coolrado

nah there is no way it got any glass bead in it when it was blasted, it had three layers of duck tape over any of the bits that could be damaged, and a layer of grease over the seals just to catch anything that might have got through, the bead blaster is quite gentle and wont even go through 1 layer of tape that quickly, and when i removed the tape it was all still clean. there is still a slight possibillity that the pump is fine and the pulley is just loose but i torqued it up so it should be fine. the fluid i removed from it before the engine rebuild was a sort of browny green so it may have had the wrong fluid in the past which wont have helped, I had never changed or topped the fluid up as the level never dropped. The belt was a bit loose last week and i tightened it up last weekend and it seemed fine at the time. its the original pump though so i wouldnt be surprised if its just reached the end of its life.

cheers, feel free to lock

yeah i had a search but it seems as if there is a choice of either a ZF or TRW? rack and pump and they cant be interchanged, hmm will keep searching or maybe find out if I can change the bearing with the help of a mate of mine.

anyone know which power steering pump i have on my 1991 G60, it started clicking yesterday and i think the bearings may have started to collapse I can get hold of which ever one i need but i dont know which one it should be. Is there any way to identify it?

looks like the forum has been down since sunday evening, the bit you need for the head bolts is a 12mm 12 point spline socket not a 6 point torx, make sure you get a reasonably decent one as the cheapo ones tend to snap when torqueing them up, i used one that came in a laser tools socket set from halfords and it was fine. a good tip for removing the cam belt is get some tip ex or any paint and mark on the belt and pulley on each pulley, then just cut the old belt off or slacken the tensioner and slide it off (will need to remove lower pulley and vibration damper and remove the lower cover and maybe power steering pulley), then put the old belt on top of the new one and make paint marks in the same places on the new one, this makes it impossible to get it wrong when you fit the new belt as the marks have to line up with the marks on the pullies

yeah you can leave the camshaft in as it keeps all the hydraulic lifters in place while you flip the head over, although if you are having the head skimmed it will need to be stripped down.

you would be better off stripping off as many of the bits as possible, it makes it much easier to remove the head. you may struggle to seperate the exhaust manifold from the head though until the head is loose, the flexi pipe doesnt really allow much movement, its worth checking out the exploded diagrams of the head on that volkswagen.msk.ru site it should make it a lot clearer what needs to come off.

I think the mk4 brake upgrade everyone talks about is just for the rear calipers, thats what i have, which are just an aluminium version of the normal ones and less prone to seizing. I would imagine fitting mk4 fronts would be a bit of a challenge as you would probably need different hubs, disks and calipers, if its even possible.

Undertaking is not actually illegal, although if your caught doing it you will usually get done for dangerous driving, but passing on the left is not a specific offence. and yes a few times i have passed on the left when some muppet is sitting in the outside lane pottering along at 60 with two completely open lanes to his left for miles ahead, what i do hate though is people who do it when the outside lane is moving at the speed limit or faster and they still undertake.

A mate of mine is actually making a set of 11 inch wide for the rear and 8 inch for the front split billet wheels for his 1962 split screen camper, and i can quite easily see how a set of custom wheels like the boyd coddington ones would cost so much. it's cost him about £150 per wheel just in materials so far (aircraft grade aluminium) and massive amounts of time to design, measure, set up and swap tooling, and a huge amount of the aluminium is wasted in the process (although scrap value is quite high at the moment) I cant really see how some companies can charge so much for some of the cast wheels though.

Yeah if you want a job doing properly, do it yourself :D The incident with my brakes and a few other issues are why I will never take a car to a garage to get work done, a couple of weeks ago after taking my company van in for some work to be done i noticed it didn't feel right in the corners and after a couple of miles got quite a lot worse, when I got home I was going to jack the van up and check what was causing it, but when I went to slacken the wheel bolts off a bit before jacking it up I realised they where allready loose and only in by a couple of threads each, and they are supposedly a reputable garage.

I had this happen on a company van, it turned out to be the muppets at the garage hadnt bothered to tighten the brake caliper bolts up properly, and one fell out, the caliper had come away at the top and hinged forward, so as the wheel was spinning it acted as a sort of ratchet mechanism, it locked the wheel up going forward and was fine in reverse. and the more you apply the brake the more it would force the caliper into the wheel. its unlikely you have damaged anything else other than the wheel and that will probably only need a respray, VW driveshafts are made of sturner stuff, it's not a fiat :lol: you may have had a loose bolt or it may have sheared when you hid the pot hole. mine happened at 60mph on a coast road above a 100ft drop and i only managed to keep it on the road by yanking the handbrake on, needless to say the garage where made to pay for their mistake :bad-words:

They should be 256mm x 20mm All the 4 cylinder engines apart from the g60 got 256mm brakes the 280mm disks are fitted to g60's (PG) and vr6's (ABV) and the 256mm disks and calipers from a mk2 golf gti should be the same.

If its for an early dash let me know how much you would want, if you still want rid of it, i need somewhere to store all the remotes for the stuff in my car and with a bit of modification that would be ideal.

the problem with the punto wasnt the lack of power it was the lack of weight, as soon as it got to the hill the wheels on the punto just span (it was quite wet) as long as you have'nt got any massive hills to get up the golf should be ok.

yep its fine to be towed in, just make sure your key is in the ignition and the steering lock is off, make sure your tyres are properly inflated which will make it a bit easier to steer, remember the brakes will be pants without the servo (although you shouldnt need them much with a solid brace), and its usually worth covering the handbrake just in case. they are a bit heavy to tow though, a mate of mine tried towing mine with his girlfiends fiat punto hgt 1.8 and couldnt get up the small hill out of the car park, , we used my dads volvo in the end. it might also be worth getting some duck tape to hold the tow eye cover down as it can be snapped off by the brace when you turn. make sure you use the chunky round bar tow eye, the other one is only really meant as a tie down for when its on a transporter.

Have you checked the connector on the bottom of the switch? they dont clip in very well and sometimes just shake loose, mine didn't work when i bought it but just needed plugging back in.

if you are changing the disk's you will need to change the bearing as it cant really be removed without damaging it, new bearings are very cheap though so its hardly worth re-using them. If you are just removing the disk to clean it up or get access to the stub axle then it should be fine to fit it straight back on. you will need someone with a press or bearing installation tool to fit the new bearing seats into the disk though.

any oppertunity to poke your tool into a little hole full of crap :roll: :pukeright:

unless there is mayo in the oil,oil in the coolant or oil/coolant leaking out of the side of the engine or steam/smoke from the exhaust it will be unlikely, although letting it get too hot will cause it to go, I would take it back to the garage and get them to check it.

could it be running a couple of teeth out?

radius seats are standard for pretty much all vw's, i think the MO's that my mate had on his mk1 where taper.

the socket i used to have for the mr2 bolts was an anodised alloy socket with a plastic coating, you can usually get away with just using a decent flat drive standard socket, you just need to be carefull not to twist it awkwardly as you tighten them and dont let a garage monkey anywhere near them with an air ratchet.

sadist :lol:

there should be someone who does chrome wheel bolts off the shelf, the standard wheel bolts on my old MR2 where chrome from the factory. Its also worth getting an alloy socket for tightening chrome bolts, they are a bit pricey but its less likely to mark them. although i did find these pink diamond encrusted bolts which should be right up your street :lol: and officially endorsed by ICE-T and Mary J Bilge :wink: or you could try midlands wheels