Jetta fun, part 2

Ok, I ordered that fuel pump and it came in. On Tuesday night, I took the car apart, thinking it should take maybe 30 minutes.

Oh, how wrong I was.

I remember the last time I went under the hood a few weeks ago, I had a hard time taking off the engine cover. Funny enough, you just pull it, it has a couple grommets under it, and it pops off. No mattter what I did, I could not get the left side to disengage. I uncoupled the cable and hose in back corner, but that MF would not come loose. I tried to stuff my arm under from the right side, I tried using a screwdriver to pry, I tried using a wrench to loosen up the male part of the grommet system, no dice.

Finally, I checked YT again and some dude said to simply grab it and pull. Keep in mind, this is like 40 minutes later. I was so aggravated. So I grabbed it and pulled. It felt like I used all my might and, finally, pop, off it came. So dumb.

I then removed some little hose above the fuel pump, bled the fuel from the pump, removed the plugs, and then tried to remove the last hose from the pump itself. And, of course, I couldn't remove it. There was a clip clamp holding the hose to the nipple and I could not get leverage or space to undo it. After trying for a bit more, I finally called it. After all that, the whole garage and house smelled like gasoline. We went to bed smelling it.

I threw in the towel after this.

The next day at work, after talking to Austin's dad, Mike, who has worked on cars for years, he recommended a hose clamp tool, which I ordered on Amazon. In the meantime, I kept driving the Jetta and it seems like it's getting worse.

Anyway, that tool arrived yesterday and I got to work last night. I popped off the engine cover in 2 minutes. I removed the little hose. I tried to unscrew the nut on one of the tubes... and then a hose in front broke and coolant started spraying everywhere. I tried to catch it with my oil catcher and a bunch of paper towels. I ended up breaking a tiny plastic nipple that went into a hose.

Needless to say, I was done after this.

I found the replacement part on Amazon for about $8 or so and was supposed to get it today, but it won't show up until tomorrow. And that's if I can undo the bolts on the pump; one of them stripped when I put it back on the other day. But I did order 3 more and those should arrive early next week. Marci is off next week, so I can take the AT to work if I need to.

This is a major pain in the ass and I think the FP won't fix it, and if not, I will call a shop. But for now, a couple more things to try.