yalan

I'd be surprised if the wider discs were the problem. The usual conversion with the Audi fraternity is using 996 calipers with audi discs. the calipers are designed to run 28mm thick discs and the Audi discs being used are 30mm. There isn't bags of space spare, but using the disc which is 2mm bigger doesn't cause any problems. However, by putting thicker discs in, some people did need to file down the pad guide pins as shown in the photo below to prevent rubbing against the disc surface. But I would have thought you'd have heard the contact if this were your problem. Spin them wheels to see if anything is binding! It wouldn't take much - maybe even less than a mm of misalignment for the caliper to be off to one side and be permanantly rubbing on one side of the disc. If this is the case, I'd be very careful of driving it. Constant rubbing would mean lots of heat and the potential for overheating and warping! Not nice on such expensive discs! How much clearance have you got between the caliper and inside of the wheel? Looks close!

Don't you lot read? :roll: :lol: Its not really as simple as that. Aluminium is better than plastic? Lots of properties to balance out. Aluminium is a ductile material - to make an Al cap which will bear the crimp forces which hold it in place would take a very thick cross section. But if a thick gauge of Al is used then it'd be both expensive and tough to draw out using traditional equipment into shape without further heat treatment processes. Unless of course you're talking about using welded up box caps as per custom rad/cooler projects? very expensive and only now really becoming viable with modern manufacturing techniques. Not really something which VW would have considered 15 years ago. All aluminium exchangers are really only becoming popular now because of End of Life regulations forcing manufacturers to recycle. The manufacturers are concerned with life costs of their products & by having plastic tanks makes recycling their units more expensive to dismantle than bearing the initial extra costs of making the part all aluminium. 15 years ago no-one cared all that much about EOL. The metal end caps we used to find on radiator panels were normally copper which is nice and easy to form and deals well with heat cycling but with the rising costs of copper plastics have taken over as the norm. A well constituted plastic with reinforcement bindings should and does survive well in the harsh conditions a radiatr is subjected to. Is it really so surprising that a heat exchanger exentually fails after x million cycles? No doubt it is possible to design an exchanger which will survive into the vehicle's 200,000th mile, but who would want to bear the extra cost of producing that part?

I trust they're the right bolt type. With caliper bolts its not just the pitch but also the tensile strength which should be right. Can't recall the standard off the top of my head right now. If you find the AP discs are a little too expensive, try ral-des. I used to have Bremsport two-piece discs on my S2. When they wore out, I had to get replacements which were out of stock in the UK so had to buy the AP equivalent instead. Almost twice as much for an identical disc. Fairly sure mine were 305x28 too. 25 mm discs should be fine. Did you need to move the pad guides out to give the disc sufficient clearance? Are you sure the caliper is centred centrally over the disc? As the cheese suggests, jack it up & check it all spins freely. Then whip off the wheel and check everything is centred nicely. Dids the caliper mounts need machining for alignment? New discs and pads IMHO should bed in very quickly and shouldn't affect economy.

yeah - remember reading that on another forum years ago. The funny thing is all the replies assuming its '4 reel'! :lol:

I've had three now. A late '96 2.0, a '92 S2 and an '95 S2. They are very solid cars and are typically reliable. But as the cheese says (with exception of S2) - not overly exciting in standard guise. Parts aren't too bad as almost all mechanicals you can get pattern parts for. Dealerships in my experiance are very similar to VW for genuine parts. AFAIK available as: 2.0 8v very dull - fair bit slower than my pervious MKII 8v Gti 2.3 5cyl (early only) (quattro option) 2.2 5cyl turbo S2 (quattro) great cars if you get a goodun 2.6 V6 2.8 V6 (?) Really not as exciting as it sounds especially in an auto! S2 is holding its value reasonably well, but the others can be picked up very cheap. Personally I wouldn't consider them to be a cheap runabout. As the cheese says - get a MkII !

Glad to hear you're getting somewhere. A dead pump might have helped your MPG but certainly wouldn't have helped cooling. Perhaps someone took the stst out when the pump died to try and get things flowing again?! Fingers crossed.......

I did mine last week. Bottom hose worked for me - as soon as it is disconnected, I bent the hose down towards the bowl - this kinked the hose to a dribble. Let the rad empty out then freed off the kinked hose. Seemed to work well with minimal loss. Coffee filter & jobs a goodun. Just wipe down all the likely surfaces before you start to reduce contamination. I used a shallow plastic crate type thing rather than a washing up bowl - fitted in under the axle stands nicely.

