davidwort

I spent the best part of a day changing my matrix with the dash in, it's not that bad to do but I'd rather take my time and do it myself than have someone else hack away at the trim parts. A lot of my time was spent cleaning the air distribution unit and faffing about rather than actually doing the change, but do make sure that the air distribution unit fixing screws that go through the bulkhead into the engine bay are free, if you cant get the nuts undone in the engine bay you struggle for ever to get them out, I had one that was corroded and was a b1tch to get out.

Mmm, not on hydraulic tappets they won't, but balanced/ blueprinted and with solid lifters and stronger valve springs they'd certainly give a v-tec a run for its money, standard hydraulic heads are good for 7,500 rpm all day long though.

Lightweight for a high revving built engine, but you're talking race engine building, I can't see they would be any benefit for a road car, unless you plan on fitting wild cams and screaming it everywhere :) I'd flog them for something useful :)

would look much tidier if you fixed the fence though...

I had some of those on a mk1, best looking steel wheels ever IMO :) two types IIRC one with bigger 'holes' and no raised area around the centre cap were best, golf GL or scirocco items?

anyone tried this, clicked on the link on the google search page on my phone's browser and it switched it on, very clever, just write what you want to search for on your screen instead of fiddling with a touch keyboard

one at a time and drive on the space saver :lol:

if you suspect the switch, remove the under column shroud, take the plug off the back of the switch and test the circuits/pins on the back of the switch with a multimeter, you can see from the red wires in the plug which are live feeds in, if turning and waggling the key slightly causes a fluctuating circuit then you've found the problem, don't remove the switch to test it though, as turning it with a screwdriver blade doesn't replicate the turning position of the end of the lock barrel, a dodgy switch can appear fine if tested off the car, I've just discovered that. Of course you can use the fact that turning the switch with a screwdriver generally makes better contacts to your advantage by removing the switch from the column, keeping it plugged into the loom and doing just that, operating it with a flat blade screwdriver, if your starting issues go away then I'd suggest the switch is worn and contacts are poor.

just looked into getting some paint to do my wheels, vw spec wheel paint, thinner, 2K clear coat and hardener come to over 70 quid delivered, so £20 a wheel is a bargain! once you add filler, etch primer and the hours to do it not to mention tyre fitting equipment, I can see why wheel refurbing to a decent standard costs so much. IMO they need a hard wearing 2K clear coat though, cheap lacquer will discolour or flake in no time.

get the biggest you can, 3hp is about the max you can run on home 240v supply, and a belt drive is much quieter. You may be looking at 500 quid new for this sort of spec but second hand you should be able to pick one up in good condition for under 200, a small cheap one will be a false economy especially if you want to run things like air grinders, polishers, paint guns and so on that use a lot of air.

I think you get a lot of car for your money but couple of minor things, March 2001 onwards cars will fall into the higher road tax brackets as that's when co2 emissions tax bands came in and mk4 interior 'soft touch' plastics get very scruffy with age.

I'd unscrew the front control panel first and see what's going on where the bowden cables link to the control knobs, see if they are moving correctly from that end and that the controls and cable clips are in place and nothing is obviously broken, you can then move on to checking the cable operation disconnected from the back of the controls as they should move fairly freely pushing and pulling the cable by hand.

the 1.8 doesn't have the engine bay fan control relays like the later 16v, I'm not sure if there is an equivalent inside the car on the fusebox, another route to investigate anyway...

they are both round :lol: but I know what you mean, the smaller 42mm inlet on the corrados is round all along the inlet runners wheras the 50mm 'squeezes' past the plugs, both gaskets are actually round though. nothing much to note on doing the job other than make sure vac hoses go back where they should under the inlet elbow and don't overtighten the brackets that support the inlet to the back of the head as the head is softer alloy. Might as well give the inlet and throttle body a good clean while off, I also removed the internal casting seams from mine as my lower inlet tract had already been ported and polished inside , no need to smooth polish it though it should have an even but slightly rough surface, you could also 'waist' the throttle butterfly pivot and smooth the throttle body too :) [ATTACH=CONFIG]68907[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]68908[/ATTACH]

