davidwort

Jim, you're welcome to borrow a ISV and cold start injector from me, I have a couple of spares at home, I'm just off J15 at Northampton if you're ever this way or I might make it up to the Cov meet. David.

I think there's just the one U clamp and mounting, just allows some movement if the subframe flexes, should be fairly easy to do. I've got a new clamp and VAG bush, just not got round to doing it.

will be white and black on the 16v, although there's not much difference in the rating of the brown from the black so that may well work OK in place of it. I've never used a specific torque, they have an alloy washer so just nip them up and that seals it. white is 1.8 bar (all 4 cylinder cars) black is 1.4 bar (8v/16v) brown is 1.2 bar (G60 only) IIRC the white is for identifying low pressure at 2,500 revs and above and the black is for low pressure warning at idle. If they're expensive I've got a box full of second hand ones in my garage. David.

What has been changed, ruled out or checked then? Would be good for the forum to build up a quick reference of symptoms and their causes, along the lines of Haynes but with a lot more detail and examples! Customer of my dad's had a car that wouldn't start on Thursday mornings! By chance they went to look at it at the owners home and noticed a tall radio mast at the house next door, turned out he was a radio enthusiast and the powerful emissions were causing a dodgy hall sender on the distributor to fail to give a signal. The location was the only day of the week the car was parked there, a second home in London, his main residence had no interfering signals to stop the car starting!

I think the unit on the side of the metering head controls mixture to a certain extent (it replaces the warm up regulator of the 1.8 16v) and that is in turn controlled via the ECU. If there is a fault somewhere in the system (like the Lambda probe) that could cause a problem, but if you wanted to increase fuelling for modifications then a re-map would be needed. Best get the ecu error checked first to see if any sensors are out of tolerance.

There's a lot of opinions out there on which gear oil is best, I had good results with the fully synthetic oil that you can order from VAG franchises and also with Comma semi synthetic, although VAG's is approaching 20 quid a litre and you need two litres. Redline (MTL?) do a range of synthetic oils that are reported to be OK in the O2A Corrado boxes and work out a bit cheaper, but come by the US measurement of Quarts which works out at just under the 2 litres you need, seems to be enough though as a bit of oil stays in the box anyway when you drain it. VW oil specs change all the time and it may be difficult to get a dealer to identify the right synthetic you need for the Corrado box, but I'd go for fully synthetic if possible as it makes cold changes better. proper spec is SAE 75W90 Synthetic (VW spec G50 - for 4cyl corrado and G51 for VR6)

well, it turned out it wasn't the ignition switch after all, it was the starter :lol: failed to start completely on me once and a thump on the starter solenoid did the trick.

I've nearly scanned all of mine to PDF (before the pages disintegrate :) ), will let you know when it's done!

It's the earlier 1988-91 Haynes passat manual you need (No. 1647), out of print I think, try e-bay, Jim got one for a couple of quid. It covers both KR and 9A engines, but not in massive detail.

Depending on dealer and discount I think Blue95 bought one recently for 115 quid? I think Euro car parts (possibly another factor) had some as well but they were the same price as VAG. It's not too difficult, VAG spring hose clips are a pain but actually cause less damage to hoses so I'd keep them. just drain the coolant from the bottom rad hose, un-clip the fan connector and temp sender, then remove the fan and shroud first, 4 * 10mm bolts/screws and the lower ones can be fiddly to reach. Once this is out there is much more room to get at the rad itself. Fairly easy job really. Re-filling can be difficult to get air locks out, I leave the top hose clip off until the top hose is full of coolant (squeeze it to let air out), and then run for a few minutes, let it cool and top up, sometimes it takes a few journeys to get all of the air out, just top up, as long as you get 5L of coolant in you know it's not far off, I think the total capacity is about 6.5 Litres. David.

the 16v one is specific to 16v cars, it's the same size as a mk2 golf 1.6/1.8 carb engine but not the same core inside. The golf carb one is only about 50 quid from GSF etc. and will fit fine and will probably be OK although it's cooling ability will not be as good, the correct new rad is over 100 quid from VAG. If you really want a bodge for a short time then a second hand golf 2 1.6 rad will do temporarily, but an old rad won't cool as well as a new one.

