Dilated

Aye cool, I drive through halifax quite often as my girl lives that way. Will keep an eye out for ya.

Some nasty corrados in the first page of this thread, my god! Looks like half of them have poured super glue on their cars and ram raided carnography or 'ripspeed'.

I have an airline at home fella, it's a good sized compressor too (use it for blowing up me tyres, air tools and the occassional paint spraying. I have a compression test tool for the plugs, so i'll do that today - picking up my new plugs and other parts from VW today also, so while my plugs are out, i'll test it. What pressure should I see returned on the gauge approximately. I know that so long as they are consisitent accross all six cylinders everything will be cool. Although, surely if my plugs are oily on 1 and 6, those cylinders are going to be down on pressure anyway, as oil is obviously leaking out? Might be best to do the seals, and then test the compression afterwards, with my fingers crossed...! So back to this spark plug type tool - where might I pick one up? :)

It took me a while to get the wires sorted and arranged to get the headunit in. Just bought a brand new kenwood mp3 unit, and found out the thing was a lot longer that my old kenwood I had in there. I had to bend the metal bracket back as much as possible behind the head unit in the dash!

This compressed air method sounds like it would be the easier/quicker option. Where might I find this tool to buy, or should I make one? Also what pressure does the air need to be kept at to keep the valves up? If I were to take the head off, do I need to replace the head gasket, bolts etc? I have the week off work you see, so hoping to get it done before the weekend! Cheers ma man

Black Corrado on nice rims (i think 17's) tinted windows, coming down hamm strasse turning left onto manningham lane at about midday. (Bradford)

Yeah i think I know the stuff you are on about - prolly got some in the garage buried away somewhere! I have used some quick dry epoxy resin for the time being, should be hard now - going out for a drive in a bit so will let you know if it leaks or not. I am expecting it to still leak to be honest, because, like kev says its only pissing out under pressure. I'll let you guys know if it works or not! Chris

Okay, thanks for the help - but i'm still a little confused! Which method do you guys recommend I use to replace the valve stem seals then? Whats this compressed air method too? Sorry! I'm a beginner when it comes to the VR6 engine, so have no idea YET - but more than willing to give things a go and learn! I went to VW today and ordered the seals, some new spark plugs, new oil filter and some nice synta silver - so gonna give the car a little service while i'm at it too. ps. sda2489 - it's only done 76k now. I checked the plugs last night and sure enough, as kev said a while ago - 1 and 6 were clogged/oiled up big time.

Yea I know I should go the whole hog, but to be honest - I'd rather bodge it for the time being until I have enough funds to get the whole rack replaced. I have a spare rack I bought off ebay, but I#m not confident enough to change the whole thing over as I understand you have to set up the steering again etc. I was thinking about using a little epoxy resin to block up the TINY crack in the seal for the time being. Might give it a try, see if it holds up for a cou[ple of weeks or so!

Right, i'm under the car at the moment (not right now obviously!) and I have found the leak from my power steering rack. From whaty I can see, it's coming from the centre of the rack, where it looks like there is a join. My question is this - rather than take off the rack and go through all the faff of sorting it out properly with new seals etc, can anyone reccomend any substance that i could basically plug up the little hole with? I was thinking of maybe using a bit of exhaust paste and heating it up, but i'm unsure as to whether the oil will penetrate this straight away or not. Anyone got any other ideas? I think it's on the join, so would be awkward to bind up with some metal or even weld, so some sort of hardening paste would be good. Cheers

I'm going to order/buy the valve stem seals from VW tommorow, as i'm gonna have a bash at doing them myself. Can anyone give me a definative list of all the parts i'll need to buy in order to carry out this work - ie. any gaskets/seals/bolts that should be replaced at the same time? Also, any part numbers would be fantastic too! Thanks all.

£1550 full comp with brentacre. 23 2years no claims Living in Beirut (F* rated insurance area!) I got one quote for £6500! Some places wouldn't insure my postcode, fuckers. Anyway, i'd recommend Brentacre to anyone looking for a new quote:- service was fantastic and the best quote I found.

Sorry to keep this post dragging on, but last question - Can you tell me what GPC is, and if they have a web address? GSF don't have the parts listed on their site (i'll go and ask them tommorow in person though) and Euro Car Parts only have the full racks listed on their site. Cheers fella.

*update* Still waiting for the rack to be sent from the geeza off ebay. Should be here monday i think. Went to the stealers earlier - £65 for the rack seals alone!! scandalous! Anyone know any other suppliers I could try?

Yea, well i'm gonna strip it down anyway and give it a refurb before I put it on the car, so hopefully everything should be cool.