I'm not sure, but I reckon the radiator temp switch will also run the fan with the ignition off if the temp is high enough, perhaps that is dodgy and shorting at low temp?

they're just golf bits, plenty of aftermarket joints available or second hand should be pretty cheap. ---------- Post added at 10:11 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:09 AM ---------- yeah, check the other side on full lock, either a track rod is bent or the rack isn't central.

when you say oil all over plug 1, do you mean it's leaked down onto the top of the plug from the centre cam cover seal or the tip inside the combustion chamber is fouled? Cam cover gasket isn't too bad to do, but you will need an inlet manifold gasket too, as that will break when you remove the inlet unless it is very new. changing the valve stem seals is a lot more involved and really needs the head taking off as the valve springs and cotters need to be removed, I've heard of it being done with an air line into the combustion chamber or rope fed into the spark plug hole to keep the valves up. edit, sorry, read your post properly, cam cover gasket is almost certainly leaking, but you could have a headgasket problem too, stem seals don't usually foul plugs badly, you just burn a bit of oil.

getting involved in a protection racket doesn't seem like the best idea :lol:

those seem to be for LHD only, the console is different on RHD, mirror image cubby hole. you could make up a panel yourself, not difficult to make something that looks good and then you're not restricted to just 52mm round gauges

probably just noisy tappets, nothing to worry about, possibly run some tappet cleaning fluid in the oil but I'd probably leave well alone and just change the oil frequently, it won't do any valvetrain damage, it's just annoying and expensive to fix on the 16v as there's 16 of them! very hard to tell which one or ones aren't pumping up properly so not really worth changing just a few given the effort to take the cams out on a 16v. They can go from just a few secs of tapping first thing when cold to making a hell of a racket at idle all the time.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]68879[/ATTACH] These are 3 part fixings, not what I thought as they use a stud that the push through fixing goes into. 1j0 898 623

just to add to this, vw obviously use the studs and separate tie wraps now themselves as I have found some at home I got new with a set of parts from an autojumble a year or two ago, will take some pics tonight, unfortunately I don't think there are any vag part numbers on them, definitely VW though, it was for some kind of loom install kit for a transporter or something random, but the bits looked useful so I bagged them.

looks to me like the spring top plate might have rusted through in the centre so nothing to stop the damper shaft pushing straight up into the car. see part 7 on the diagram attached, should be easy to buy a new one, it's a mk2/3 golf/jetta part and plenty of pattern suppliers sell them but it should aslo still be available from VW as it's such a common part [ATTACH=CONFIG]68875[/ATTACH]

most of them are like that, trouble is on very low turnover parts they're not going to shift them if you don't pick them up and I don't think they can return parts to VW

intermediate shaft! this is a pain, as the distributor is driven from this shaft it's so easy to get the ignition timing a tooth out, when changing the cam belt, it's easy enough to see the mark on the distributor body that the centre of the rotor arm should align up with, but another thing to get the belt on the right teeth. I think the best policy would be to remove the waterpump pulley so you can get all of the timing belt covers fully removed, that way you can see all the timing marks (including the int. shaft ones on front and back of pulley) and fit the belt and tensionner before assembling everything else. I tried to take a short cut and squeeze the belt into the cover, which was fine for getting the belt in but I ended up having to move the distributor body to make up for one tooth out, not ideal as I needed to hook up the timing light afterwards, but fine. I loosened the two 13mm bolts and one nut on the rear PAS belt/pump mounting bracket (plate mounted on side of block that adjuster bolt works on) to make the PAS belt removal easier, you might not need to do this, and depending on how siezed on it is, the big serpentine belt pulley on the crank may need a whack or two to free off, no need to undo centre crank bolt as that ONLY holds the small timing belt crank pulley on and the timing belt cover goes over that. 8v is pretty easy to do belt on really and the belt and tensionner have to be about the cheapest on any car I've known, worth doing though, because as I found out, unlike the older 8v engines the 2L 8v is indeed an interference engine! ---------- Post added at 11:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:36 AM ---------- yes, the new vag one in my 16v feels great, I just haven't driven it for a year :)