davidwort

I'm not sure but the braided mk2 lines may now be obsolete from VW, in any case it's probably cheaper to get them made up by a fuel/hydraulics line specialist, not used any myself, trawl the yellow pages or seach some of the other car forums I guess.

you could fit braided (mk2 style) hoses rather than the rigid metal lines, but be careful where you route them, they're mounted away from the engine a bit and in the flow from the radiator fan to prevent fuel vapourising in them when the car is still or switched off on hot days, there is a temp switch for the fan mounted near them on the cam cover for this reason.

same bolts, same torque.

I think that's generally come about from the limited range of oils that VW, GSF etc stock on the shelf, 10/40 Quantum Semi being the old favourite, the equivalent VW fully synthetic being very expensive in comparison. Providing you don't go for an oil specified for very new high tolerance engines and totally out of spec for the VR/16v etc you will be fine, VW tappets tend to let you know straight away if you've put something too light in there! There's many an old GTI that has been run on Mobil 1 for instance with no ill effects.

absolutely, and probably adjust a bit depending on winter/summer, I tend to up them a bit if I know I'm going to do more M-way driving too.

absolutely, and I needed that to help me recover from the tension of watching that last lap, I was busy under my car for most of the day but watched the first few minutes and last few minutes of the race :clap:

Was looking at very similar cars to these a year or two ago, it really depends on your particular requirements. The BMW has appauling rear load space as the boot floor is too high because of the RWD, but it's definitely a better drivers car. The Audi S line cars had a bad reputation for hard suspension and they never had a great rep for driving pleasure anyway. The BMW engine is a development of the older lower powered unit and although chain cammed is possibly a little too stressed for long term reliablity, whereas the VW unit, although not the most refined, is a newer engine in pretty much it's least stressed version. The rear passenger space in the BMW seemed good to me, the A4 is shockingly bad, not much better than my MK4 golf. I've seen a fair few BMW tourings with rusty tailgates, body corrosion should never be an issue on A4's.

Right, after new ball joints, bushes, steering column, track rods etc etc, the last thing I've been meaning to look at is the front bearings. These have been on since it left the factory in 1990 and have covered 160K miles in 18 years! After the trip to the ring this autumn it became clear a bit of noise was developing so after ordering a couple of new VAG bearings today I whipped off the front hubs: climatronic wiring-Golf from May 01.pdfhubs.jpg[/attachment:25t7rxam] both of them roar like a goodun and one has feel-able play hardly surprising given the age, I'm just surprised they didn't make more noise when driving! The outer CV boots have been advises on the past 3 MOT's :) Thought I might as well do these with the hubs off, but they're amazingly still serviceable, just perishing between each fold 2.8l 24v Climatronic system.pdfboot.jpg[/attachment:25t7rxam] Taken the off-side cv joint apart and it's in pretty good nick, no grooves worn by the bearings, just a bit polished, feels perfectly smooth, below is the inner part of the cv, you can just see the polished wear mark from the ball bearings, will thoroughly clean and re-pack with cv grease- yuck. cv-inner.jpg[/attachment:25t7rxam]

that's the odd thing, I'd expect to see SKF or GKN, but these have something else on the side of them, will get a pic when I fit them on the hubs.

well the bearings came today from VAG, 20 quid each but made in France? Some 3 letter mark on them ATN or something, can't remember, left them at the workshops until I get the hubs off to press them in. The CV boot is a pattern one and came with grease but not a hub nut, but the bearings did. I guess it's about time I replaced the suspension bolts as they've been on and off a fair few times. No ABS to worry about and yes, I may have too request the assistance of Mrs W. more than the usual cups of coffee :) I've done the entire track rods and lower BJ's recently, so no need to do them, in fact bar the actual rack the bearings are the last original part I can think of is still on the car!

nice wheels, especially if you've got someone else to keep them clean for you :)

cheers mate, just being lazy this morning :) I don't know how I've missed reading your build thread, great to see all that work and progress, real deja-vous for me a lot of that :) something to do later on, can't spend all day at work reading it! Most get one of those POR starter kits too.

mmm, I think/hope these come with new CV boots which I'm going to do too.

