markrtw

I'm number 50!

Tried lubricating the clutch pedal hinge?

Yep, it should mean that a third of them are left on the road - I thought I rarely see another these days...

I once did a european jaunt like this (with gavkt) when we did the cannonball run round europe in a VR6. If I remember rightly we averaged 28.5 mpg with an average speed of 68mph for the trip. Our web site was http://www.corduroyslacks.com/cannonball/ and I think I wrote up all the details in a report somewhere on the site. The main thing I remember was roaring through the Alps along with an air cooled 911 - a superb time!

It's damp in the the handbrake cables freezing. If you have the centre tunnel plastics off, you will see the cables staying in the on position when the handbrake is lowered and if you tap them down, the brakes ease off. Try getting some wd40 down them. Also, just leave your car parked in 1st or reverse gear with the handbrake off.

My best to a tank was 507 miles (then it conked out) which works out to be 33.3 mpg. I always fill up with Shell loopy juice and every time I have manually worked out the MPG and compared it with on board readout, they have been within 0.1 mpg of each other. I normally fill up with £65-£70 of petrol and refill at 425-450 miles, but I do very little in town driving.

1987 Escort 1.4 GL 1989 Golf 1.6 CL 1990 Golf GTi 8v 1992 Golf GTi 8v 1986 Audi GT Coupe 2.2 1989 Golf GTi 16v 1990 Golf Driver 1.6 1990 Golf GTi 8v 1989 Golf GTi Convertible 1988 Audi 100 Avant 2.2 1991 Golf GTi 16v 1988 Golf GTi 8v 1995 Golf GTi 1992 Corrado 2.0 16v 1994 Corrado VR6 For some reason I have always bought VW Audi (I didn't buy the Escort).

Do they have hydraulic clutches? I thought they used cables like the mk2/3 golfs etc. If they do use a cable, then it sounds like the old self adjusting clutch cable self adjuster mechanism is on the way out. If so, just replace the clutch cable (you could even put in a manual adjust cable to eliminate the possibility of this ever happening again). Failing that, if it is hydraulic, I would guess at the clutch master cylinder from experience. I usually find that it the pedel can be returned to the top then it's master, if it wont, then it's the slave. Saying that, sods law you'll probably replace one to find it's the other! Hope this helps.

They were std on the earlier Golf Mk3 VR6s.

My 2p... When I had my head done I was having a chat with the head builder (one of the best in the business who works for tuners, racing teams and manufacturers) and he said that the VR6 springs are very good and rarely fail. I was going to replace them but he advised not to bother as only need replacing if they have a fault, so I didn't and have not regretted it. I used the INA buckets from GSF - no problems. I had the remap as I wanted one anyway after driving a mates VR (completely std) with a remap. It was just so much more responsive and had better torque through the mid range. Combined with my 263 cams, the car is much more responsive (night/day as previously mentioned), quicker and (on the rare occasion of not using the extra performance) the same or more economical. Overall it makes it much more enjoyable and the torque come in much stronger and earlier. Love it now :cheers:

I am keen to know the outcome as there is wear in my switch. To make my stereo work I have to push the key in (against the spring) in the ignition lock or partially turn it unlike other Golfs & corrados I have been in and occasionally the interior fan still works even with the key out of the ignition. On the subject of the swich itself, I have always read that the Genuine one is by far a much better quality item and can confirm that when I replaced the one years ago (14 years ago, doesn't time fly) in my mk2 golf, the cheap one only lasted 2 weeks before I had to replace it again.

Yes - same size wheels.

My parents once lost their locking key and called the RAC out. They have a huge array of locking bolt keys etc and got them off in a few seconds... Other than that Halfords sell locking bolt removal sockets (made by laser) for about a tenner which I have used (these rather makes a mockery of having the locking bolts in the first place).

