davidwort

something like this Jim, but hopefully with an engine, relays arrowed.

no, unfortunately the golf UJ's are a different part no., but all the Corrados after 1992 have the UJ you need 8v, 16v or VR6.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it'll have no play in it under load compared to attempting to twist it in your hands (which is difficult anyway as each joint moves in two planes), but if you stick one in a vice and swing on it they're pretty heavily engineered things and compared to the play that builds up in other components from steering-wheel to road-wheel I can't see they'll contribute much to steering issues if they show no signs of movement in a vice. The second hand VR one I got was solid-as. The corrado has PAS anyway so I don't think those things are under massive loadings and must be cushioned from the shocks from the road by all the components between them and the wheels. If money's no object then obviously go new, but it's worth picking up a second hand one I reckon and comparing to your old one. Was the Cordoba rack from a 16v? I'm sure that's the only one with the same ratio lock to lock as the corrado.

what's wrong with yours? I got a S/H one for a tenner off e-bay because I needed a later 22 spline one, but I've yet to find one with any wear in it.

I thought the 16v would have more room, but even if it has, we had the car up on a proper MOT/Garage ramp and access to a full range of tools and the only way we could get enough room to get a big spanner on that inner joint was to make more room by lowering the rack/frame a bit, perhaps it is possible without, but you have to have some pretty odd shaped spanners I reckon :)

you have the fan relay setup nr the washer bottle on the 2L don't you? I wonder if they could contribute any problems?

We fitted a late bonnet to supercharged's early C at Stanford Hall, it curves differently along the sides compared to the original early bonnet, can't remember if the wings bulged up more or the bonnet sides did, but either way it was noticeably out of line.

I like that tubular tool in the how-to above (t oget onto the inner joint hex), there just wasn't enough space to do it on my 16v with conventional tools, so we dropped the subframe to get better access, left the wishbones in place, so the subframe(with rack) just lowered about 20 cm, of course an engine support was used above to stop the whole thing falling out!

well apart from the condition/colour of a late bonnet and the cost of purchasing/repainting, the late bonnet doesn't fit properly with early wings, it'll work, it's just they'll not line up right, panel gap and curve etc.

or pick up a 1.8 16v engine complete for 50-100 quid, everyone wants the 2L lumps so the 1.8s can often be had quite cheaply.

The main reason they go is CV boots splitting and letting in moisture, hence a split boot (on an outer joint) being an MOT failure. The grease does seem to go hard/dry over the years, so cleaning and re-packing is a wise precaution for longevity. Obviously once they are old and have wear they're more prone to sudden jolts like banging the clutch up and high speed gear changes only made worse by very firm or solid aftermarket engine mountings - somethings gotta give...

8) make sure you check the head face isn't warped though, no point in putting it straight back on to have it pop again.

Where are you located?, you never know who might be reading and could give you a hand doing the HG. The first one I ever did was admittedly only on an old polo but the job is much the same on a 16v and the only special tool is a torque wrench and spline bit for the headbolts. It seems like you've single handedly built a car engine when you've finished the job and got it running, it's quite rewarding :)

the odd thing about this box was that it would go in but with a bit of in-out persuasion and jiggling about, the same was true moving the selector tower levers by hand (all with the engine off) so it's not cables/gearlever related. Even with everything lined up and having engaged 3rd once it would repeat the same problem when going back to neutral and trying again (with engine off) I've never felt one behave like that, especially when you said it hadn't got progressively worse over time in engaging gears and 1st to second seemed good.

is the water flowing out of the bottom of the radiator?, could be a stuck shut thermostat (fairly unlikely) or a partial blockage in the radiator? Bally's did this (temp-wise) after a waterpump change the other week, seems that it was filling the coolant a bit too fast that caused an airlock in the head, even though the rad was full of water as all the hoses had water in them. What I have noticed recently, with an expansion tank off the car, is that the fill speed is reliant on the flow of air back to the header tank through the expansion hose, and the tank is a bit of a restriction here, I'd remove the expansion tank hose from the rad to the tank to help the air escape quicker.

Unusual failure, these pulleys need removing when the cam belt is changed to get the bottom cam belt cover off, you don't actually need to remove the bottom cam belt pulley itself which can lead to more serious problems with the drive pulley and crank keyway damage not to mention destroying the head. Part of the problem is reusing the hex head bolts for the ancilliary pulleys, particularly when the heads have been damaged by ripping out allen keys, it's worth just buying new ones and using a small amount of threadlock, trouble is most garages doing cambelt changes don't take their time and care over the job.

I'd never drain down a system with abs on it, best to remove what fluid you can from the reservoir and fill with fresh a then bleed through, of course if someone has already got air in the abs unit then that's another matter, major headache.

I'm sure one of those switches is from a Transporter or something random like that Jim, the 16v should operate quite happily on the standard Corrado item. I'm with Toad, you need to get an accurate water temp reading by some other means, do you have more than one water temp sensor of the same type on the side of the head for the 2L? if so swap them over and see if the reading is the same, you could also remove the rad fan temp switch and heat on the hob in a pan of water, connecting a multimeter to make sure which paths are switching at which temps, boiling water will give you 100 degrees, from memory the 2 circuit should switch 5 or so degrees apart, something like 102 and 107 degrees.

send Eric out the day before to put little signs on stakes every 100m or so...

there's about 6 in my old bosch alternator :? :confused4: - more than my GCSE physics can cope with...

a couple of hours labour at least, so if you're quoted under 100 quid (labour) + parts to have it done that's pretty good. biggest issue tends to be the bottom damper pulley, they have a habit of siezing to the cambelt pulley and have to be removed to get the bottom cover off.

looks like you've ruled out the hall sender on the distributor as you have swapped the dizzy over IIRC there are two electrical connectors on the metering head if you disconnect both it should run in 'average settings' ignoring temperatures and emissions readings and can often point to the lambda probe (if the car has one) if by doing this you improve the running. Vacuum leaks tend to casue problems at idle more than driving as that's when manifold vacuum is at it's highest, so vac leaks from boots/hoses are one of the favourites.

A lower opening temp (lower than 78 degrees) thermostat will help keep temps a bit lower and a lower temperature radiator fan switch would do much the same (in traffic anyway), but I wouldn't want to run a 16v lower than 100 deg on the oil and mid way on the water gauge anyway as they're most efficient there. The 16v rad is pretty good at cooling, a 16v aircon/hot climates rad is bigger (635 instaead of 430mm) and so would give you more capacity for cooling if you ever needed it, unlikely on a standard 1.8 though. There's a fan shroud for the 1.8 that has an extra blind built in, you might get one of those from an old passat, that doesn't require a different rad or fan, or you could fit a longer rad from a passat or aircon car (seen some on old Seat toledos) that have trwin fans too, they'll all fit in a 16v engine bay, it's just sourcing hoses may be a pain. If you run a higher performance engine or do track days or something then a thermostatically controlled oil cooler (mocal etc plus sandwich plate to oil filter housing) would probably be a better investment .

a BIG bar to undo the hub nut (v-v-tight) and then it's a fairly simple dismantling job to get the hub out of the way, then simply tap the back of the cv joint forward and they pop off the end of the shaft, then you get nasty CV grease over everything :) A new hub nut should come with the new CV boot.

serious electrical gremlins :( I'm no auto electrical expert but you could rule a few things out by checking all the engine earth straps, sounds like you need to find someone with VAG COM or a fault code reader and check out the ECU.