gradeAfailure

Right, here's what happened: Prior to last weekend, my coolant temp would usually sit at about 75-80 during normal driving, and the oil temp at around 112-114. In traffic, however, the coolant would go up to about 105, and the oil once got up to 140! So, last weekend, I decided to drain the coolant, flush the system, and replace the thermostat and fan thermoswitch; which I duly did. I have to confess to not using G12+ (like I should have) but Halfords antifreeze, as I figured it's be ok as long as I fully flushed the system - which I did. Anyways, on the journey up to Inters on Sun, at a steady 80mph, my coolant was now reading 90-95, and the oil temp was 128-130! WTF?! After speaking to a couple of people at Inters, I decided to replace the thermostat again, this time with a VW one... Which I did yesterday... I actually made a point of checking the VW stat against the removed new one in a pan of water, and the VW one opened more, and sooner than the 3rd party stat - all well and good thought I... How wrong I was. On the way to No-Rice tonight @ 80mph - coolant temp:90deg, oil temp:132deg! What the hell is going on?! The thing is, when driving at lower speeds, the coolant temp stays the same, but the oil temp drops to around 120... Whe I got home, I checked the rad hoses - the top hose was too hot to touch, but the bottom one was just nicely warm... Is it still the thermostat? Will flushing the system (again) and putting in G12+ really make that much of a difference? Should I run it for a day of so with no stat at all, just to see if the temps come down? Sorry for the essay, but I though it best to give all the facts in the first post! :oops: This is really peeing me off, especially as I have to take the PS pump bracket off to get to the stat and it's a right pain having to keep draining the coolant and swapping stats over... And no, I don't still have the original stat, stupid me... Help me before I cry! Cheers (from someone just wanting his car to behave...)

So yr gonna bid on them then! Rock on dude, join the Borbet A Krew! ;)

Yeah, keep that colour - dark pink with Borbets is good... [/biased mode] ;)

Ach, just bite the bullet and get some 195/45s for the back too, then drop the suspension a bit more, et voila: full-on Euro-Rado! 8)

Powder coating should be heat durable, no worries, and I'd say high temp paint will be fine for the block. If you need the numbers of a good shotblasters and powdercoaters then let me know as I had my Hoffman bmx frame done to a very high standard recently for only about £20 each for the blasting and powdercoating...

Drained coolant (again), replaced thermostat (again) - this time with VW one, refilled coolant. Read lots and lots of threads about only using G12+, even after a full flush, realised I'm gonna have to do the damn thing for a third time and waste a tenner's worth of Halfords finest... Just fed up with it now, especially as I have to take the power steering pump bracket off to get to the thermostat housing, and end up getting covered in coolant... :mad: p*ssed off...

well, she can't be your lil sis as she's a year older than you (or so it shows!)... so whose sister is she?!)

Well, you've gone from 205/50 to 195/45 so I'm not surprised there's a difference! :lol: Your speedo will be over-reading too now, as your front wheels will be smaller rolling radius than the original VW size...

Why thank-you... ;) Welcome to the forum though...!

IMO they should move it later in the year - there's a really big gap between Inters and the other shows, and a lot of guys just haven't got their cars ready as they're aiming more for the later shows - plus clashing with Worthersee this year wasnt too good... That said, I enjoyed bitching about the weather with Phil K, kevhaywire, dinkus, andi & Supercharged... ;) Had said that I wasn't planning on gong next year, but we'll see... It was quite annoying to see everything being packed up at only 4pm on the Sun though!

From your sig I'm guessing an oloP? Heheh... Check eBay (there's one on there at the mo with ECU, charger, loom, the works...), the Edition38 forum, the ClubGTi forum, the No-Rice forum... In fact, M15 VW on here might have one going for not a huge amount - though the charger does need a fan, but Darren at G-Werks (g-man) would be able to sort that out...

Heheh, actually, your 'Rados and my 'Rat share the same rear suspension setup which has passive rear wheel steering - hence why my big lumpy old-man's car corners far better than it has any right to! :lol: The 'Rado's still the only VW with an active rear spoiler afaik though... And I think the VW will become more of a classic, simply because they're still more in the reach of yr average person, whereas decent 968's don't start til £10k... Not that price has anything to do with whether a car attains classic status or not... Is this "classic" in terms of people actually into cars, or the general public at large anyway?

Yeah man, the fronts look like they're supposed to now! What size tyres did you get in the end?

How much, and what's the length difference between the long and short ones? Oh, and oooooooooooooh, nice!

Glad you like it buddy! Did absolutely nowt to mine today, but bought an OEM thermostat to replace the suspected faulty GSF one that I fitted on Sat... 128degrees oil temp/ 95degrees coolant temp @ 80mph anyone?! Roll on tomorrow so I can fit it...

'course it will - we'll be there! consider i picked up a 'rat with leather and aircon for £700... C interiors do seem to be going for mad money these days - i'd get mine retrimmed rather than pay that much for a used set of seats!

lmao mate.. :lol: Yeah, wiring to the interior light, or the door switch would be yr best bet...

Ran ot of petrol twice in the same day...! You'd have thought I'd go and fill the tank after the first time, but nooo... :oops:

mate, that's gotta suck bigstyle... can you still drive it up to inters tomoz?

The answer's in the question, dude...! No, seriously, you may as well get 195/50's on the front cause you can get good brands cheap in that size, then when the other two wear you can stick the used 195s on the back and put new ones on the front... It's generally just more convenient to have all four tyres the same size as you can swap wheels round should you need to - if you have directional tyres on, and a different size between front and rear, then each wheel can only fit on one corner correctly - if you see what i mean!

[schild=1 fontcolor=000000 shadowcolor=C0C0C0 shieldshadow=1]Sorry for the thread hijack![/schild]

Sidewall height of a 205/45 will be: 205 x 0.45 = 9.25 So, pretty much halfway between the other two! However, I don't think that 205/45-15 is a very common size, unlike the 195/50's. If you're only buying two tyres then I rekcon you're best off sticking with the same size as you have already - but places like Camskill are so cheap for tyes these days, if yr not happy with the profile of yours then you may as well change all four and flog the others as part-worns...

No, from the side, 195/45 will be much smaller than 205/50! 195 x 0.45 = 87.75mm sidewall height 205 x 0.5 = 102.5mm sidewall height

Tyre sizes are quite easy to figure out and calculate really... There are loads of internet sites that explain it, but I'm bored so might as well do it here...! For a 195/50-15 tyre: 195 is the width of the tread in mm 50 is the profile (sidewall height), and is expressed as a percentage of the tread width 15 is obviously the wheel diameter So, the approximate diameter of 195/50 15 tyres will be: 2x(195x0.5)+(15x25.4) = 576mm two sidewalls x (tread width x profile) + (wheel diameter x conversion to mm) = wheel diameter Make sense?!

I thought that interior looked quite nice actully...