davidwort

get a small (3-5mm) bit and slowly drill one side of it, careful not to overheat the bit, when you've drilled into it most of the way through split the nut open with a chisel.

they get ****ing hot and are intended for paint stripping :lol: seriously, I'd use a hair dryer, tescos probably do one for about 3 quid these days :)

One of the big problems with rust removal and patching up is that steel seems to absorb moisture, so if you simply sand back and immediately re-paint the rust forms again under the paint, cracks the paint and lets more moisture in. I've found the best way is to de-rust in the summer, try to strip the area in the sunshine and leave it in the sun for a while, or even heat gently with a hair dryer and then treat and re-paint. This isn't going to last forever as primer bonding and top coat cracking can still be a problem when doing pateches over a few mm in size, but it seems to work as well as anything. The longest lasting repair I made on a rear arch I scraped, and then stupidly allowed rust to form on, was actually painting smooth-rite straight onto the metal, leaving for weeks to cure and then spraying a matched top-coat can over the top, but matching a small patch in colour is very hit and miss and metallics will never look right, at least solids can be cut right back.

How much room for adjustment is there? I'd have thought that as long as you get them roughly where they were before (your marks on the body from the old ones) then it'll be OK. Once you've got everything rebuilt on the suspension side then a 4 wheel alignment should sort it out OK, although admittedly all they can do on the Corrado is align the front with the rear wheels. Quite how you can accurately measure the position is quite a difficult one, it's only really 4 wheel alignment kit that will tell you if the beam is way off perpendicular to the body and the car crabs down the road, I suppose twin laser levels placed flat across the wheel face on either side could be used to work out if the axle is perpendicular to the body, not sure what you'd use as a reference point on the body though.

does it not allow for alignment with the rear wheels though? thinking about it, the camber setting from the strut/hub can't affect the track, and the tie rods only affect toe, so in theory, the small amount of movement on each ball joint allows you to align each front wheel with the back on that side of the car. No?

sounds fair to me, it's not a 5 minute job.

if the fluid is belting through and swirling about in the reservoir when the steering is not turning, then the pressure relief valve in the pump is stuck, they can be encouraged to work again by removing, cleaning and changing the fluid, the trouble is it will probably happen again and the pressure in the hose that leads directly to the rack will eventually cause leaks in the system, usually where the flexi-hose is crimped to the metal pipes. It's messy, but worth a go cleaning it before resorting to a new pump (about 140 quid exchange I think)

yep, measure the current on a meter and pull fuses until one causes a major drop, you shouldn't have more than about 0.01 Amp with everything switched off, any more than that and something is up. it's worth making sure that the boot light isn't staying on, although a healthy battery should cope with that for a day or two.

so I guess what I did is all you can do, make sure both sides measure the same and roughly in the centre of the fixing or about where the old ones were in the old wishbones, you'll soon find out when it's all back together and you can't get any negative camber at all :scratch: I think if you look at the layout of the suspension and geometry, that they will have far less of an effect on camber than the strut bolts.

He should have checked to see if the movement of the valves was within tolerance, it's worth doing if you already have the head off, otherwise any new stem seals won't last five minutes and it'll use oil again, although it's usually inlet guides that let the oil in as the flow is into the comb chamber rather than out like the exhaust. When my head was flowed (at approx 100,000 miles) the exhaust guides were replaced, so I guess they may wear quicker?

good question, I wondered this when doing my 16v ball joints, I believe the VW factory manual says they should not be used in an attempt to adjust camber, but I don't know if they provide precise measurements for fitting though, perhaps someone with the Bentley can look it up. I just made sure both side were approx the same (and approx where the old ones were fitted) and then set the camber and did the alignment on the car, it all set up fine and it feels perfectly balanced and I've had no uneven tyre wear :shrug:

the guides do indeed need to be pressed out to remove them, but I've never heard of having to remove them to replace the stem seals, we've done a mk2 8v (same basic head design) by simply putting an air line into the head to hold the valves up and replacing the stem seals with the head still on.

the starter motor bolts go through to fix the front mount bracket in place, it's not a particularly difficult job but can be a little fiddly to get the bolts to bite back into the bracket. if the starter needed to be hit it's probably just the solenoid and you can swap that without removing the motor, if you buy a motor from VW chances are it will be recon anyway, I saw one on a passat the other day which had a VW exchange part number sticker on the motor so a GSF bosch one would be much the same I guess.