I was hoping someone might have answered this by now - but only because I already put a bid on one on ebay! The auction just ended and I bagged myself a power steering rack from a '94 VR6 "alledgedly" in perfect condition, for £40!! Gonna strip it down and change the seals and get it pristine, then fit it to the car. ROCK ON! Sorry, rather chuffed! thought it was gonna cost me a fortune to get this leaky rack sorted! :)

3 Different racks for the VR?? Do you think i'm gonna be okay buying a rack from a '94 VR6, when I have a '95 VR6? One hopefully going cheap you see, so I was gonna buy it, then i can strip it down and see how it works - replace the seals etc. The guy says it is in good working condition and no leaks, but I want to make sure it'll last!

Is this something I could do myself? Well, silly question that I know - but do I need any specialist tools or anything? I've always worked on/serviced my own cars (all veedubs) but never taken the engine to bits, always cv joints, bearings, done a timing belt before but thats about it. I have the Bentley manual and me pops has pretty much every tool you can imagine and also a lot of engine knowledge, so it should be fine I guess. Is there anything I should take care about, any major do's and don'ts? I think i'd rather have a bash at it myself than shell out a fortune to have it done, unless of course it's gonna be a complete bastard of a job! Cheers Chris

Anyone know whether the power steering rack and pump from a 1990 corrado 1.8 16v are the same as the VR's?

Hmmm, i seem to remember mines slightly steaming from the oil filler cap when the engine was warm. I'll double check tonight. Is it normal for a little bit of steam, and only if there is a lot it indicates bore wear? I went to G&S today to ask get something for my girls little Mark1 Golf, and just asked about my VR burning oil while I was there, and the guy said that VW actually recalled all the VR6 motors back in the early days due to there being a problem with them - the bores would score very early on in life. He said his buddy bought a new one in '93, put 2000 miles on it and then when they were recalled, VW put a new engine in it! He reckoned that not everyone will have taken theirs back, hence a load knocking about nowadays with ropey engines. I'm not sure how true this would be of a '95 engine, considering they knew about the fault, you'd have thought they would have sorted it on on later engines. He did seem to think it was probably going to be the valve stem seals though, just judging by what i told him about the car. Tim, don't take any of my posts as a dig at you in any way. Obviously it sucks ass that i'm having problems so early on in my ownership of the car, but I acknowledge the fact you're not much of a mechanic and seemed a nice honest chap - so it's cool. Looks like i'm diving straight into the deep (wallet) end of corrado ownership! I still have use of my little Cab and have some time off work soon, so i'm thinking of whipping the head off and having a look/go at doing some of the work myself. (Clutching my brothers Bentley manual of course!)

Cheers guys. I'll take a look at the plugs tonight when I get in. The engine has only done 75k too! :( Whats involved in getting it sorted if it turns out to be bore wear? And would my poor fuel consumption and excessive oil burning be attributed to this? By poor fuel consumption I mean around 24-26 steady motorway driving (wouldn't consider this POOR, but not as good as my bro's!), whereas my brothers VR can quite easily jump up to 30-32 at the same speed on the motorway.

23, 24 in April. 17 drove me bros Polo, 18 had a old '74 Beetle and think 19/20 I had an '85 Mark1 Golf Cabriolet, bought my Corrado a few weeks ago! (March 8th I think!) All veedubs 8)

I swear to god my car is burning as much oil as the kuwait oil fields in the last gulf war. I have heard something along the lines of 1 litre per 1000miles is kinda normal for a VR (if I remember correctly). As I have only just bought my beast recently, I have been checking the oil frequently just to try and gauge how much the thing actually uses (was told around a litre to a 1000 miles by the last owner), but I topped the thing up on saturday night before a run down to walsall (260 mile round trip). Did 130 miles there on the night, and 130 miles home the next day. Ran the car to work tuesday/wednesday (couple of miles) - checked the oil tonight and the bloody dip stick was dry after cleaning and plunging it again!!! Took approx 2.5 - 3 litres at a guess... I wasn't really caning in on the motorway, the occassional blat up a slip road, but mostly a steady 80-85 on both journey's. The car smokes on cold start up, looks white/grey but is nice and clear when warm. I do notice it pump out some smoke if i boot it (mostly on gear change I think) Could'nt tell you what colour the smoke is though. My pops seems to think a possibly explanation would be the hydraulic tappets (the seals) and that we could whip the head of and sort them ourselves (got the bentley manual) But I thought I would ask on the forum first for any ideas! Don't seem to have an oil leak under the car, only bloody power steering fluid! (as far as i can tell!) Thanks in advance (a rather worried) Chris

yea, completely boggo standard at the mo. Bought it from TimVR (from this very forum!) Getting a clifford concept 500 fitted at the end of the week, then next up getting it lowered a bit, and then some different rims! (when funds allow!) =]

Took a few snaps at my buddy's house before it got really dark tonight, pics are still a little dark though. 8) pics thumbnailed-vr6storm