The exhaust note sounding better suprised me. I have always thought my friends 92 VR sounds better than mine and I could only guess that since his was remapped (std cams, std exhaust + AMD remap years ago) that the optimised firing etc caused it. I have a Miltek and it now sounds more refined and a bit more impressive. I can only guess it's the optimised timing again along with the longer duration of the valves opening doing the trick. The cost: 1 clutch (my last was faulty and did 5000 miles) 1 coil pack some other bits & engine tidying remap 7 hrs labour Cams - new from the forum - £250 As Stealth were replacing the clutch, I asked them to drop in the cams and remap it at the same time. I did the head, chains, tensioners etc myself 5000 miles ago. I won't give you the cost as its what I negotiated myself with Vince, but I'm very happy with the results for the money. The headline figure is + 25 bhp, but these cams are not about the top end... The engine feels stronger, torquier and eager. The torque is way up and comes in much stronger much further down the rev range. It really goes from 3000rpm. It's hard to describe as if you just get in it and give it full blast you are not over-whelmed by it, but drive it a bit more normally then you really start to notice it. One the issues is that it's very smooth so you don't overly notice the extra oomph come in unlike a turbo. Its more subtle than that. Doesn't sound so good so far does it? Then you start to notice what it's actually doing. As it's much stronger you gather speed much more quickly and find you have to start picking braking points earlier. Pickup is much better. It feels much smoother like a new engine + some. I have an old rolling road printout somewhere and will have to compare it with the new one. They will be a fair bit different! Also, drive gently with the flow of the traffic on the way into work and the mpg is up. It's like it was a blunt instrument before and now its sharp. It's probably the best money I have ever spent on a car. After 145,000 miles it was probably in need of optimisation anyway, but from a previous rolling road day results, it's basic running before was not too bad. Oh - I fitted a new rear engine mount last week (the front one I did 5ooo miles ago). I didn't think the old one was too bad after all it's years, but I swapped it while trying to get to the bottom of the clutch judder I had. Crikey - what a difference. The old one had obviouly got soft over the years, but nothing noicable until the new one was in. The engine just feels bolted down properly and the pick up transmission slack is much better. It just helps to make the whole think more precise to throttle adjustments. I would heartily recommend renewing it if yours is 15years old! Overall I'm very happy.

Had a new clutch & had the 263 cams fitted (& some other little bits) and then it all re-mapped. Very happy. Can't believe I had waited this long to do this. It's smoother, sounds much better & goes like the clappers. I am now offically back in love with the thing now. (I was going to trade it in) :clap: Thanks Vince :notworthy:

When the old disks were removed, were the hubs cleaned up properly? If there is dirt or corrosion on the hubs the disks do not sit properly on them and can warp quite quickly. Are they grooved disks?

In the wiki there is a guide to replacing the tensioner bearing which is easy enough to follow and it only cost me a fiver. Do a search on yell.com for bearings to find your local seller.

I have had grief in the past trying to use non vw bulbs for this and getting the clocks out and finding the halfords bulbs would not fit correctly. They are cheap enough from VW - I think you need 2 for the clocks.

I had this once before on an Audi. The thermoswitch in the radiator had packed up. I replaced it and had no further issues.

I had exactly this issue and tried replacing the fan controller, and all the sensors, and thermositch and ran the tests as described in the "Definative VR6 Cooling Guide" In the end it was a break in the red wire to the fan from the fuse box as it passes near the suspension turret and the fan controller. There was a small nick out of the insulation of the wire and over the years moisture had slowly turned the copper to green dust through a 3cm section though it looked fine initially. It took a long time to work it out as some of the tests (like bridging the wires of the thermoswitch) gave me different results each time. In desperation I got out the multimeter and started continuity checking all the wiring (made more complicated by the air con that was also not working at the time, but I did not know if it was the caused by this problem - in the end it turned out that it had a different issue). I hope this helps.