I've seen a fair few in scrap yards and the engine bay is very similar, I'd imagine the main issues would be with the position of controls/cables and the air flaps etc... all the underbonnet stuff looks standard Golf/Passat to me. Ideally you'd want a 16v toledo or ibiza so all the pulleys would fit, rather than the more common 8v or diesel engines.

I've been wondering if a glass cutter (firm) would be able to cut a larger mirror with a blind spot curve down to the size/shape of the c mirror glass, I'd rather have a mirror with this facility than the heated element TBH. Might give somewhere a call.

A lot of positive comments on the handling, but IMO the interiors are just total rubbish even with the best leather trim, considering the age of the cars they are very poor inside but typical of 1990's low end fords. If you appreciate the handling that much then fine, perhaps you can overlook it, but the only car I've ever been able to do this on is an Integrale :wink:

headbolts are of the stretch variety, you shouldn't reuse them.

you need a torque wrench, hex bit for the headbolts and knowledge of how to ensure the engine timing (cams to crank) is set up right, a Haynes manual or similar covering the VW 16v engines would help loads. It's not the sort of job you'd wan't to experiment with basic DIY car maintenance skills on though really, although once you've done one it's not that difficult. Unfortunately it's one of those jobs that can unexpectedly reveal all sorts of niggles and end up taking ages to get done, like an injector you can't get out or an exhaust stud that shears off. I'd at least experimented on an old very simple and easy to work on polo before I did major work on the Corrado so it wasn't my first headgasket job. It's fairly straightforward and the bits are more accessible than a lot of engines though.

how can i test the oil cooler/heat exchanger :roll: thanks firstly, is there mayonnaise in the oil filler cap? This would suggest a mixing (emulsifying) of oil and water. If it's just a straight water leak from the gasket into a cylinder you might not have a mix of oil and coolant. The heat exchanger can be removed by taking off the oil filter and undoing the two water hoses and big shallow nut underneath (when the filter's off). all you need is a large adjustable spanner. You'll have to drain most of the coolant out of the engine and if it is this you'll probably see bad corrosion where the water hoses connect to the exchanger. If it's the original part, chances are it's on it's last legs anyway even if it turns out to be the headgasket.

1.8's never had the extra clips to hold them in - as said. They don't need them either, they should be a very snug fit by the main O-ring, often very difficult to pull out, certainly not by the fuel pipes, you'd normally risk damaging the pipes by using them to yank the injectors out.

could just be the heat exchanger/oil cooler? White=steam Blue =oil Black=unburnt fuel

you can buy a set of easy-out stud extractors from motor factors etc... you basically carefully drill into the centre of the remaining stud with a small drill bit then screw in the easy out and it should bite so you can remove the stud.

any improvement yet???

just find an old passat with the same type of cluster (1988-1991) and rob the bit you need.

if you don't want the mess and want to save a little time of your own time, why not buy the oil/filter and plugs and get a local independant garage to do the oil change, I'd imagine you'd be looking at about an hours labour, if they do the air filter and plugs or perhaps half an hour if they just do the oil, anything from 30-50 quid/hr plus the cost of your parts, IRO 40-50 quid from GSF etc... If you go to an independant VAG specialist they'll probably charge more per hour and be less inclined to fit parts you supply. Just don't go to a place that uses suction pipes to remove your old oil, saves them time but doesn't remove all the old stuff. Personally I like leaving my sump to drip for a couple of hours before putting the fresh stuff in :) but then my drive has plenty of oil stains on it :lol:

I know it's not ideal, but it worked for me and the damage looks very similar, BTW although the 16v doesn't drive a charger it has a wider pulley and timing belt than NA 8V's as it has to drive twin cams, so I'd imagine the forces are similar. Even if the pulley turned again on the crank it's not an interference engine anyway the 8v G60 is it? Considering the work of taking the crank out I'd say it's worth a shot. I marked the new bolt head and pulley against each other so I can see easily if either starts to move, no problems though and I rag my engine to 7200rpm regularly and it rolling-roaded at nearly 180bhp.

:lol: a classic task for the apprentice, give them a CV joint in pieces and get them to reassemble it... 7 hours later... it's really easy if you do it in the correct sequence, my passat haynes manual has a diagram of how to do it I think, but I perfected it on my old mark one all on my own :)