davidwort

that's the maximum reading I guess, something is shorted out me thinks.

the wire is just a copper earth strap, about 1cm wide, usually black plastic coated the ignition coil is mounted at the back of the engine bay, to the left of the water tank (coolant expansion tank) the ignition coil is a cylinder about 15cm long, 6 cm diameter and provides the spark to the distributor, follow the centre lead from the distributor to the back of the engine bay and you'll find the coil :)

no, it goes to the bulkhead (bolted up near the ignition coil)

:)

it's a small sender just around the back of the head on the RHS of the engine, usually has a flat round connection point that a female connector slides onto sideways. Not to be confused with the water temp ones which are on the end of the head around the water outlet.

looking at the engine from the front, you should have an earth strap from the right rear cam cover bolt, which connects to the bulkhead. These straps flex as the engine rocks so eventually fray and break, or sometimes they just get left off when a cam cover seal is changed.

looks like the idle throttle position switch, so your idle circuit/control won't be in operation, which figures given what you say about the idle. The connector/wiring should be dangling down there somewhere.

Which engine? this will happen on a 16v for instance if the cam cover earth is loose.

so now you've made the correct choice, find a 2L bottom end for the 1.8, best of both worlds, you've got the simpler fuel system, no cat to strangle it and your emissions can be further out :) It's also lighter than the 2L, the fuel tank is smaller so the boot is bigger, your heater controls can be used without fear of breaking, there's a nice armrest in the back seat and who needs ABS anyway... oh, and the later style dash in the 2L reminds me of a Skoda Felicia rather than a proper VW :lol:

yeah, but, the fan switch is 95 degrees for speed 2 and is sat at the bottom (coldest part) of the radiator, so I'd imagine the water temp gauge on a 16v will generally be reading higher than the temp at the fan switch as the sender is right by the water outlet at the top of the head, which must be about the hottest place. Up to 100 when coming to a halt or in slow traffic is probably about the most you'd want to see it rise by though, 110 would suggest it's well over 10 degrees hotter than the oulet water from the radiator should reach with the second speed of the fan coming on. The 16v heads also generate more heat than the 8v ones.

not really, but an opening one would :) seriously though, you do need to check the basics, is the water flowing through the stat/rad as expected, i.e. once the water temp gets to about 90 on the gauge the stat should open and the water flow out of the bottom rad hose. fan should come on stage one at around 100 deg on the dash gauge and speed 2 if it reaches about 105, the temp ratings on the actual radiator mounted sensor are lower than these figures but then the sensor is mounted in a 'cold' outflow position on the radiator.

Jim, the coolant temp sender for the gauge is deliberately at the hottest location, right where the coolant exits the head, so you know how hot the top of the engine/valvegear is. The fan switch is at the bottom of the radiator where the cooled water will be, the reason for that is if the radiator is failing to cool the water sufficiently for entering back into the engine (i.e. not enough airflow - stuck in traffic etc) then the fans are needed to draw air through the radiator and help the radiator work as a better heat sink. My golf is mad, tiny 1.6 engine, huge radiator because of the aircon ,so it rarely needs the fans at all and the water exiting the rad bottom hose can feel quite cool compared to the top hose, it just cools the water really well even with no airflow. Now i'm not saying you haven't got any partial blockages or odd electrical gremlins but you will get different behaviour depending on how the car has just been run or whether it's been idling from cold, similar things happen with oil temps on some cars, turn the engine off and the coolant stops circulating, wait for a few mins and so much heat builds up in the head that your oil temp readings can actually be higher than before you turned the car off when you run it again. Pretty much why the VR's have an electrical pump to continue to circulate water after the engine has stopped running. We'll have to compare similar cars side to side with temperature probes like you suggested I think, to try and work out if you really have hot spots or intermittent problems.

Finally got around to fitting a proper VAG 16v radiator to my 16v again, I've known for some time that the pattern radiators that GSF have sold as 16v ones aren't the correct design for the 16v, they're basically a small engined carb mk2 golf rad but because the fitting and dimensions are the same (430mm wide) they've been fitted by a lot of people in preference to shelling out over twice the money for a VAG one. The main design difference (there's actually nothing wrong with the GSF quality) is that the VAG 16v radiator uses many thin (and flat) cross section tubes as the cooling elements whereas the pattern (golf 1.3) ones uses fewer round tubes that are 2 deep, i.e. when you look through the radiator you see fewer, wider spaced cross tubes that are cylindrical in cross section and each row has a second tube behind it. Hopefully you can see what I mean in the pictures below. The interesting thing is the temperature runs much the same on my 2L engine in traffic and steady cruising but the difference seems to be in the efficiency when the revs rise and the water pumps faster, it will cool a hot system back down to normal very quickly i guess due to the greater surface area of the genuine radiator, the genuine radiator really does work very efficiently for it's size. £101.96 + VAT for the genuine VAG radiator, part no 191 121 253 L, made by DENSO MARSDEN, in England!

