davidwort

Well mine's just racked up it's 21st MOT pass and no advisories, very pleased but the list of jobs continues as ever, sunroof panel lining material, blower fan on last legs, passenger door motor and it's looking like matrix time I think, then I really need to paint at least the drivers door and have a new Wing to go on, hopefully most can wait till I take it off the road for the winter.

No, the power steering pump has a different hub offset and I'm sure the crank pulley for the steering is different too, you need all the late 16v bits, I've seen new 1.8 slip pulleys on eBay though IRO £50 I think

Yeah, did my polythene tent job in the garage again Jim, it's required a lot of tcut and fine wet and dry to get a really good flat finish I wanted, a big advantage of a solid colour is you can do that, and you could do a reasonable job with rattle cans, metallics are another thing though, the metallic is much more sensitive to mixing, thinner, delivery from the gun and humidity, you need a good finish from the gun and then ideally a clear coat on top. So I'd imagine pretty hard to get a good metallic finish from rattle cans.

and rare to see one un-molested, they're usually scraping their sills along the ground :) rear hatch handle is no biggy all mk4's have the same handle and seem to go the same way too, paint doesn't seem to bond to the alloy or the alloy corrodes underneath

well, after many weeks of faffing about I've finally prepped and painted the bumper, spent an age cutting it where my spray technique was less than perfect and painted the bumper iron and brackets to help that last a few more years, also treated it to some stainless iron-to-bracket M8 bolts/washers and some new high tensile VAG bumper/front cross-member mounting bolts

you make it sound like a mild cold or something!

now that really is a full strip down! I hope you've labelled everything well :)

yep, and I've moved it...

from what I recall the Corrado VR6 rack is different to the mk3 VR rack, I have a mk3 VR rack and it's definitely of the type fitted to 4 cylinder corrados, but with the longer track rods, the Corrado VR rack is a cast alloy body, the others are pressed steel, it may be that they are interchangeable because a long way back one of the forum members fitted a new seat Ibiza cupra rack to his VR which had the same part number as the 2.016v corrado

nothing special needed, but get the material braided hose if you can, it just protects the rubber from heat a bit, you can buy metres of the stuff from VW, motor factors or ebay etc. like this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VW-3-5mm-Vacuum-Hose-Suitable-Beetle-Camper-Golf-T25-T4-Etc-/171312723424?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item27e308b5e0

You just remove the motor/light surround and the visor hinge pushes over the leading edge of the trim, sort of S shaped, I'm sure the old centre visor does git the late cover

Don't see why, it just clips to the front of the motor cover trim and early and late are the same shape, only the motor and light switch change from early to late

Nope

iirc it's only the valve gear itself which is different on the ABF, collets, springs, guides etc, head, cams belt, most is basically identical

The 'correct' way is to hold the rack in a vice with it off the car, however most garages will just use a quick track rod removal tool that goes over the rod and takes 5 minutes to do the job, I've used these several times with no issue and yes the rod just unscrews but can be tight due to threadlock

Don't think so as the cams are definitely interchangeable

You won't hear the pump buzz if you are in the car unless it is old and noisy when it is running, sounds like you have a problem on the ecu/ignition side Do you have a recent ignition switch and fuel pump relay? do you know if the starter/solenoid are good?

if you can get it properly scanned on VCDS/vagcom then do, this sounds more to me like a temperature sender or even a crank/cam sensor type issue, but the general rule of change the cheapest stuff first also applies, I'd be looking at a new fuel pump relay and water temp sensors before spending on anything else, or even pulling the injectors and getting the spray patterns checked, the VR type pump generally makes very nasty noises well before it drops performance.

wow, that is an old one, anyway you could just try a couple of 17mm nuts locked together on a 17mm bolt as you won't get a lot of use out of the 17mm hex tool :)

chemical curing, 2 parts, one being the hardener, once it's gone off it's impervious to petrol, thinners etc etc...

did you check the thermal fuse on the resistor on the side of the motor - see the how-to-guide to check the motor itself, simply remove it and short it straight to a 12V battery to see if it spins, hold on tight though :)

I hope it's not 2 pack lacquer, I can't see anything removing that!

Was thinking about this yesterday, most new cars seem to be really built down to a price these days and some of the plastics and trim quality is awful, it seems like as long as the steering wheel, gearknob and instruments look nice the rest is a pile of cr@p. VW made big strides with the mk4 golf (in many places) and I'm fairly familiar with older audis, seats and skodas but I've not got a lot of experience of other manufacturers. I recently bought a Nissan Qashqai and TBH the build quality is pretty dire, to me it smacks of re-badged Renault even though the body and fittings are Nissan specific, ironically the best bit is the little Renault diesel engine. But engines and running gear aside, what does everyone else rate? A friend used to have a '98 BMW 5 series, that felt very good inside and the latest audis seem pretty good but my dads recently bought 2010 A6 is a bit patchy IMO which makes me wonder how bad other manufacturers (in most cases cheaper) models are.

string a couple of swimming 'noodles' down either side, that should do the trick, there are magnetic door covers you can get that look pretty good, not sure how secure they are though, how about these: http://www.doorshox.com/ http://www.doordefender.eu/en/home/ or how about some magnetic rubber strip along the door crease £1.33 per metre! would just look like a trim line but removable for shows etc? perhaps you can get it thicker or wider than this?? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1m-3-Feet-Long-Rubber-Self-Adhesive-Flexible-Magnetic-Tape-Craft-Magnet-Strip-/400397184202?pt=UK_Crafts_Other_Crafts_EH&hash=item5d39882cca

I wonder if it would be possible to use a heat gun, sounds stupid granted, but if you kept the back of the bumper cool/wet you might be able to blister the paint before affecting the plastic? It's the colour coats you want to remove anyway and I've found heat guns sometimes lift top coats quickly but it takes more heat to lift matt primer underneath? I have a pretty scruffy slightly bent at the edges front bumper cover I might experiment with different techniques on.