davidwort

great read, so much of the same stuff I've done recently on my sherry 8v it's uncanny! load reducion relay is an idea, mine has had a couple of spare ignition switches swapped in and all seem to be a bit reluctant to start the car, they might all be worn the same but I doubt it, one is original VAG from a low mileage polo. I think you have the later fuel system with the mass air flow sensor rather than the digifant on mine (1994 M plate) but they both seem to do the job and mpg after changing my cam and valve stem seals is great.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]68851[/ATTACH]

So, as everything is no.1 do you do it all at the same time :scratch:

ah, the 'made in Mexico' panel stamp (just above your clip) makes me smile every time I see that.

Ah, so they put indicators in place of the main beam spots, one way of doing it I suppose, could you not use the sidelight bulb fitting in the main headlight reflector? or even drill another hole for a second sidelight type fitting? mind you it probably wouldn't be bright enough really, best to have a larger bulb fitting than the diddy sidelight ones probably or it might not be bright enough for the MOT

so you have orange indicator bulbs placed inside the main headlight units then?

why do you want a DAB then :lol: fair enough, you might get a strong enough DAB signal in London now, but elsewhere it can be a PITA plus you pay a hefty premium for the DAB radio in the first place

glad you're going to sort it one way of looking at it is it's not bad really when the average new car depreciates at 1500 quid a year or more!

p'raps with no easy targets it's gone random :eek:

a bit late in the day, but never, ever, request a forum name change or comment on it :lol:

welcome (back) to the forum! sounds like a nice motor, any paperwork come with it? always usefull if you have some info on what has, and maybe hasn't, been done to it replacement parts-wise.

Take the head off and have a look, it might just need a head gasket?

1050 piece bacon burger http://gizmodo.com/5903476/if-you-order-1050-slices-of-bacon-burger-king-will-comply

over the years I've seen/heard/read various problems with the 16v and idling, I'll try to recall them: vacuum leaks on vac hoses under inlet split boots on inlet system (vac leaks again) throttle switches not functionning (so idle circuit not triggered), can be down to microswitches or wiring old or ropey pattern lambda sensors broken/faulty temperature sensors old worn injectors,bad patterns, or leaking when they should shut off metering head tweaks to try to fix the symptoms of the above (i.e. messing with CO screw under orange tamper cap) more recently water in the air filter??? dodgy hall senders or wiring to. oil in distributor ignition timing out (new cambelts fitted one tooth out) general headgasket issues standard rotor arm, cap, plug lead issues

is it really running on 3 cylinders or just running lumpy generally? You can check the resistance that the temp sensors have is a progressive curve by removing from the car and heating/cooling in hot water and testing with a multimeter, I have the graph of correct range in an old passat haynes manual. It could be that the cold start enrichment isn't working correctly (5th injector/cold start valve) but that should only really spray (controlled by thermotimeswitch on head) for a few secs in warm weather. Injector spray pattern test at idle (i.e. closed metering head flap) would be interesting, with fuel atomisation worse on a cold engine a poor injector spray pattern can lead to poor combustion on one or more cylinders when cold. Easy enough to remove the fuel pump relay, bridge the terminals and use the battery neg lead as a switch to power the pump on and off, pull the injectors and spray into bottles observing if the spray pattern is a nice cone or not.

Just fill the whole car with bean bag polystyrene beads through the sunroof, they'll work their way into every crevice...

I'd say it's still your engine mounts, wishbone bushes usually look split if they are worn, MOT testers will pry them with a tyre lever to check for excessive movement.

Have to say I agree cazza, I was really impressed, even the queen and 'mr bond' :) so many subtle things hidden in the sequences, pink floyd pig floating above battersea power station and a few not so subtle marketing the uk type things, but it all worked I think. watched it in 3d too and it was pretty cool, just a shame they had to end with macca :lol:

This has been a bit of a mission, new water pump, oil cooler seal and the offending exhaust valve. It's been worth it though, just set the ignition timing up correctly and it absolutely flies, well chuffed after all the work and cursing :cheers: [ATTACH=CONFIG]68631[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]68632[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]68633[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]68634[/ATTACH]

Weak or failed solenoid on the starter possibly, hit the starter with a hammer :) usually starts to fail on a hot engine as magnet is weaker

you want some negative, it won't feel very good cornering with anything under 0.5 negative, so positive is bad, will wear outside edges too.

head stripdown is much easier than I thought, I've changed heads but never done the full stripdown myself, only fiddly bit was getting the old valve stem seals off the top of the valve guides, I'm sure there's a proper vw tool for that somewhere, this age of vw hydraulic tappet head, 8v, 16v or VR6 are all pretty simple mechanically, you just need a simple valve spring compressor clamp. I wish the old engines had a coolant drain tap though like my mk4, makes the job much less messy and no waste of coolant.

two small bolts and a 2ft builders spirit level is all I use to set the camber, set the spirit level off the rim with the bolts as spacers, about 6mm of deflection back on the top of a 15" rim is about the amount of negative camber needed (work it out with a bit of GCSE trigonometry:) ), cut bolts to different lengths to make setting easier. I use same spirit level to level the car, two identical plastic spray can caps on the roof of the car with the spirit level across them to make sure the body is level. You could make up a more elaborate plum line and card gauge but I don't think it would be much more accurate. A fine, coloured string or monofilament fishing line and axle stands down the sides of the car can get the tracking pretty much spot on, 4 wheel alignment after me doing it proved that.

if you can, set the camber to zero, i.e. upright, then get them to set the track/toe to zero once that's done then the camber is partly personal preference and partly what you can get on the lowered suspension, I easily manage the factory specs on my 40mm lowered early valver, as long as you can get 0.5 degree of negative camber on each side it should handle fine, give the tyres a little while to bed in though. If you want better cornering grip then increase the negative camber a little, you can always get camber correcting waisted bolts if you struggle to get the right camber.

turns out 2e's are interference engines :lol: today I will be mostly fitting a new exhaust valve...