf

: a sea of VWs and people

: This Caddy was BRIGHT green!

: Another VR6 swap. This one has a rare intake that was not on US spec cars. I don’t remember if this was a MK1 or MK2 .

: More VR6 engine swap. I love it

: Custom Roof Rack. Remember this for a project I am doing with the black cabby.

: Got to see a few really nice Caddy pick ups.

: More Custom VW

: VW beetle on air bags. Lots of VWs with air ride suspension

: Custom Jetta Sport Wagon provided by Keffer VW.

: Custom VW Beetle that a VW dealer brought. I LOVE that roof rack.

: This looks like a 1.8t in a MK2. I am not 100% sure, please correct me if I am wrong.

: Lowered Passat Wagon

: Custom VW interior. Anyone know who did this interior?

: Cool VW Wheel

: The folks from Meguiars car care products interviewing folks at Southern Worthersee, how cool!

: Custom Engine Swap

: Some Audi performance

: The police were being really cool to the people that were not total idiots

: Unitronic doing ECM flashes at Southern Worthersee

: Unitronic doing ECM flashes at Southern Worthersee

: This was a TDI Cabrio from Canada at Southern Worthersee.

: This was a TDI Cabrio from Canada at Southern Worthersee

: Awesome Audi wagon at Southern Worthersee. This is one of my favorites

: Old school VWs at Southern Worthersee

: The nicest VW bus at Southern Worthersee

: The offical Southern Worthersee Banner

Thanks to everyone that was involved. It was also great to meet all of you. To the ones that I didn’t get a chance to talk to, I am really sorry.

May 20, 2013/8 Comments/by Charles

Shop Shots

Shop Shots Volume 55 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

Hi everybody! Just an FYI, every time I say “Hi everybody” I say it like Dr Nick from The Simpsons. Okay, back to Shop Shots! This week we have a few different automotive service pictures. These pictures come from a VW service department. It is a great way to get a behind the scenes look at what automotive technicians see.

First up we have a leaking VW water pump. This picture shows the benefit of having pink coolant. This water pump had been leaking for some time. It must have been a slow leak. As the coolant leaked out, it would dry and form a crust.

The customer had noticed that her coolant level was low. She never found a leak. I noticed a little trail on the very bottom of the engine. I didn’t really find this mess until I pulled all the engine covers off. I have seen tons of VW coolant leaks my day. This is one of the most interesting.

This is another somewhat common issue. A broken connector under a Jetta seat. This car came in with the airbag light on. The code that was stored was for the “seat position switch”. That’s right, there is a sensor that monitors what position(forward/ backward) the seat is.

These connectors under the seat are probably the most damaged connectors that I find. Things roll under the seat. Then you move the seat and CRUNCH!

We get a lot of cars that come in from other shops. Usually they get towed in with some crazy statement from the other shop. Something like “The customer took the car through a car wash, now there is water in the tank”. 99% of the time, they are not even close to being right.

This time however they were spot on. There was a bunch of water in the gas on the EOS. You can see the water and the gas separate in the container. Now I am not sure if the water actually got in there from the car wash. I didn’t get the whole story from the customer. It will be interesting to hear the story. I will update everyone when I find out.

Well another week for Shop Shots in the books. For those of you that are heading to Helen,GA this weekend for the Southern Worthersee car show please let me know. I would love to meet up with you. I will be there most of the day Saturday. If you can’t make it, be sure to like the Facebook page and or the Instagram page. I will be posting pictures from the show all day. Looking forward to meeting up with you guys

May 15, 2013/5 Comments/by Charles

Shop Shots

Shop Shots Volume 54 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

Hey everyone, we are back in action with another volume of Shop Shots. This week’s pictures are a little late, thanks to the internet being down at work. But never fear, we are still rolling along. Alright, enough rambling, let’s get to those pictures.

The first picture today comes from a fellow VW tech named Matthew in WI. The tech working next to him had to pull the seat up for a repair. This is what he found. It looks like enough hair to make a little critter.

This is a shot of under the drivers seat. You can see the shifter at the top right of the picture. That may also be a nickle at the bottom left. I have seen lots of hair and gross stuff under customer’s seats, but this may be the worst.Thanks for sending this in Matthew.

I talk a fair about VW transmission issues, and valve body failures. I figured it was time to actually show you guys what a VW valve body looks like. The valve body is what controls the fluid in the transmission. It uses solenoids to hold or release fluid pressure.

I replaced this one for an extremely hard shift from 2nd gear to 3rd gear. The job is pretty easy. The only part I don’t care for is being covered in transmission fluid. The up side is, all the tools I use on the job are really clean when I am done. Most automatic transmission fluid as great detergent packages in it. It is one of the best things for cleaning tools.

Staying with the VW transmission theme, we move to a manual transmission. This is a close up of a dual mass flywheel. The customer had their car towed in because it would not start. The car had severe damage to the clutch and release bearing. In addition to that, the flywheel shifted. Normally you can see the bolts through the 6 bolt holes. As you can see, there is very little bolt head showing.

I have seen that before, but this was the worst I have dealt with. I was not able to shift the flywheel to gain access to the bolts. I had to take some extra measures and cut the flywheel off. It was not pleasant, but we got it done.

That wraps it up for Shop Shots this week. Don’t forget, if you have any VW or general car questions, use the Contact me form and ask away. I will do my best to help you out. Also, if you have a question odds are others do too. So ask away!

May 8, 2013/5 Comments/by Charles

Shop Shots

Shop Shots Volume 53 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

Hi folks, welcome back to another volume of Shop Shots. If you are joining us for the first time today, let me tell you a little bit about what Shop Shots. Over the years I have seen some crazy things at the dealership. Everything from severe failures of DIY, water leaks that have totaled Volkswagens, and so many other strange things. This is a way for me to share those things with you. And let’s face it, me tell you about them is one thing, seeing them is another. So let’s get in to the shots.

This is a shot is the trunk of a VW Phaeton. The car has a million and one features, that means a bunch of wiring. VW really pulled out all the design stops on this car(they really should have left some in 😉 ) The trunk wiring harness is designed so you never see any wires. Unfortunately, the contraption they use fails from time to time. The repair is replacing the harness in the trunk lid. It is not a bad job, but there are a bunch of wires. Those wires just control the trunk. Think about how many the rest of the car has.

Looking at this, I wish I could have gotten a better pictures. You are looking at a wiring harness under the carpet of a Touareg. At some point the customer had a water leak. My guess would be the windshield, but I don’t know for sure. This customer was passing through and their car just shut off. The tech working on it did some heavy diagnosis to find that the drivers carpet was wet. Wet carpet is a BAD thing.

We pulled the carpet back and found the wiring harness had be opened and wires were repaired. We dug further and found a corroded splice of 4 main wires. It was a somewhat simple fix. We had to cut the wires back, and solder the connection. It reminded me of a post I did when I first started the blog. If you want to see what Touareg water damage really looks like, hit that link.

To finish up today, I thought I would post this. You guys know, I am all for doing what you want to your car. This however, I do not understand. This is one of the weirdest steering wheel covers I have ever seen. I just don’t understand how someone could drive with their hands touching that. I was not the one working on the car. If I was, you bet I would have worn gloves.

Well, we have another week of Shop Shots in the books. Thank you all for tuning in, and welcome to all the new readers. If you want to see some of the older volumes of Shop Shots, just hit the tab at the top that says “Shop Shots” That will take you back through all of them. Well, all the ones I properly categorized.

May 1, 2013/10 Comments/by Charles