The one just under the oil cap in that pic - yeah thats the one - brown with a white trace! It isn't anything conclusive, but I'd look further into the fan switching if I were you. There are 1000s of posts on the forum and if you look hard enough there may well be one telling you how to check the circuit (ensuring it has power feed etc). Maybe even a method of bridging the contacts to get the fan running to test it is OK. Sorry can't help much more off the top of my head. Get that circuit & fan checked! TRY THIS LOT!! - Great post Henny - should be part of the WIKI I reckon! http://www.the-corrado.net/.archive/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10173

Just finished dealing with cooling issues on my 2.0 16v. To my knowledge, the temp gauge on the cluster is fed info from the sensor somethere on the block? And the fan switching is controlled by a temp gauge on the radiator. So although the cluster may think its overheating, the rad may be totally unaware. First I'd check the fan actually works and the circuit has power. Don't quote me, but isn't there some sort of 'short test' whereby you short something or other to earth and it simulates the fan switch closing? And I think you can also test the rad switch using a ciggy lighter and multimeter to check contacts open / close etc? Search is your friend here - sorry! If the fan works and there is power to the circuit, then perhaps the water is not flowing round the circuit and into through the radiator fast enough to convince the rad sensor there is a heat issue. Blockage - flush & reverse flush? Before doing this though, I'd perhaps replace the thermostat once and for all to eliminate it from the situation. Dodgy thermostats have been known to cause all sorts of issues. When I refitted everything and re-juiced the system, I also had an airlock in the matrix. I got it warm, then gave the two pipes into the bulkhead a good squeeze and pump to try and move any air. Didn't seem to have much effect, but next time I went out for a drive, it cleared quickly and warm air returned! G'luck lad. As I say, first I'd check for power in the fan switching circuit. (And as a side note - you can also check for fan function by shorting out the after-run switch to earth with the engine & ignition all off. It is the single [EDIT: BROWN WITH WHITE TRACE] wire on the front left edge of the engine rocker cover (as you stand in front of the car looking down). A single wire which pulls off easily. Just touch the metal contacts to a metal part of the engine and the fan should start to spin. If not, keep investigating the fan circuit!)

Yup - had exactly this problem on my last Audi. Eventually thought I'd better do something about it so - Had the regulator replaced by a garage at a service and on the way home, lost all charging power! On the way home the battery finally lost all juice on the M25 and had to call the RAC to put the old regulator back on to get some power. He wasn't a happy man! Sadly it was the alternator. Bought a bosch re-con unit from CAF and all was perfect subsequently. Re-con alt was only about £70 so well worth it.

Will get the Stat sorted asap - How about the overenthusiastic after-run fan? Possibly faulty temp sensors?

Now just to be different to all the overheatring problems, I thought I'd share my overcooling problem. If started whilst standing, it'll warm up nicely and get to temperature and stay there until the fan comes on. It'll then happily stay at a good temperature (100? was it?) But if i'm on the road, the wind rushing through will cool it down loads - to the point that on a dual carriageway it'll even dip back below the first graduation (70?) OK - so that'd probably be a stuck thermostat but it probably shouldn't be cooling quite that much I wouldn't have thought....? But even weirder is the fan. Arrive home after a 30min drive, gauge reading about 75 - 80 degrees and park up. And 5 minutes later the fan is running. And still running 5 minutes after that. I'm guessing its possibly the thermostat and one or 2 temp sensors. Can anyone suggest locations of likely sensors and an order or priority with regard replacement? Cheers,

Yeah me too, but I'm (also) lucky enough to say "but I've got another one".

Apparently it was more prevalent during the time when pads used asbestos in their compounds but still true even with todays modern materials. As the pads heat up, gasses are released across the surface of the pad. These gasses get in the way of the clamping forces and need to be either got rid of or dealt with in some other way. One solution is to use slotted / drilled rotors but these can be noisey or have other drawbacks such as cracking. An alternative is that since twin pot calipers tend to have big pads, what they did was introduce different sized pistons to alter the forces applied across the swept pad area. In use, the leading edge of the pad heats and some gas is produced. As the disc surface passes through the pad, the gas build up is continually increased until it passes out the trailing end of the pad. If both piston sizes were the same, the clamping force on the disc would be stronger at the leading edge (as there is less gas there than at the trailing edge to overcome). By using calipers with differential bore sizes, they found that although not getting rid of the cause of the issue, they could balance out the forces applied by the pads to give even braking and even pad wear. Swap a caliper with differential bore sizes from N/S to O/S and this will contribute further to tapered wear. And it doesn't take much to get a pad jammed in its rails. Hope this comes out comprehensible!