OK, this weekend I plan to replace both front bearings on my valver with VW ones and fit 2 new out CV boots, any tips, suggestions or advice? So far I've got on my list: a long breaker bar for the hub nuts bearings x2 plenty of CV grease for re-packing CV's 2x CV boots (the original 18yr old ones are still in one piece but starting to perish) most of the parts have been apart relatively recently, so I'm not expecting and nasty siezed bits.

bonnet and tailgate are effin heavy, as are the doors, no problem though, all those unbolt.

The problem is most mk2 16v's get quoted as the early car spec, small bumpers, no fogs, no central locking, no electric windows, smaller battery, 3 door and the lower soundproofing of the early cars. Take a late mk2 16v on big bumpers with the above options probably 15" rather than 14" wheels and the 950-1000kg often quoted for the golf is going to be approaching 1050kg. A basic early 16v Corrado is only going to be just over 1100kg. My mother in law used to work at a steel distributor with their own weigh-bridge, shame I never got mine measured on there, it would be good to find out, might get her to ask them if I can do it. I have a 1.6 mk4 4 door golf and sometimes push both cars on my drive a little way to get in the garage etc, it's on a very slight slope upwards and the golf is far heavier than the corrado to push, stats from VW seem to state the mk4 1.6 is only about 50kg more than the Corrado 16v, I beg to differ!

Looking at the two (golf mk2 16v and 1.8 16v Corrado), there's not much difference at the front other than the weighty Corrado bonnet and the cable change gearbox, when you get onto the later cars you've got ABS, heavier alternators, fan relay packs and a few other minor bits and bobs. According to the VW tech specs in the published brochures the late 2.0 16v was about 25kg heavier than the 1.8 16v Corrado (CAT, ABS, bigger fuel tank and a bunch of other minor differences) A golf mk2 16v varies in weight considerably, depending on whether it's 2 or 4 door, has sunroof and electric windows etc. similarly specced Golf and Corrado 16v 1.8's probably only have around 50KG difference in weight, if that. I wouldn't mind a Corrado shell without a sunroof for a start!

well it's simply listed as a balance weight on ETKA, and was only introduced when the Passat came out in 1988, the only golf mk2 to get one was the G60 which shares almost all it's bits with the Corrado, including gearbox and subframe. Even the mk2 16v never got the balance weight so I can't see it's that essential. These sort of refinements pop up all over the place, I've seen a MK3 golf at stealth with Focus rear vibration damping widgets on the rear calipers and other manufacturers add seemingly random chunks of metal to stop resonance on all sorts of parts. I guess it's one of those things that's very hard to dentify in the design and testing stages in production and often only gets added as an update in chassis production lives. I've had no vibration damper on my offside driveshaft for years and I've never had any problems with that, even doing well over 130 on the autobahn this summer.

yeah, there were several done, Zender, Karmann, and at least one other, the Karmann one at least looks good with the hood up and down, each was only a separate design study though, I think they were considered to step on the toes of other VW/Audi models so VW never went for them.

depends if you drive in the ruts lorries leave or not :)

yeah, been wondering about this myself, apparently the cable change box mechanism was supposed to do something similar (transfer less noise to the cabin), but to me there seems little point when the 16v engine in particular is hardly refined, I'd rather put a couple of kilo's of soundproofing in instead! I've already lost a kilo or two this week by moving to a fixed steering column, so another couple is more good news :)

mine came from Venom

think you'll find the clocks have a different multi connector, and the early ones are cable driven speedos. The early clocks only have a single indicator light, rather than the late left and right turn arrows, so I'm not sure the wiring loom is even the same, I did read once someone having converted early to late though so it can be done.

blue is just a later part, slightly different value, but does the same job, the two switches are actually both low oil pressure warning switches, one is for low pressure at idle, the other at about 2000rpm, if it beeps on the dash as soon as you start the car it's the lowest value one bust (blue/brown), if it only beeps as the revs rise when you drive away it's the other one!

for a while today anyway, my market value http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/05bbd234-a4d2 ... ck_check=1