Providing the kit a garage has will fit over your wheels with the wheel size and lowering you have then they should be able to check everything, toe in/out, camber and alignment with the back axle. Camber is sort of personal preference anyway and providing you can get at least a small amount of negative (IRO 0.5 degrees) on your lowered setup that should be fine. If you have play in the steering then the obvious things like ball joints, track rod ends, wishbone bushes and steering column bearings/joints can be checked fairly easily, that's just basic MOT stuff really anyway although the MOT will probably allow you far more play than you want ideally to keep the Corrado sharp and responsive.

Sorry, but a lot of manufacturer's MPG claims are complete BS. My missus bog standard 1.8T Polo uses more fuel than VW claim. My mate's daily driven MK5 Edition 30, averages 30mpg. That is only 230hp. The same engine with a bigger turbo being fitted to the MK6, and dragging 300kg more weight, will struggle to average 25mpg I predict, which is 1mpg worse than the R32's average. All I know is the EU tests get the 2L turbos into a fairly reasonable tax band and Jim certainly got good mpg on the Scirocco over 1000 miles through Germany. Unfortunately it's not about real world, but the EU tests, and the manufacturers can easily slip them a 'suitably mapped' turbo I bet!

Don't get me wrong, I love the sound of the VR6 or V6 24V, but the Audi TT did pretty well (sales-wise) for most of it's life with only the dull 1.8T engines, the 3.2 was only added to the line up to help prop up sales of the mk1 TT before the mk2 was launched. The fact that most of these cars are bought as fleet vehicles anyway means that tax bands and emissions are more and more important and that most buyers select the cars on looks, image, options and price, unfortunately not on engine note, in fact I'd bet a fair few are bought without the new owner ever having driven or heard the engine at all. The 2L FSI turbo engines seem to achieve pretty good EU fuel consumption figures too, hard to match with a NA 6 I'd have thought.

excellent! and from the days when mercedes knew how to screw cars together, my uncle had one of those and he majorly regretted trying a beemer touring after it, went back to merc straight away. How's the manual box?

sounds like something is majorly bent, the CV joint should just tap off the end of the shaft with a knock from behind when held straight, it's only a spring clip holding it in place.

i've picked up several passat ones for a tenner or so each, in fact it's not usually the starter itself that is the problem but a weak solenoid, especially when hot as the magnet is weaker. it must be a car with the cable change box, so passat or mk3 GTI etc. some motors are beefier than others, e.g. ones from diesel engines but most will work fine on the 1.8 16v. I've a passat 2.0 petrol one on at the moment and that is fine, you may need to alter the plug on the wiring from the loom to the solenoid on the 1.8 if you get a starter from a post 1992 car, for some reason they changed the connector then.

I think it should be the 'Guide ring' part no. 027 115 033 at the pulley end of the shaft

sorry, by heat exchanger. I meant the oil/water cooler, the alloy unit on top of the oil filter, renowned for corroding inside and giving head-gasket type symptoms, but generally the oil/water mix issues.

have you checked the heat exchanger/oil cooler? it does sound like gasket failure though :( a cylinder to water channel I guess.

That's a good reference, both seem to be bang on manufacturers figures, you can see why the 1.8T is regarded as dull, high torque to start with that just gradually tails off, so the power curve doesn't rise nicely like the VR and you don't get that feeling that the car is picking up and taking off :D

:lol: power plots should have a fill-in scale on the y-axis (insert your own scale here) would be good to see a standard octavia VRS plotted against the VR6 power curve from the same day though.

where the bottom radiator hose attaches to the water pump, hidden by power steering bracket a bit