Rpmayne

Cheers kev. Tried to undo the ABS sensors at the hub, got the bolts out ok but the sensors weren't going anywhere. Will disconnect as you say. I'm going to take the whole axle off and take it down to the garage where they can press the old ones out / new ones in. That's why I need to take the hand brake cables off. Hopefully save abit of time. I've marked up the nut position on the compensator and it came off ok, not so sure about those allen key bolts. Had a quick go and they felt pretty stuck. Plenty more wd40 overnight will hopefully help. When I lowered the car I never got that compensator adjusted, something I'll have to remember when its all back together again.

I'd try and undo the sub plug slightly and drain some off. Think overfilling does damage to the cat (seen a warning sticker somewhere) and could put too much pressure on the seals etc causing leaks.

I'm going ahead and attempting the rear axle anyway (used to things going worng now so nothing to loose), and have just read the bentley guide. It mentions the axle bushing must be pre-tensioned in the installation position. Any ideas what that means? Also, this is my plan for removing all the connections before dropping the axle: 1. Take off handbrake clips and fixing clips on the axle, then pull back to clear axle. 2. Undo ABS sensors from hub and pull back to clear axle. 3. Undo brake pipes at joint on axle. 4. Undo brake compensator nut and bolt. Looks like you have to remove the brake compensator to get the axle bolt out on that side. Does this all sound ok? Please correct me, got the car on stands now and going to start tonight if possible. (until the pub at 8 anyway)

Would do mate but its not drivable now. 3 wheels sunday, 2 wheels today. Tried drilling out what was left of the front wishbone pivot bolt after jacking the gearbox out of the way to get a straight line in. To no avail, drill wondered and had to take the sub frame off last night to get it repaired. Found dropping that down a nightmare on your own with a bedside lamp and an AA maglite (when I could find where I kept leaving it). :x Looks like a helicoil or welding and re-tapping are the options now. Or has anyone got a spare subframe for a couple of beers? :)

The G12+ is pink and apparently better according to people on the forum so I just went along with that. I used halfords stuff in other cars with no problems though, don't really see the difference. Toyota recommend their coolant which is apparently special pre-mixed stuff and the bloke I get to do the head work says they're always the best preserved. Must be something in it. As it happens my auxillary pump is leaking like that too. £80+VAT from the stealer. Also seems to be leaking from around the top where the connector goes on.

Yer, thought better of it at the weekend after attempting to change the wishbones. Sump side done in about an hour, other side took a day and a half (and still not complete). Front pivot bolt on that side was locked solid and I managed to break it half way through the bush :mad: . The sub side one is more protected and came out fine. Teach me for using a 1m bar. Anyhow, have ordered a new bolt and have got some long series drills and a tap to hopefully save the day. Quick question, can anyone confirm it is a 1.5mm pitch M12 bolt? VW describe it as M12x1.5x82 so I assume it is. As for the rear bushes, that's booked in for thursday at the garage. :roll: The easy bit turned out a nightmare so not so willing to risk it now.

The £80 is based on what I was charged for them to fit the mk2 golfs ones on my last car. Get quite good rates though as hes seen alot of work from me over the years. Cheers for the info, will take some studding and bits of gauge plate home just incase to make something similar. Not sure how to get the 12.5deg, maybe mark up where the old ones were if not too fecked and refit to suit. Might invest in a blow torch for that bolt. Heard that unit can cost £100.00. :( Will let you know how it goes, next post probably in the wanted section for a complete second hand axle with bushes. :D

I bought some hella (i think) replacement leads for a 16v golf and they were complete shite. Nowhere near as solid into the head as the standard ones, couldn't really tell whether they had located on the plugs properly or not. Repaired the originals in the end and binned the replacements (cost about £40.00). Better to get originals I recon, £120ish though.

I've just ordered some new bushes from VW along with complete front wishbones for an overhall after some skippy handling. After reading though some older posts I noticed the brake compensation valve being mentioned as a problem on the VR6 in particular. I really just want to know what's involved / tools required to change these rear bushes. So far; 1. Disconnect brake lines from axle 2. Drop rear axle and massacre the old bushes until they come out (drill, hacksaw etc). 3. .... Refitting, can i just use a g-clamp and something to cover the other side of the housing? Is there a certain orientation they should go in? What's the brake compensation valve problems all about? Just trying to weigh up whether its going to be better to get the garage to do the back (£80ish labour). Thanks for any help.

You could get a compression test done to indicate whether its the guides (which wouldn't affect the compression would it?) or the bottom end. 1 and 6 on mine were fecked, spark plugs came out soaked in oil. Rebore was required. The machine shop which did the head work on mine didn't skim it, said it was flat so there was no need, although there was alot of corrosion around the coolant channels. Would have required about 1mm skim to get rid of that though. 10'000ish later and things appear to be ok.

Stealth sell both 82.485 and 82.985 mm mahle pistons and rings for reboring a VR6. When I took it into a garage for a check they phoned around and you can apparently rebore a 2.9VR6 twice, the maximum being 83.0mm. Re-reading your message storm, VW do sell oversized piston rings for a 2.9VR6. Just didn't think it was generally advised to just them with a rebore, plus when my pistons came out they had been slapping about abit so they probably needed doing anyway.

Looking at the prices I got mine rebuilt for, I'd say £1750 is an absolute steal. Take it that means only head and block with no manifolds, water pump, injectors etc but still, if I were specialising is VR rebuilds I'd be abit worried. Wish I'd heard that about 6months ago, I have a completely rebuilt 3.0VR which cost the best part of £5000, a few technical hitches on the way granted. :?

