The EV has been plugging away the last 2 months, mostly just local trips across the lowcountry to log some miles on the bike.
I did replace the heater-core last month. This required removing the bypass the previous owner installed. The cost of a new heater hose ($160+) that has the thermoswitch housing was more than I wanted to spend, so I picked up some aluminum hose barbs and found a billet of aluminum in the shop:
Mock-up prior to welding:
I'll snap a finished pic eventually. It's installed and the EV now has heat. And on that note, the rear heat was working in October, but has not worked this winter since I reconnected all of the fan switches and fuses, and replaced the radiator. Could be the solenoid directing coolant to the rear heater core, a sensor, or a controller...I'm hoping it's just a loose wire.
My early-style instrument cluster had been giving me problems. The PO replaced the stock cluster with an earlier unit, maybe a 96-98? Or maybe not even from an EV at all. It worked, but the gauge lighting was awful. I put the stock cluster back in, which looked years newer despite being the same general style (it's all about the lighting), and it worked for a month before dying once again.
So, I opted to swap in a newer "blue" cluster from a 2000 EV.
Biggest PITA was the Bentley wire diagrams...
- my EV is a 1999 GLS, the January 1996+ Bentley wire diagram is in the ball-park for this chassis/instrument cluster.
- The September 1998+ wire-diagram is incorrect for the 1999 chassis/instrument cluster
- The 2000 EV instrument cluster is partially explained by the September 1998+ wire-diagram and the May 1999+ wire-diagram. I suppose greens look grey when you're colorblind.
Splicing the 2000 harness into the 1999 chassis was relatively trivial. After confirming all of the pin assignments, I clipped one wire at a time (hurray for 25 white wires!!!) from the 1999 connector and soldered each to the pigtail for the 2000 connectors. All functions from the 1999 cluster work; some functions of the 2000 EV cluster do not (brake pad wear indicator - grounded to deactivate light; EPC light - not connected; dead bulb indicator - not connected; etc); some are redundant (I spliced the parking brake and ABS leads, so both the dash lights and instrument cluster light up simultaneously).
I'll probably pick up a late steering wheel and airbag off eBay to complete the cockpit update. Did VW ever make the Climatronic with blue back-lighting instead of green?