VW Rabbit "wisdom of experiance" lesson

[Paul G <neong@gte.net>]

I know that there are many VW Rabbit conversion owners on this list. I know
that the Robert Bently manual is generally the "god" of how to work for
many (and generally its good). I would like to point out an error, to avoid
an hour of trouble and a new unneeded part.

Basicly, the manual says that to remove the dash you take off the lower
knee bars and the gauge face panel. The you remove the gauges and
disconnect the speedo cable and wire bundle and pull it free (I got into
this because I wanted to remove the dash cover for a real paint job).
Anyway, thats not quite the story. You need to remove the speedo cable from
the tranny first!! If you do not do so the cluster will only pull about 1/2
inch toward you without damage, and about 1 inch by damaging the speedo
cable. Now I will be buying a new speedo cable to finish. I knew something
was in the way, so I gripped all my fingers around the cluster and pulled
extra hard so I could see some effect (but not so hard as to damage the
cluster). I found the effect, the speedo cable needs to be removed from the
tranny first (unlike indcated in the Robert Bently manual). But it was too
late for my speedo cable, my pulling and seeing what moved kinked it at the
speedo head a bit (and to re-use it would mean click, click, click when
moving).

Just a heads up on this common conversion!

Neon - VW Pickup EV in progress