Toad

It's a boy Toad! Are you dreaming about being a girl again? LOL I'm lovin the Gooney and i can reach the pedals so, i'm gonna get on that insurance!!!!!! :D :D Hehe, yeah I want to go back to being a bird. Glad you're enjoying the car... Had any more phone calls from doctors? ;)

:) You just need some valvers now...

Glad you got it matey. Will be fun to start playing with her...

I'd definitely change the gearbox mount. if it's the rear one, use a mk2 tdi unit, it's cheaper and more solid. Only £15 from GSF and quick to fit. The engine and gearbox can still move a lot when blipping the throttle, especially on shoddy mounts.

You might want to order a new crack pipe, or a gruven parts alloy one too, as they get fragile with age and you might damage it when doing the stat housing.

Seal kits are easy to throw into the calipers. The rears need you to unwind the piston from the caliper, but this sort of helps in a way. But a stick on the brake pedal to stop fluid escaping the system when the calipers are removed and get them all shotblast, be careful with the rubber seal on the handbrake mech on the rears. Paint them up and put a nice layer of copper grease around the aforementioned seal sto help prevent it corroding in the future. Caliper carriers also like attention, I'd clean them, and file the pad guides square, paint the other surfaces, and fit new rubber boots on the pins. The rears can be a bugger to remove, so use a punch to beat the allen key headed bolts a bit to help loosen them. if you need more clearence take the bolt out the bottom of the rear shock to let the akle hang a little lower. You might neet to beat the allen key in afterwards, but this will only serve to help. Goodridge flexi lines are a reasonable investment (£55 at GSF) Front Brembo (standard not drilled etc) disks from GSF are pretty good, EBC greenstuff front pads are alright too, genuine VW rear disks, bearings and pads normally do the trick for me. oh, And don't sleep with badgers...

Search for thermostat housing on here, there's loads of info and a walk through guide.

top height, bottom rims.

I was just about to post up that I've got one of them sat on the bench. The plastic washer thing in the other photo, do you mean the one round the outside of the metal cap? Or the rubber mount you can see underneath? You can undo that nut and remove the to plate fine, the spring compression is held by a threaded section lower down.

I did hear that the 312s can suffer from brake fade on a fairly rapid car. What about a 5 stud brembo conversion off a leon? You might be looking at changing an awful lot of parts to fit VR hubs too.

I think I've read that the joints wear on the rack ends as well as the ball joints going. Would be worth replacing the complete track rod I reckon, I believe the new VW one comes with the steering ball joint too.

Is it the passenger side that you have had issues with the shock? This could have a lot to do with it. I'd not want to drive a car with it missing as all the torque from the engine is imparted in a twisting motion on the front bolt. It don't take more than a couple of seconds to check Jim. drive the car onto a brick and you can reach the subframe and will be able to feel the bolt, or indeed the large hole.

yup. My local dealer is most helpful with things like this.

I bought one from VW in the summer. The base is made of three bits, so the side is fairly cheap, and the back is one piece but common to another car so also fairly cheap. Think the base one was £35ish

Nah, it's just as tight as a motherrutter. Are the hubs on the car? Are the brakes still attached? If not you're in for a mare. I use a 3/4 bar and socket. you'll need to stop the hub rotating so use wheel bolts and a long bar to stop it rotating. And get a fat man to sit on it for good measure.

The VR6 and G60 calipers and carriers are the same items, it's just different disks you need.

To be perfectly honest, you can blame me as much as Royal Mail, I should have been quicker getting to the post office. Sorry!

Think yours is a VR6, so you'll need to buy a sump gasket from VW as there are no pattern ones, and it costs £35ish. Think the sumps themselves are fairly reasonable from VW too.

Am I the only one who doesn't entirely understand what is going on? Anal Mania 15 has a more understandable plot. Also, I'm old. Has she not thought about the potential tarmac rash issues she faces if she falls off?

What sort of road is it? Has anyone reported the pothole to the council. Basically the council's defence is that if they don't know about a pothole, they cannot repair it, so it's not their fault. Which seems harsh from someone with a knackered wheel's perspective I know.

Think it's £30 and the DVLA can confiscate the plate from you for misuse.

lol. 8mpg sir? Build a 110 double cab with a van back, i.e. like a csw but with no windows in the back, and a roof tent, as has been mentioned, 200tdis seem good, and the parts are probably finding thier way around Africa. Even if you could garuantee everything wasn't going to break, what if someone rammed you? I didn't mean to sound quite so negative earlier.

Whoa!!!! If you really want to drive across Africa, don't get a forward contol, especially a V8. Buy a defender/110, you can get parts for them literally anywhere, you can't get forward control bits in a random African villiage.... Love Forward controls though.

Lol. Apathy for the win...

It's very nice when everything is re rubbered and new. Good work Jimbo.