davidwort

shame that 10-40 is a tenner overpriced, that screwdriver set looks worth about a tenner to me too :lol:

As no-one else has posted any actual experiences yet: to get this done well isn't going to be cheap, time and labour for preparation plus the cost of paint means you'll be looking at close to a grand I reckon. As a guide, a chap I know that my dad sends a lot of their garage's work out to charges about 150 quid per panel and the job is done properly, I've seen lots of his work. We had a RAV4 that had a dent in every panel and he sorted that out and re-laquered the whole thing for about 700 quid as we had put a lot of work his way. The main thing is to try to get to see previous work in the flesh, 500 quid spent on a rushed job with runs and blisters and the rust coming back in 6 months is not going to seem like a good investment.

only the front subframe has rubber mounts, the one the front engine mount bolts too.

front arb has two inner bushes and the drop links on each end, these have their own circular bush onto the arb end and two round bushes that fit either side of the wishbone. rack has a large mounting bush towards the passenger side end (RHD) to the subframe front subframe has mounting bushes at either end

depends how you quantify them, a Skoda Fabia VRs seems to fit the bill quite well :) but generally it costs more to go faster and going faster seems to wear things out quicker :lol:

Think that one works out slightly cheaper from Screwfix, no postage to pay. Teng stuff seems good quality but I have to say for wheel bolts, head bolts and suspension stuff my cheapo Argos one is fine, doesn't seem far out compared to the Snap-On etc stuff they use in my dad's workshop. If you want something to torque small 10mm nuts etc. accurately down to 5 or 10Nm then a good branded one would be advisable. Oh, and one that goes down to 5Nm, won't do up your hub nuts! You'll probably need 2 for most jobs, one high, one low range, I just guess for the low range stuff and use threadlock rather than overtighten :lol:

I personally like the shift with VW's own synthetic gear oil, 2L cost me 23 quid a couple of months back. Will help but not fix worn synchros and certainly cold running shifts where synchros are always slower. ask for G 052 171 A2 (1 litre bottle)

no, it won't suddenly disintegrate, but the 2nd gear synchro has to take up the biggest jump in speed and gets used the most and so wears the most. Couple this with increased play in all the gear-shift components on an old cable change system and 2nd can get pretty miserable. you can replace some of the bushings from VW and fully synthetic oil will help but ultimately a new 2nd gear synrchro is what's needed to make it feel better, and that will cost you upwards of 200 quid plus fitting.

You might even find that with a very small chisel or punch you can actually tap the bolt around and unscrew it without the need for drilling, unlikely they are siezed in the hub as wheel bolts are so often removed. BTW, the new Northampton Screwfix trade counter had stud extractor sets for 2 quid at the weekend, a huge box of them at the counter, one thing I've been meaning to get for ages.

voila.

yep, they are, the shift towers on the box change around 92 though. sounds like my dad's split screen 1954 Morris Minor :lol:

an off road coupe, great, just what the world needs. If only the Corrado Country had made it into production.

the indicator dash lights and warning buzzer are all on the main instrument cluster electrics, I'd suspect some electrical gremlins, possibly the voltage stabaliser, do you get any other odd readings on any of the other gauges, perhaps there's a short/earthing problem in there somewhere.

VW synchro rings and gears are stupid prices from what I remember and any gearbox rebuilder will also have to wait for VW to get the bits, often on back order to Germany.

I've just very gently nipped them up with a spot of threadlock on the threads, if you do them to the correct torque they seem to undo themselves! perhaps due to the fact they are squashing down a thick rubber gasket and it's such a low torque setting.

Always wondered why that was, the fully synthetic stuff like VW's own more expensive gear oil doesn't smell at all, I guess the engineering of the synthetic does the job another way. Interesting read, hard to find much coherent info on the web about gear oils.

The oil squirters are in the bottom of the block spraying up under the pistons to cool them, pretty obvious little chaps peering up into the bores when you look into the bottom of a block. Any 02A gearbox would take the torque, given the right clutch, the problem would be wheel spin from the low ratio 16v box, a 2L is longer legged than an 1.8 16v, the ABF MK3 golf 16v is longer legged still, G60 box has a short 1st but really geared for a lower revving engine. A lot of the ratios are in the Wiki and the spreadsheet will do calculations and graphs for you given the right numbers, ETKA also has the gear ratios for each cog if you want to check out particular gearbox codes. wiki - drivetrain

The part number 536 857 243 runs from 1988 to 1995 on ETKA so I think there's only the one part.

not quite, the left lane is for lorries up to 56mph, the middle lane for lorries with slightly out governors that can just about make it up to 58mph to overtake those doing 56, given several miles.

a 1990 would just be a plain key, couple of quid or you're being ripped off :lol: might be worth filing the sharp edges of the new key v slightly as your existing key and lock may be well worn

The FEBI track rods and end I bought from AVS looked pretty good quality, they were for a 16v. The parts were not identical in design to the VW ones that came off the car though, but the only visible difference was the flats on the inner joint for screwing them in, just subtly different, I've had no problems with them so far and the rear FEBI mont I bought was spot on, unlike the GS one.

glad to see someone talking sense about manifold/downpipes I'm pretty sure that the exagerated claims for 4 branches stem mainly from the 8v GTI days, the mk1 and 2's definately improved from the fitting of all in one manifolds and downpipes, I know for a fact that many of the GTI Engineering conversions showed 10bhp gain on the engine dyno (not a rolling road, a proper controlled engine dyno) but the 16v never really had much of a problem with the standard system (9A CAT excluded). The VAG cast iron manifold doesn't harm to be internally cleaned up though.

either, there are two types of dual pole sender (which you're not using anyway) and one replaces one sender, the other, the other, so it doesn't matter which drilling your use for your t-piece and gauge sender, use the one easiest to access.

A 2L block itself won't give you much of a hike in hp, if a 1.8 is fairly healthy I'd expect around 110bhp at the wheels (make up whatever crank figure u like) Add a flowed head to a 1.8 and you'll see perhaps 15bhp more, a 2L lump maybe another 5-10bhp. The main thing is torque, although a 2L (1984cc) is only 11% greater in capacity over a 1.8 (1781cc) that translates into roughly the same percentage increase in torque, which really helps to make the 16v feel more punchy in the mid range. The best comparison for hp I've seen on my 16v is from rolling road days, standard VR's giving around 145ATW, standard 1.8's around 110 and my 2L just over 130ATW strangely that seems to translate into 200+bhp, 150 bhp and 175bhp respectively at the crank :lol:

pretty much any golf/passat haynes manual will cover this, splash out a fiver on e-bay (tops) all the 80's and 90's VW rear 1.8-2.9L rear brakes are pretty similar as are many of the fronts. e-bay haynes passat 88-91