[MaryJaneDoe]

I purchased a manual 1.8t that has sat for a year after my automatic 2000 1.8t was totaled in an accident. I'm finding issues all over and I am concerned mostly about the thing sitting on top of the engine. I don't know what it is or it's function. The bolts that once held it on are missing and it is litterally just sitting on the engine. I did not notice this when I drove it the hour and a half home with a coolant blockage and an electrical problem. Can anyone tell me what this is, image attached. Assistance is much appreciated. Billy helped me a ton with my automatic and I'm beat having to start over, but am excited about the change up to manual transmission. If I didn't mess it all up driving it with this thing not hunkered down on top. Also I has suspicion the pcm or ecm is wonky due to water damage causing all sorts of strange electrical issues. I'm wondering if I can take the ecm out of the automatic (same year) and plug it into the manual without causing issue. I have seen that it would need reprogrammed to the new Vin but also have been told the swap would cause no issue. I want to use as much of the totaled bug as I can to fix the manual I just got. Saddly the missing screws from this thing in my manual will not come out of the automatic without stripping due to how tight they were put on. Stuck on what I can do to hunker this "thing" on the engine back down properly. I only just noticed it while attempting to clear the small return coolant line of debris that I believe may be causing a blo Kaye in coolant making the coolant boil out of the expansion tank. I think I can fix the blockage. Coolant I understand. But this thing on top not being set while I drove it home has me worried.

 

[MaryJaneDoe]

After some extra effort I was able to get the screws off my old bug and I did hunker down what I found out are coil packs and a vacume. Hopefully driving it without them sealed didn't ruin anything. Also after more research my ecm is likely not damaged by water as it is located under my dash safe and sound. So I got to looking at ground being the electrical issue caused. And sure enough my negative battery cable is a sad looking excuse for a ground. I'm willing to be it's the culperate. I'm assuming I strip it down to good wire and re attach it to the battery terminal clamp proper to fix it. I'll do more research on how to fix this.

 

[MaryJaneDoe]

Also I'd just like to say if you are experiencing any electrical problems I have had lunch resetting the car computer by touching the positive and negative battery cables together for 15 seconds to reset wonky electrical. A improper jump start had my old bug popping the trunk when I turned on my blinker but a quick reboot of the computer solved all the electrical issues the bad jump start caused. Handy trick when your car won't start due to wonky electrical problems.

 

[esse10]

After some extra effort I was able to get the screws off my old bug and I did hunker down what I found out are coil packs and a vacume. Hopefully driving it without them sealed didn't ruin anything. Also after more research my ecm is likely not damaged by water as it is located under my dash safe and sound. So I got to looking at ground being the electrical issue caused. And sure enough my negative battery cable is a sad looking excuse for a ground. I'm willing to be it's the culperate. I'm assuming I strip it down to good wire and re attach it to the battery terminal clamp proper to fix it. I'll do more research on how to fix this.

You might still have ground issues, fallow the battery Negative cable under the battery tray where it connects to the car's chassis that's where folks have grounding issues and don't know cause it's not viewable from above. Go read a posting i created here several years back titled " CAUTION " About this issue with pictures and all. good luck .

 

[MaryJaneDoe]

You might still have ground issues, fallow the battery Negative cable under the battery tray where it connects to the car's chassis that's where folks have grounding issues and don't know cause it's not viewable from above. Go read a posting i created here several years back titled " CAUTION " About this issue with pictures and all. good luck .

Thank you. I do suspect other grounding issues. There appears to be a ground running to the fuse box on top of the battery that also has corrosion to address. I will also pull that battery tray and get to the bottom of this main ground that I repaired the terminal connection to as you suggest. I got super lucky with this purchase and I'm going take good care of Bob. When I purchased this car it had a coolant blockage yall helped me solve with no effort. When I popped the drain on the radiator I was horrified to find ugly green yellow fluid and was so worried the wrong coolant had killed this bug. I flushed it out with water and put correct coolant in it... but that was before I found the blockage... do you think I should run a coolant cleaner threw it incase there is still that horrific yellow stuff that got trapped in it? I'm worried now that if the yellow and pink mix I will be worse off than before.