most daily driver VW's of this era seem to run happily on this as it's about the right weight for those engines in our climate (particularly the tappets), but I've noticed recently there are two 'Synta Silvers' one is the old VW spec synta silver 10/40 semi-synthetic and the other is labelled just 'Synta Silver' and is not of the (albeit outdated) VW spec, so be careful what you buy from shows etc... I used the semi-synthetic Silver for years for regular 6-7K changes, but it's harder to find now and especially for a sensible price for a not-very-special oil.

yep, as fitted up to the start of 1991 by dealers to 16v cars that didn't come with electric windows as standard from the factory for UK cars up to that date. You don't actually need the control module, the later motors and mechs will work using the VAG looking (but differently wired) switches, easily identifiable as having direct soldered connections as opposed to the contol box switches that have a detatchable multi-plug. They are live all the time though as you say, due to being wired to a permanent live from the fusebox, handy sometimes, but if you want one-touch controls you'll need to wire in the control box and appropriate loom to both doors.

Both my boss and Dad have A6 Avants around that age and are pretty happy with them (dad's 1.8T is on 130K now) , although not allroads, well built and nice interior quality and touches. Starting to date a little now but as solid as any Audi. Dad reckons the 2.5 TDIs are pretty good in the Passats he's driven and worked on (I think the audi has the same lump), although I don't think they're much more torquey than 130 1.9 TDI's just a bit more refined. I have heard conflicting comments about that engine though. One Allroad dad worked on had ceramic brakes at over a grand to replace but I think that was a top end petrol turbo. Some allroad bits can be difficult to source too.

FUCHS 10/40 semi synthetic from GSF is good value at around 12 quid +VAT for 5L.

Oh, it's just I saw this:plug.GIF[/attachment:3bsw99u1]

Jim, easy enough to test the switch, heat the end of it over a flame, I used the gas hob! the circuits 1 and 2 will switch over as the sender heats up, use a multi-meter to check the circuits switch. you can actually hear them click as they switch, but you'll still need to check continuity just to be sure.

Is the centre part of the plug cracked across?

I think the washer business depends on the manufacturer of the sender, some seem to have a slightly sloping section to the end of the thread on the body of the sender and the metal washer then compresses partly at an angle rather than a flat to flat mating surface, some senders come with the washers on, others not. Unfortunately Bally has the GSF receipt, you could pm him, but to be honest the easiest way is just to get them to find a sender in their parts bin that has the right connection, thread, 3 pins, and has the appropriate temperatures stamped on the side. The stamped temps can be a bit confusing as some senders will have both switch on and switch off temps for each of the two speeds, others only have the switch on temp stamped. Generally your looking for the two speed temps as around 95 deg and 103 deg IIRC, but they vary slightly. It's not that critical and I'm sure they will only be approximate values anyway, what you need is the first speed to come on at approaching 100 degrees the second at 5 or so degrees higher and it'll do the job just fine. looking on etka the on/off temps are listed as speed 1 ON 95 deg speed 1 OFF 84 deg speed 2 ON 102 deg speed 2 OFF 91 deg so the pattern one may just have something like 1=95, 2=102 stamped on the side

another option is 40 quid or so on an engine support beam (type that spans across the wing mounting points), providing you take the front panel off the car to slide the engine in place rather then planning to drop it in the bay from above. easy to store and less than half the price of a proper crane, very handy for changing engine mounts, cars that need mounts removed to do cam belts (like the mk4) and obviously anything like engine,gearbox, clutch work, even removing subframes with the engine staying in place. You could even pop it in the boot of your car to take to needy friends :)

just changed Bally's rad fan switch at the weekend, GSF previously supplied him a 2 pin golf one so it wasn't working on 2nd speed surprisingly :lol: we took the old 3 pin switch he had down to GSF and got them to match one in their parts bin, same pin arrangement as the connector earlier in this thread, certainly looked the part (grey body and thin metal washer attached) fitted it up and it works great, less than a tenner I think. Now I've had sealing problems with those metal washers as they have to seal against the plastic of the back of the radiator, so always use the mk2 golf fibre washer part that you can buy separately from VW, it just has a bit more give in it to aid the seal.

your normal running oil and water temp is fine if the 2L is the same as the 1.8 then there are 3 wires to the radiator temp sensor, live feed and switched feed out to fan speed 1 and fan speed 2, so unplugging the connector and bridge from live to the other pins will run your fan on speed 1 or 2 depending on which of the pins you bridge the live to.

recent thread on club GTI, several mk2 owners really rated the GSF oil pumps, I've had water pumps from them that are fine although for water pumps VW can sometimes be quite competetive on price.