Ongoing Project Car Started 2024.
The first project I (Daniel) did with the TT was attempting to fit the Blaupunkt single din radio I’d bought for the 16V project (which contributed to the recouperation of the losses incurred as a result of the Golf fiasco). I did research before and I expected that it would be a straight swap, as the standard wiring for the TT is compatible with Blaupunkt (as they are made for VWs and other German Cars of the time (for those that don’t know, Audi is part of the Volkswagen Group so their parts are usually the same or similar)). However when I took the Sony radio that had been fitted to the car I found a mess of horribly done crimped wiring behind it. This baffled me because it appeared the wiring connector had been fully de-pinned and re-pinned into the Sony connector. After further examination this was false, the standard wiring had just been shoved far behind. Once I pulled it through I decoupled the adapter and tried to see if this would fit my radio, but it turned out it wasn’t simply an adapter. The wiring did include an adapter, but also a new 12V constant had been spliced from another and sent straight to the adapter and the ground was also a post-factory addition of unknown quality. The original 12V constant for the factory dual ISO had been removed (or was lost to the aether) and there were other missing wires in the mess behind the dash. I took the executive decision to find the original TT wiring diagrams along with Blaupunkts in order to do a proper wiring job of this new radio. I thought the best course of action would be to buy an ISO connector and some ISO pins so I could add the 12V constant and ground into the original ISO for seamless functionality. After trying with my de-pinning tools for an eternity I realised that the connector or pins were completely seized and it would be impossible to de-pin the ISO. I unleashed my soldering iron and heat shrink and got to work. I found the correct wires and soldered the corresponding wires to the ISO connector, making sure there was a strong connection that was protected by heat shrink. After a lot of work, as a relatively beginner at wiring and soldering I managed to make a smooth connection to the radio (after only blowing one fuse). But the radio wasn’t working as intended, it was only working in ‘One Hour On’ mode, and wasn’t turning on and off with the ignition as intended. Which basically means the radio was only getting 12V accessory (ignition) power. This is a pretty common quirk with Blaupunkt radios, and the fix is to switch the 12V constant and 12V accessory (ignition). However, in all my de-pinning, re-pinning and soldering I’d managed to mangle those respective pins to the point they wouldn’t come out. This meant getting the soldering iron back out and soldering a few more joins. Anyway, after all that trial and tribulation I got the radio working as intended and all was good in the world. The radio is yet to fail and it has been a few months (a sign of flawless professional grade work), all is well that ends well. Adios and Gracias.
The second port of call was to check for any codes. I didn’t know at the time, but the dashboard shows if there are any error codes when you turn on the car, so even if anyone had removed a bulb the car would still display the error (a big ‘OK’ pops up in the middle screen between the tachometer and speedo when there are no errors). Anyway, I bought a cheap OBD2 scanner cable for VWs from Ebay. I downloaded the VCDS lite software on my Laptop and took it to the car. I stuck the OBD2 in the car and laptop and did a quick scan, nothing came up which I was glad of (since I didn’t know the car would tell me otherwise of its own accord). I also had the motive of fixing the fuel gauge needle that didn’t read accurately, I’d ruled out an issue with the fuel sender or any fuel level sensors with the scan. The behaviour of the gauge didn’t meet this issue anyway, because the estimated miles to 0 reading was always dead accurate. Anyway with the VCDS lite software nothing can be done, and with further research I found out that its actually a mechanical/electronical issue with the gauge itself and the firmware in it. I believe the truth of the matter is that the unit itself stores an offset value, so the fuel gauge isn’t always flickering and twitching about (which is used as well for other gauges, specifically water temperature). The offset value is in part determined by a stopper used when the fuel gauge is full and when empty, over time contacting the stopper creates more and more offset in the firmware. This means after years of emptying and filling the tank, the fuel gauge will no longer read accurately, reading above full, or about half when the tank is empty. I believe this issue can only be resolved via a cluster rebuild; so I’ll have to have that done at some point.
That’s it for now, I’ll add to this blog as I do more bits and pieces.
Wiggles Customs 
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