davidwort

ABV engine code appears to have a unique part no. for the boots on etka, so I'd say they are unique to the wide track plus axle only found on the VR6

Yay! All back together and it runs. boooo! Not on cylinder 4, no compression at all, either I've bent a valve on a non interference engine :scratch: or something very odd is going on, more investigation tomorrow...

:lol: could have sworn that's not wot I wrote :scratch: Anyway, iirc 16v's have 7 engine mounts, and they vary from month to month of production...

They're all different, dunno what cazza has been smoking :)

thought I'd tidy up and pad out the last couple of posts, to make some kind of story/step-by-step out of it, if anyone's thinking of doing their own headgasket and perhaps sprucing up the head a bit, this is much the same as working on a 16v, just not as long to do the valvegear :)

Bit of progress today, cam out, valves out and cleaned up, new stem seals in and the valves lapped back in. Lastly got the schrick cam bolted down. Cambelt and head back on tomorrow. This is the first time I've actually done a head strip down on my own, other than the lawnmover :lol: not as scary as I thought it was going to be, but then advice was on hand. on the bench [ATTACH=CONFIG]68460[/ATTACH] stem seals middle one removed: [ATTACH=CONFIG]68459[/ATTACH] spring compressor [ATTACH=CONFIG]68462[/ATTACH] pulling out the hydraulic tappets [ATTACH=CONFIG]68472[/ATTACH] lifting out valve springs with a magnet [ATTACH=CONFIG]68470[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]68463[/ATTACH] pushing new stem seal on with an appropriately sized socket [ATTACH=CONFIG]68464[/ATTACH] lapping valves in [ATTACH=CONFIG]68461[/ATTACH] cleaning up an old valve with emery cloth in an air drill: [ATTACH=CONFIG]68458[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]68465[/ATTACH] quick clean up of the old valves, much better than how crusty they were when they came out especially the exhaust ones: [ATTACH=CONFIG]68469[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]68471[/ATTACH]

60k is nothing, and you know you've looked after it well, I'd keep it till 100k minimum, always liked the 4mo, very underrated as a complete package, I've a feeling whilst they are good cars in their own right the mk5 won't be as good a car as the v6 and will soon need money spent on it too, only plus I can see of the gti is better economy and a slightly more up to date feel although some of the interior is more plasticky.

well, a bit of progress, unbolted exhaust manifold from downpipe, amazingly all 6 17mm nuts and studs were fine and just about accessible with long extension bars and a big breaker bar to crack them undone, head off and inspected, all looks ok, the gasket is clearly rotting around the water galleries and it was leaking a little oil too out of the back of the head near the cambelt. Schrick cam appears to be 1mm more lift than the one in there so should show a bit of difference before I started [ATTACH=CONFIG]68383[/ATTACH] cam cover off [ATTACH=CONFIG]68380[/ATTACH] getting at the exhaust manifold to downpipe nuts: [ATTACH=CONFIG]68381[/ATTACH] they took a big old breaker bar to crack undone, but came off really well [ATTACH=CONFIG]68382[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]68384[/ATTACH] yuck, no.1 was a right mess inside [ATTACH=CONFIG]68389[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]68385[/ATTACH] bores all seem good, still see all the honing marks [ATTACH=CONFIG]68386[/ATTACH] head even with manifolds on is still pretty light, one advantage of working on an 8v[ATTACH=CONFIG]68387[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]68388[/ATTACH]

It's a nice little cam, it's been in a passat and Audi 80 1.8 8v my dad owned so we pretty much know how it performs, very smooth at low revs with little if any loss of torque and a lot more lively at the top end, the passat carb 1.8 with a flowed head was 125bhp on the rolling road, 90 bhp standard, and the Audi didn't have a flowed head but felt much perkier, I'd imagine it will give 5-10 bhp on its own. anyway, better get on with it rather than drinking coffee and typing on here...

I think you can test the thermo timeswitch with a multimeter on warming and cooling, I think I have the range graph somewhere edit: here you go, this is for the K-jet 1.8 though, need to check if the thermotimeswitch is identical [ATTACH=CONFIG]68357[/ATTACH] ...yep, it's the same on the 9A as the 1.8 KR :) - just checked the part no.s

Knackers, cylinder no. 1 is leaking coolant, looks like I'll be taking the head off tomorrow :( On the plus side I've just acquired a schrick cam for it so 125 bhp here we come :lol: [ATTACH=CONFIG]68347[/ATTACH]

I offer £10 'original packaging' it's not a 1920's dinky toy :lol:

yep, I like to be confident I have enough axle stands under it before I crawl underneath... otherwise I rarely know exactly what I'm doing until I break something and then realise what I should have done :) but if you don't make mistakes then I guess you're not stretching yourself far enough, and there's always the forum to ask, before or after the event.