And the pads will wear to a taper seeing as the calipers have differential piston bores to counteract gassing. Putting them on the wrong sides (as you have to on the corrado) not only means that you haven't got staggered pistons to counteract the effect gassing has, but they instead contribute to further uneven pad wear.

Juzza means when you start the engine it locks you in. Unlocks when ignition off.

Bad experiences from the owner of the 600+bhp S2........ First the O/S - http://www.s2forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2492 Then the N/S a month later - http://www.s2forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1320 And then there's this: http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~richw42 ... brakes.htm Oh, and FWIW, from experience, I wouldn't touch Bremsport (from Raldes) either. HTH

Its not on the Fob - mine is definately not. I very much doubt it is directly in the serial number though - although I bet the technical help can decode your serial no to work it out. But then again, they don't deal with the public so you might be stuffed. Having said that, if you're very nice to them, you can get the technical guys to help out with most queries - 0870 160-4433

Gorgeous looking car and engine bay there. Somewhat strange though - in that an ABY engined S2 (as yours is) doesn't have its battery under the bonnet. But surely as the owner, you'd know that. Which also kinda leads me on to the fact that I know the chap whose engine that really belongs to. And its not you! http://www.s2forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4476 Why?

Yeah - a cracking read - but I wasted 45mins plus reading up to page 18 or so...... Gets a bit repetative after about 5 or 6 pages. The guy never admits anything but its all far too far fetched to be true...... very dodgy seller - but it does take 18 odd pages for him to start getting rude! Sounds to me like there are a fair few on there who know the whole story but who won't say for one reason or another..... felt a bit cheated by the (non) ending!

People do go on about this 'headroom' lark. If you're thinking about getting a cheap jetsound or something this might be an issue, but what you're implying is that it is going to damage a set of '100w' speakers by using a 50w rms rated amp. And this simply isn't the case. I've never used an amp rated at more than 60w per channel. My current is only 50wpc and even with the gains at almost their minamum, I cannot drive with the volume above 1/3. Plenty of power and masses of 'headroom' for the components. If you suggest people need 100+wpc, you'll have people spending a fortune entirely unecessarily - especially when they're people like Jim who just want a good sounding system without head pounding bass etc! I'd suggest reading this, very informative thread http://www.talkaudio.co.uk/vbb/showthread.php?t=215537 And maybe a bit of this for some back to basics of choosing parts for modest systems: http://www.talkaudio.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48&Itemid=26

From my experience, the choices are thus: Buy very good component speakers and use them in custom pods etc and you may just get a good enough sound without any rear speakers or subs. Only time I've experienced this was with a £700 HU, a £600 amp and £400 front speakers! Buy a good set of components and run an amped sub for the low range - you lose your boot space Buy a good set of components and a set of 6x9s to deliver the low range. Cheaper and more compact than having a sub but won't be able to deliver the hard low end. Its all a compromise, though it doesn't have to cost much and can be built up in stages. I've got a lovely little PPI sub here for when I can be bothered to build a box for it. Until then I'll stick with my 6x9s (which came with the car!) Personally I went for a single 4 channel amp for the system. £100 for an old soundstream reference. Go oldschool... great bargains at low prices!

Have you any idea what circuit it was & why that circuit wasn't showing fault? Good job on getting all those other issues fixed after the fusebox removal !!!

I did the moonroof swap a few years ago on a corrado I've now sold so can't provide you with pics I'm afraid. But there most definately was a rear drip channel. I remember it because it was an almost separate piece which clipped in to the mechanism above the sunscreen. On mine, the clips were a bit knackered and I was concerned it might not stay in place. Basically it was the full width of the sunroof and sat (when closed) just under the rearmost edge. It allowed water to drip through then diverted the water sideways into the side channels. You could only ever see it (I think) when you tilted the sunroof and looked down the gap from the outside. Perhaps yours has gone AWOL at some point and it wasn't a problem in the Passat because the seal fitted better? Looked alot like the piece circled in red below. EDIT - in fact if I remember correctly, the second picture below shows the long clip tabs which hold the rear drip tray in place. The underside of the arms have kindof felt covering to prevent rattling.

Nice job - but those calipers aren't from a 993 - they're rear calipers from a Boxster S or 996 non-turbo. Usually, carerra 2 cars have black calipers and carrera 4 has silver calipers. Part number for these I'd guess is 996 352 421 and 996 352 422. RS2 calipers: 8a0.615.125.aa (Audi part) Caliper mounting bolt: 999.067.041.09