Thread: 2005 Volkswagen GTI

I got my TMZ bezel and chassis in the mail today. I paypal'd them the money on Monday I think and I was expecting an email notifying me when it shipped. I haven't heard a thing and was starting to worry. It shows up today! It's well made. I couldn't buy just the bezel, so I forked over for the whole thing. I'll see how it fits in my double DIN hole later, maybe Sunday. I'm hoping it's close enough I can fasten it to the in-dash radio cage.

On an entirely different topic, bought my wife an Acura RSX today. I wonder where I'll put the LCD? She really likes things stock, so I'm not sure whether this car will ever see a carPC.

The lilliput screen and m1-atx arrived today from the mp3car.com store (fast shipping)! Last night, I plugged it in, booted up the via M10K and my wife said "wow, that look great! Much better than I expected." So, now I've got all the major components. I am still waiting on the multimeter, but at least I thought I could proceed re-installing Windows (previously the M10K was running Linux)...

...and then it happened. This morning, I was testing things out, unscrewing my BIOS settings (I selected "Panel" instead of "CRT"), when I saw a faint spark at the hard disk right at the IDE->laptop adapter. I knew it when I saw it, but hoped anyway. Nope, no boot. I can't feel the drive spin up at all. Damn.

So, today I went and bought ("rented") a 2.5" disk from Fry's. If it works, I know I need to call Samsung to replace my drive. Surprise! It doesn't spin up either. I don't have the time to troubleshoot it entirely right now, but I suspect the IDE->laptop adapter is shot. If that's the case, I blew an $8 part and I don't have to wait for a new drive to be shipped!


edit from the next morning:
It's the IDE -> laptop adapter. I can see the broken trace on it where the power from the molex connecter feeds the 2.5" drive. Nice. So, I bought another adapter. The new drive and new adapter work fine (BIOS detects the driver). When I plug the old drive into the new adapter, I get the same spark at power on. I blew the laptop adapter in the same exact way!

Hmm, the laptop side of the adapter isn't directional. Mayber I've got the pins reversed? Or, my original laptop drive is mounted in my ghetto case in a funny way somehow and it's shorting out. Great. I hope my original drive is still good.

I solved my hard drive shorting problems. It turns out I shouldn't be a dumb ***. I'm mounting my everything in a plastic project box. The motherboard, m1atx and hdd are mounted to 3/8" hardboard (some sort of pressboard). Previously, I was using metal washers and the foam that came with the motherboard and hard drive as a standoff. That is, I placed the M10K on the pink foam it came packages with, put small metal washers underneath it, placed that on the hardboard, predilled some pilot holes, and put some #6 machine screws thru the top of the motherboard mounting holes. Great. It head nice and tight. I did the same on the hdd. What I forgot was that the foam was more squishy and the mounting holes were smaller so I used #4 screws. Fine, except the washers were #6 sized. They moved a bit after mounting and they probably caused the short described in my previous post. Luckily, the drive was fine after taking it out of my home made electric chair of a case. I was just burning out the ide->2.5" adaptors. Why did I use metal washers for standoffs? I'm impatient and Home Depot's selection of small screw/washer/parts is lame.

I ask around work on Friday for a "non-metal motherboard standoff" explaining that I'm not mounting to a regular metal case and that the standard hardware won't work. I get quite a few responses, several suggesting Palo Alto Hardware. That did the trick. My impression of local (non-Home Depot/Lowe's) hardware stores is forever changed. I remember them as small, lame, can order what you want if you already know what it's called, but don't stock much because it's too expensive and they're too small. Not the case here. They have a back wall of fasteners that puts Home Depot to shame. Sure, I couldn't buy 100 boxes of wood screws there all at once, but they had bins full of nylon/rubber/metal/brass screws/bolts/bushings/washers/standoffs in a variety of sizes. The people working there were great too. I bought #4 and #6 1/4" nylon standoffs. Just to be clear, it's an ACE Hardware place. But it felt local.

So, re-mounted everything up and it looks great. It looks almost as if I know what I'm doing. I (re-)installed WinXP, banishing Linux for now. Spent a lot of time waiting for XP to do the various auto-update dances it needs to do. Copying my music library now. The multimeter came on Friday, I need to check the voltage at the hatch's outlet while off, cranking, and idling.

I don't think I'll install today. I've got non-carPC plans already. But, I can at least play with the screen fit and find a path for VGA and USB cables so I know how long I need to buy.

Here's a description of my VGA and USB wire run, maybe it'll help others. My case is going in the spare tire well. I removed the tools, but not the tire. I really should take pictures when I do this, but oh well.

- I bought 10 foot extension cables. Previously, I installed some other wire along my planned route and discovered I needed a bit less than 15' from dash to spare tire. The lillput 10pin to VGA/USB cable is 5 feet. So I bought a 10ft USB and a 10ft VGA extension.