The smart money won't go into cars :) It does surprise me how well camper van prices hold up though, but then they've got some practical use too beyond the show&shine crowd. You might keep your money if you buy one of the older and rarer watercooled VW's but expect to spend more per year on maintenance than it will appreciate if you actually use it on the road.

the valves have arrows on them :lol: flow in from the head and out to the metal water pipe/pump, they do restrict the flow even when working properly one plastic and one metal is the same as the 1996 recall fitment I had done, just remove them and replace the hose section, as long as water is flowing through your matrix then you'll be fine, early heater controls rarely break or jam, but it is possible a bowden cable has snapped off, not too difficult to remove the panel and check the warm air flap operation you can see the connections by removing the passenger footwell undertray and looking up behind the centre console in theory the matrix should be replaced with a stronger later one if you are going to run it without the bypass valves but I wouldn't worry too much, I've ditched mine and the heater is so much better in the cold

Yeah, but using that approach would mean pretty much every corrado would have been crushed in favour of a newer car by now. Not wanting to get into a 'which corrado is best' argument again, but a 16v is very cheap to run given the commonality of parts with the mk2 golf, in comparison tot a up a common bill for aux water pump, engine position sensors, coil pack etc on a vr, not to mention your bill for replacing the timing chains and guides. Pretty much everything is more expensive for a vr from the tyres up.

The spline type are M8

just my 2p start by taking the head off to see what the damage is, for that all you need is a few sockets and a spline tool for the head bolts, I'd also go underneath the car with a long socket extension bar or two and undo the six nuts that hold the exhaust manifold to the downpipe, rather than attempting to undo the manifold to rear-of-head bolts, that way you can lift the head off complete with the exhaust manifold, much easier. If the head/block seems OK visibly and with a straight edge (steel rule) to check for the head face warped, then whip the gearbox off to see what's going on with the clutch, you need another spline tool to remove the driveshaft bolts from the gearbox flanges to remove the gearbox from the engine, otherwise it's just unclipping the gearshift cables, speedo drive, reverse light switch and the big bolts from the box to the block. Providing you have something to support the engine available (a 60 quid engine support beam that you could sell on afterwards would be a good buy) then all this investigation work will cost you very little, before you decide whether repair is viable. sort of engine support beam I'd go for: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sealey-300Kg-Engine-GearBox-Support-Lifting-Beam-ES300-/370257339487?pt=UK_Lifting_Moving_Equipment&hash=item56350ea45f

It would be good to get an MOT gas analyser on there and check if the lambda is within range, feedback can wobble all over the place, does it have the original, a genuine or quality replacement or a pattern lambda on it? These engines really seem to be problematic if the lamda goes out of range, and some cheaper pattern replacements are as bad as useless, I've seen several 9A's now that will barely idle because of dodgy lambda sensors, trouble is people fit a new pattern lambda, assume as it's new it will be OK and then start tweaking other things to compensate for running problems. Check the ECU connection for water/corrosion, replace the cheap service stuff like plugs rotor arm and cap, check the plug lead ends and see if the leads are within resistance range. Has the tamper proof cap on the metering head been removed? little orange bung in the top of the air box where the allen key adjustment for idle CO on the 1.8 16v engines is. this is factory set on the 9A and shouldn't be touched.

They don't need thread lock but should be torqued correctly if possible

iirc the inners just slide off the shaft left on the car once the bolts are all off and the joint falls away from the gearbox flange, if they need a tap to pop them off it shouldn't be difficult to do on the car

spline socket for the driveshaft bolts is about all you need, that and plenty of rags for the horrid cv grease

get it checked on vag com or similar, you need to make sure the lambda and temp sensors are all right before moving on, of course checking all the vac lines and rubber inlet boots can be done straight away

and up on the hall wall [ATTACH=CONFIG]68242[/ATTACH]

Picked up from the post office this morning, fantastic picture and a lovely print, looks fantastic many thanks dave[ATTACH=CONFIG]68216[/ATTACH]