davidwort

yes, but early 16v's (1.8) use a different reservoir and have no cooling pipe at the front so only the pressure hose from pump to rack is the same on those. passat hoses and some mk2/mk3 hoses are similar and fit too, I have a passat pressure hose on my 16v

remove the boot carpet, undo the screws holding down the black floor access panel and then struggle to turn the fuel tank cap, I ended up having to hammer mine around, bit difficult as it's a plastic cap, need to be careful not to damage it too much.

I'd check the lift pump tank strainer and you main pump and accumulator, does sound more like the lift pump than anything, how much fuel is in the tank?

irwin bolt grippers

I've found it best to leave the belts on and use two allen key sockets on different bolts, slackening and tightening al lof them until you can get all of them free, the bolts shoudln't be massively tight but don't attempt to grip them with anything that could distort them, like mole-grips etc.

I had some sort of (black) fine oxide powder for cutting glass, trouble is it's likely to be quite a deep gouge from a wiper arm, I used this stuff quite effectively by hand to remove light scratches from a pair of glasses once, you could try a paint cutting compound that's more abrasive than T-cut, again I'd try it on a small area by hand only.

Bought the same cable the other week, just tried it tonight with vcds lite on my mk4, works a treat, once I got over the baud rate etc settings, the Ross tech site has an FAQ that suggested setting the baud rate to specific values in vcds this is what finally got it communicating with the modules on the car, up to then the cable was detected and the test ran ok in vcds but it wouldn't find the engine module etc when you run the manual module checks. I'm running it on a win7 home laptop.

edited, it's now clearly £80 :)

yeah there's a few unused plugs around the fusebox, one on the 16v will be the feed up from the non-existent oil pressure sensor for the optional gauges, other's are just spare switched feeds etc, just parts of the general loom set aside for options when the car was new. your other wires could be anything, black insulation wrapped ones are often from immobilisers or alarm systems.

try Ford?

you won't damage the rack, and one of these makes it a 5 minute job :) http://compare.ebay.co.uk/like/321020850678?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&_lwgsi=y&cbt=y&adtype=pla&crdt=0&ff3=1&ff11=ICEP3.0.0&ff12=67&ff13=80&ff14=63

No way, that's such a shock, took me quite a while to get to chat with him over the years but a very friendly and sound chap and one those 'pillars' of the shows, ccgb and a fountain of knowledge, what sad news.

This thread is done now, was originally asking about getting in contact with swampy and we now know the ends should be another size, locking.

Chrome plating a plastic vw wheel centre using their 'home' kit: kit on their site: http://www.customcreationpaints.co.uk/page.html?id=15 brace yourselves, it's 200 quid incl vat for a complete kit, but it would do 8sq ft which is a fair few vw and 'corrado' badges :)

one seems to have gravel on it?! :) other than that they look perfectly normal

I had one snap this year too, I think after 20+ years of winters and the cold weather this year, the powder moulded metal bases to the arms just gets very brittle.

ah, water resistant coolant hoses, just the job! trouble is you could get clobbered with import duty and then you're taking a gamble on quality and on your own pretty much as far as warranty is concerned, I'd rather make up hoses from a UK supplier of generic sections and joiners or buy a VR6 set from a UK supplier

green LHM type hydraulic fluid is fine, I've been running a recon pump for 15 years and never filled with genuine fluid and it and the rack are fine. the 'whining' noise may be due to a problem on the pressure side of the pump, either the valve inside the pump body is stuck or the valving in the rack is leaking I've solved this noise by draining the fluid, removing the pressure side hose (the union one, the one with the jubilee clip is the non-pressure side - supply) from the pump and unscrewing and withdrawing the pressure valve/spring from the pump body, in bad cases the drilling in the pump body becomes scored and prevents the valve operating correctly, although sometimes no wear is evident and the valve itself is at fault. Sometimes a few flushes through with fresh fluid will improve it, saw a very bad mk1 cabrio once where we cured it by cleaning out the pressure valve, wet and dry sanding the pump drilling and flushing through several times the whole system, it should really have had a new pump but it fixed it!

it's been mentioned before but worth repeating, they deliver quickly too. don't assume they have the best prices for everything but some parts like pollen filters and so on are very good prices, other items like ATE brake bias valves were good too last time I looked

from what I've been told (and looking at CV wear) when you do a reverse/3 point turn, you put the joint bearings under forces from a different angle to what they get in normal driving conditions, particularly when cold and with old CV grease, the balls get pushed slightly out of the normal position in their races and 'jump' back into place, it's only a small amount of movement but enough to get a audible crack. Unless the CV joint is very worn I found cleaning and repacking with new CV grease pretty much cured it.

not really, I've used a Jetex one for years and TBH I think the standard paper element is so big it doesn't offer any restriction in the inlet, keep them clean though, 16v's tend to breathe a little oil into the filter from the crank vent hose so check regularly and change the filter when it gets grubby.

use an allen key socket for the two mounting bolts to the head, saves rounding them off with a slipping regular allen key. otherwise just put a bit of rag around the unions and gently crack them undone a little fuel will spray out, not much as seanl82 says. really you should replace the two alloy washers on each fuel union but in practice they are quite soft and rarely leak if reused and nipped up again. Providing the replacement hasn't had the brass dome on the back cut out to reveal (and tweak) the control pressure on a previous vehicle then the replacement one can just be bolted on.

it was pretty easy with the dash in TBH, the only problem I really had with the whole job was one rusted fixing in the engine bay I had to drill out but that would have to have been done anyway. I can imagine doing the actual distribution unit removal and refitting is much easier with the dash out but I didn't fancy removing all the speedo etc

Wow, that came quickly! Will have a play [ATTACH=CONFIG]73400[/ATTACH]

great, thanks for that reply dave, think I'll go and get one of those leads then :)