I have been toying with the idea of chopping my blackberry 94 VR6 in the scrappage scheme, but this thread is making me think it may be better to sell it. Any ideas what it is realistically worth? It's done 144,000 and had the chains, tensioners, head, clutch done at 140,000. It has lots of history, heated leather and aircon. Everything works and it has the usual koni/H&R suspension setup which was done the same time as front wishbones and bushes 18 months ago and the heater matrix about 8 months before that. It also has 288mm brakes and a Miltech exhaust & std speedline wheels. It's my daily driver for the last 3 years and has never broken down (now I'm asking for trouble). It sounds great, but it has 2 issues - since the clutch was done the take up is very jerky/snatchy (though gear change is fine) and the paint work is crap (not rusty) so it needs a respray. Oh - I just remembered there is a bad chip in the windscreen as well. What could I realistically get for it? I see lots of different asking prices banded around, but I have no idea what they are actually going for. Is it worth more that the magic £2k?

What year is your car? The Eibach (as well as most of the aftermarket springs) use the earlier (larger) top plates and need to be swapped over if yours is a later car with the smaller top plates. I think that the change over is 92/93 ish (I'm sure someone will advise exactly). I had to do it with my early 94 M VR. HTH

Hello, The heater matrix is std across the golf range - there is no difference for air con as the 2 sytems are not linked except by the air ducting. I think the thing to do is fix the heating and then look at the air con. As long as the blower fan is operating on speed one, then the air con should work. If the air con does not click in at all that would point to a fuse or low gas pressure in the system or if the blower does not work on speed one, then there may be an issue with the blower speed resister and the aircon takes a live feed from it. It was my one that has the aircon and it didn't work at the time anyway, I spend ages trying to understand the air con system and how it intergrates with the the car's electrics until I found out what was wrong with it. But it's perfect now! The best way to describe the air con system in the blower ducting is that the main heater matrix is mounted in the middle of the dash in the big box behind the centre console and there is an aircon cold matrix upstream of it about halfway down the blower tubing directly in front of the passenger seat. The systems do not touch. The aircon matrix is either on or off and the heater matrix is always on, but air either passes through it or bypasses it depending on the position of the airbox flaps which are positioned by the heater controls on the dash (hence its a good idea to lube the cables when the dash is out). So you can have the aircon on and still heat the air which is useful in winter for quick window demisting as aircon dehumidifys the air. I'm at the top end of the county in the little town of Buckingham and work over the border in Oxfordshire, but if I'm ever down your way I'll keep an eye out for you. :salute:

Hi, I have the Davia air con and I have replaced the matrix and I have also replaced a matrix on a friends VR6 without aircon. Just get a mk3 golf valeo matrix (forgive my spelling) from German and Swedish as it's the same as the one you will get from a dealer (it comes with a foam bit you stick on it when fitting and a little white bit of plastic that you spend the whole job trying to figure out what its for and then throw away). Thats all you need in parts as far as I remember. You will have to take the whole dash out (that you don't have to do without aircon) which is quite a ball ache and then detach the main air box/heater matrix housing (the bit behind the centre console) from the air intake piping that comes from the blower fan and the matrix thing for the air con (the area in front of the passenger thats hidden behind the shelf under the glovebox). It's fairly obvious once the dashboard is out. I cannot remember if the instructions I followed were printed from the wiki or if I just searched for it. Some of the dash bolts are tucked up in the bulkhead in the engine bay and are a pain to find, so a guide to find them is helpful. I did it in a (long) day. It's not difficult, but it is time consuming getting the dash out and back in and reconnecting everything. I would suggest using some masking tape and labeling the wiring as you disconnect everything to make life a little easier when rebuilding it and just be methodical and don't rush it. It also gives you the chance to tidy up any wiring (if needed) and to secure everything down behind the dash to stop any rattles. When I did my friend's VR6, I took the chance to cut a bit out of the air ducting behind the stereo and plastic weld (soldering iron to melt it together) in some other bits of plastic to reseal it to allow more space for the stereo wiring. Best of luck to you!

A photo may be of help.