- Pull up the spare tire cover. Pull up the rear driver's seat bottom, pull the rear's drivers seat back forward. Just make it unlatched, don't fold it down.

- Make sure you feed the female end of these cables toward the dash (the male end plugs into the PC in the hatch.

- My run goes from the hatch, under the carpet that runs under the rear seat backs, down the driver's side door sill, up into the dash to the left of the steering wheel, then across to the radio cage below the steering wheel but inside the metal frame. Actually, the 10 foot extension cables run from hatch to the hood release/fuse door area. There's plenty of room there to mate them with the male ends of the USB/VGA->10pin cable from the Lilliput. The Lillput cable then runs to the radio cage.

- The door sill comes loose (I never took it off entirely) pretty easily, while standing outside the car facing the drivers seat, pull up with your fingers on the inside (towards the seat) of the sill. There are about 4 clips along the length. Once the sill is up, you can play with the padding and sound insulation and you'll see a gap near the outer edge (towards the outside of the car). It looks huge to me, I was able to fit a 10ga wire there. Or, a VGA and a USB extension cable side-by-side.

- Once the door sill is up, look at the piece that overlays it to the rear of the car. This piece runs next to the rear driver's seat and houses a speaker. There is a plastic knob (about 1.5" diameter), you can unscrew this and pry up this piece a bit (I didn't actually take it off or get it loose, the wiggle room just made moving carpet and wedging cables a bit easier. There's another knob just like it on this same piece. Kneeling on the rear passenger seat, if you pull the rear driver's seat back foward a bit you should see the top part of that same piece, with another 1.5" knob. Unscrew it. Now, look down at the carpet edge the runs under the rear driver's seat back and ends a few inches into the hatch. With these two screws loose, you should be able to wiggle a cable under that piece towards the door sill. For me, it came out right near bottom sholder belt anchor for the rear driver's seat. At this point the cable end is right at the rear end of the driver's door sill. I pulled thru all the cable I needed (leaving only enough to reach the PC's location) and buttoned everything up (reposistion carpet, screw buttons back on, leave the door sill loose).

- Now, using instructions from vwvortex I took off the fuse door trim, and the trim to the left and right of the steering wheel. I didn't touch the radio cage.

- Stash the cables on the outside edge of the door sill, tons of room! As the cable approached the dash, I ran it directly from the sill up under the trim for the hood release. I didn't need to loosen this trim at all. My 10' cables end here. The 10-pin to VGA/USB that came with the lilliput is more than long enough to reach here from the radio cage in the dash.


- Later, I'll run the stock lilliput VGA/USB cable from the radio cage over to the hood release area. I've tested a run with 10ga cable, and it's sort of feel-as-you go, but I was able to push aside some foam near the bottom left edge (closer to the driver, not the engine) and get into the cavity that runs below the steering wheel. There's an easy gap there to grab cable, then feed it to the left towards the fuse door/hood release.

It's not like I was making amazing-fast progess on the carputer or anything, but I've run into a small snag.

It rained in the San Jose/San Francisco Bay Area yesterday. First rain (thunderstorm!) of the season. Ok, Ok, everyone be careful driving now, don't do anything dumb, watch out for others being dumb. BLAM!

I took my GTI in for scheduled service, and got hit coming home from the mechanic. The other driver ran a red light. I don't mean, "hey it's raining, I couldn't stop in time for the yellow light". I mean "there's a traffic light here?!?!"

Here's the story:
I'm at a red light behind another car. I'm on a small street crossing a big street with a four way stop. My light turned green. The car in front of me entered the intersection and turned left (no oncoming traffic). I then started to cross. I get almost all the way across when my rear end was hit by someone in the farthest possible lane across the intersection (the rightmost lane from her point of view). It's wet, she tagged me at the way rear, so I spin completely around....wheee! Given how much time passed between my green light and me actually getting in front of her (almost made it by about 2 feet) I can only imagine that she didn't see the light at all.

No injuries, both cars driveable. She gets out and says something like: "oh man, oh man, I'm so sorry, you're not going to believe this but my insurance just expired." [looking at my car] "Oh, that's not so bad, it's ok, my boyfriend does bodywork." Grrrr....[that's me]

I explain that I'm going to go thru my insurance and get the work done at the dealer. She's really upset and keeps saying she's sorry, and wondering what'll happen to her. My answer: "I really don't know, it's not my problem. At least you didn't hurt anyone. Do you have a driver's license?" [her, kinda disgusted] "Well of course!"

We'll see. My insurance company is all informed. Waiting to hear from the claims guy today before I take it to the dealer. It's not a ton of damage, but at least the whole rear wraparound bumper piece needs to be replaced, and the rear wheel well.

That sucks! Hope you get it all worked out. You're all lined up to get your install going!

I'm clearly thinking carPC first. I keep wondering if I can turn the body work into an opportunity to make the install somehow easier (can I run a wire easier if the rear is taken apart?). So far, I don't think so.