Some tuneup garages can check your compression by measuring the starter motor current as it compresses each cylinder. The lower the amount of current needed to move the cylinder the lower the compression as I understand it. Might be worth a try to back up the other test. When I took the plugs out of mine, 1 & 6 were soaked with oil. And was using about 1litre/1000mls, greyish smoke when nailing it etc. If you're not using any oil I would have thought its abit weird if the bores/rings are the problem. Does your coolant overheat or the cap keep blowing? Misses had a polo which kept doing that, turned out to be a leaking head gasket which was compressing the coolant system. Local garage found that by putting a bung with some kind of liquid it it which change colour if any gases were present.

I don't really understand why VW gets such a slating apart from the above average prices. The back street garages who had always been very good couldn't find the problems, and a Bosch diagnostics garage said it had mechanically seized and charged me £65.00 for the trouble (turned out to be hydraulic lock cos the ECU was f**ked). Nobody gets everything right, you hope they're just honest about it so you don't end up paying for the mistakes. Do people generally think VW don't know their own cars then? Possibly abit unfair in general? :roll: I'm not getting paid to say this btw. :)

I know this is last resort but have you thought of taking it to VW? I had all kinds of grief with mine starting / not starting / cutting out when warm. When it did run though, smooth and as powerful as I think a VR should be. It went to several garages and had no conclusive problems found. Eventually out of despiration took it to VW. £350 later they found the immobiliser had been fitted badly and one of the solder joints had been intermittently breaking inside the heatshrink cover. Also the temperatire sensor as already mentioned was reading a constant 110ish degrees. Sweet as a nut now, and although £350 sounds a lot, if I'd done that to start with I would have saved loads. I won't be dismissing them as easily next time anyway.

Use the following link for some pictures of what mine looked like, think there was definite problems with cylinders 1 & 6 :shock: which are normally the first to go. A mate of mine is a tool maker and hes got some bore guages to check the internal diameter and any signs of avalisation. Can't remember the figures now but they didn't look too bad, maybe half way to minimum limit on the bore diameter. http://the-corrado.net/.archive/forum/viewtopic. ... 43&start=0 At the very least it looked like a rings problem, which means the block needed taking out for honing so I thought fcuk it and got the thing rebored to 82.5, and got matching mahle pistons and rings fitted. Could have been done cheaper but this is now a lifetime investment for me. This all started with a bit of grey smoke when booting it, and on overrun (87,000miles btw). Thinking valve stem seals and guides I thought I'd just whip the head off, disassemble the head, get the machining done then put it back together again. :? Will be doing a proper compression test before I do anything next time, although I did have the starter motor compression test they do at the bosch tune-up garages saying it was fine.

Up to the electode? Do you mean the plugs were sitting in pools of oil which covered the connection to the leads? Can't see how oil would come from the engine, pass up through the threads and sit ontop. Probably rocker cover gasket as kev says.

I've had this problem. If I remember right I installed the main program, then the patch included on the copy I got off of ebay. I don't think it would run at all without the patch. I think the problem you described happened occassionally after this to. I just do a search for something, then use the main page link on the search results page to return to the contents which should then display. No idea why that works btw.

Cheers coolrado for the part numbers. Will look into that. I haven't noticed any uneven wear, and the wheels come off ok. Its just when I took it for laser assignment they said one of the axles was bent, will have to dig the receipt out to remember which one. :roll: I've had 2 mk2 gti's and 1 mk1, and all have been neutral to slighty back happy if provoked. Thought that was standard handling from the earlier golfs.

I thought I would have to change the whole beam, and I've already reached near reposession getting the lump fixed. Any idea how much it cost you to get the stud axle, and how are they changed? When I get the money I'll sort it and the rear bushes. I'm abit worried about loosing the back-end sliding though if I get it fixed, went from Golfs to Corrado to keep that trait.

I don't understand, mines got oversteer and doesn't need that much provoking. I do have a rear stud axle which is sitting at an unstandard angle which can't be adjusted though. And the back end tends to skip about over bumps and cats eyes which may be down to shot rear bushes. Does the rear beam actually twist then? Being so big I thought that was the reason why the old golfs used to lift the rear wheels so easy when lowered.

Plus 1000's if the bottom end is shagged, pistons, rebore, big ends, main bearings. May aswell chuck in a new oil and water pumps, sump gasket. When I get a chance I'll post the complete list of bits I bought from mine. Mostly VW, running better and better now but will be the last car I ever have given the amount it owes me. That's if I don't wrap it round a tree in the meantime. :?

Only reason I got the block bored to just under 3.0 was because it was shagged, and I preferred to get the original block reworked rather than get another block and possibly inheret other compatibility problems. This has probably been asked plenty of times but can a 24v head fit the 12v block? Are they variable valve timing aswell?

I found fitting poly bushes with a shed load of copper grease stops them sqeaking. Have had them on a mk2 for years now and they're still quiet. Would still use original stuff though after a mechanic told me not to fit them cos the handling will be sharper but the difference between grip and no grip is reduced. Me did it anyway, and then threw it into a forest on a wet road, grippy one minute, backwards the next. :roll: Might have had something to do with the speed aswell though. :?

MoonlightVR, when do need the order / money by? Also, does the kit come with jubilee clips or some equivalent?