I finally got my rims painted. I brought them to one of my customers and they gave me a sweet little deal. They were the original rims that came with the car, though they were silver.
The car computer is pretty much set. There are still a few things left to do like GPS, and some minor settings configuration just for preferences, but it boots, runs well, and is completely installed. Currently, I have it running into the factory Monsoon amp, though the volume is not what I would like. I would say it is only 33% to 50% of the maximum factory volume. It will get me through the winter, but I am going to look into getting a complete Alpine setup with PDX amps. This will allow me to adjust the input gain. Also, the amps are quite nice and very compact, so they will fit in the little cubby area in the trunk.
Here are the pics of it all finished up:
I finished the basic assembly today. I can actually drive the car again, but there is for sure plenty still missing/to do. The computer is in place, but not hooked up. I have to figure out what to do with the sun visors. Pesky details. Anyway, here are some pics:
New dash with flash:
New dash no flash:
Super-pimp headliner. It is a soft velvety like material. Yes, I do like it.
The car-puter mounted in the cubby, mounted in the hatch.
In a real R32, the headliner is black. As far as I know, there is no way to just get a black one for a Jetta wagon. At least not in the US. So I have to redo everything myself.
Here is a rear door seal before:
and after:
B and C pillar redone with painted plastic reinstalled:
Here is a lot of plastic parts that had to be painted. I am using a spray paint that is formulated to adhere to plastic specifically.
I am making some progress with the car-puter. I ended up having to mount the computer parts in the back and was trying to find a good spot when it hit me. There is a little cubby thing on the passenger side in the trunk. And it is like it was built just for that. The fitment and size and everything is PERFECT.
Here we are looking at what will be facing up when it is mounted. The black plastic is the housing that mounts just behind the wheel well. If you look hard, you can see the hard drive mounted underneat the motherboard. There is a semi-circle that is just exactly large enough to fit the drive. Everything just fit so well in this little plastic piece I just can’t get over it.
Here is a top down pic. When it is installed, the area on the right will be facing up. The power supply is on the upper area of this pic.
These are from a while back when I got a new camera. Just re-found them and thought I would post them up.
At a local site that I frequent, Eurowerks.org, they (re)started a car of the month. I was nominated along with 5 others and then the voting started. I got 24 out of 75 votes and won. :) What I think is interesting is that one of the other cars was a high end .:R32 that won 1st place at the Eurowerks car show that I was also in. His car is technically far superior though, but I am much more happy with mine.
I now have the entire thing running all by itself in its new enclosure. That is, the normal radio cage that is in the MKIV VW. Here are some pics of it self-contained. It has the following: LCD panel with al ACC boards, USB Touchscreen controller, DC-DC Power Supply, Complete motherboard (no add-in cards), Hard drive, and lastly, the VW Climatronic controls:
Lots of pics, but little progress. Not to diminish it by any means.
Little update on the car-puter deal. I got the radio cage more or less finished off:
Here I am taking apart the new LCD. I have to do this as it is WAY to large to fit in as-is. In the foreground you can se the back of the LCD, and in the background, you can see the touchscreen USB connector, a power adapter, and the video driver board.
Here is the backside of the radio cage with all the boards in place and hooked up:
And again with another angle:
And one more angle:
Last angle, but you can’t see the backside. More of a front view without it running:
So while I am working on stuff, I have the actual hardware running iTunes so I can listen to music and run it through it’s paces. Here it is running for the first time mounted entirely in the radio cage:
And here it is running the front-end that I will probably end up using.
