tonedef

Picture 4, that's horrible.................with a capital HORRIBLE!!!!!

A question to those who've fitted rear beams, when did you torque the mounting bolts? Maybe I'm reading this wrong but to me the manual says two different things......on the attached extract from the manual I've clouded the two bits that I'm looking at. One states that the mounting brackets are installed at 12°30’ ± 1° to the beam. The other states that the bolts are tightened with the beam at horizontal, but I've measured the angle of the brackets in the car and they sit at 20° so what's all this 12°30’ ± 1° about, why such an accurate measurement for installing them if you're simply going to tighten them up at some other angle? Or am I missing something? P388.pdf

Got the freshly powder coated rear beam back in with it's new bushes and brake lines. Feeling good as it seems like months since I've bolted anything on, it's always taking things off and adding to the shopping list!

It's the full Thule setup, looks like it has roof rails but the pieces that run front to back are supposed to clamp inside the door frame too and fix the rear bar. I still use them but clamped into the rear window rubbers because it lets you get the rear roof bar further back. It's over complicated and you don't really need the front to back bars but I didn't know that when I ordered them! The photo might make it clearer.

It tugs a bit if you forget they're up there and throw it too hard into a corner!

We bought our first Corrado, a 1990 16V in 95 when we already had two kids, one at four years and the other at two years so used a booster seat and a baby seat. We swapped that car in 2000 for the VR6 we still have now. From 95 to 05 it was our only car so fetched timber from Wickes on the roofrack, went to Ikea for flatpack furniture, took everything to the tip which needed to go and took a family of four on holiday a few times in between. We attended our first CCGB meet at Brooklands in 96 with a boot full of bags, pushchair etc as we were on the way to the south coast on holiday! I have personally never understood why people say they need a four dour car once they have kids, it always seems such a squeeze getting babies in and out of car seats through those tiny back doors? Since retiring the C as regular everyday bus to weekend car and currently restoration project we've had such sensible family cars as a MkIII GTI an Audi S3, a MkIV R32 (all 2 doors) and currently a MkII 3.2 TT which after much soul searching we chose over a Porsche 911 as it has a hatchback and is therefore more practical! Both the girls have their own cars these days (one a Leon and the other a Lupo) but we have on occasion all squeezed into the TT!!! We did around 50K miles in the valver and have currently done 80K in the VR6, all pretty much trouble free. I'm sure we'll start racking that up again when the VR is back on the road hopefully some time next year but probably the year after! Not many photos of it loaded up although there is one that I guess I've posted before when discussing roof racks!

For the first CCGB meeting at Brooklands (25/08/1996) we were on our way from Chesterfield to Bournemouth in our first Corrado, G43 KUH, for a family holiday so attended with two kids and a car filled with bags, push chair and buckets & spades! You can see me and my oldest daughter in the second photo next to the centre car, fourth row. She was 6 at the time, now 21! The kids loved playing in the planes and with the Brooklands cat......a cat which later went on to trash Jeremy Bromley's tent and finish his day off in fine style considering he arrived on the back of an RAC transporter due to a seized gearbox in his G60(?)

Yesterday for a change I didn't add anything to my ever increasing shopping list. I took the rear coilovers off, stripped everything and wire brushed the rather grim looking threads, checked that the platforms do still move (a bit!) and then coated things up with ACF50 and rebuilt them. Today my dad collected the parts from the powder coaters that he dropped off for me a week ago....cheers dad! Rear beam, both front crossmembers, bottom arms and anti roll bar, £50, most impressed, there'll be some more parts to drop off soon at those prices. The pictures aren't great because it's cold and dark outside so I wasn't hanging about but everything looks better than new!

Only the rear beam this week, all the other bits came out last weekend! Car's currently sat on four axle stands with the engine on another pair of axle stands and a block of wood! Thanks for the heads up on the bushes, they're ordered and should be here this week, needing all the front bushes plus various bolts I've had destroy getting them out....one of the rear disk backplates virtually disintegrated as it came off today! I also had a worrying leak from the steering rack last week which looks expensive, I have a spare hanging up in the garage but not sure how good that one is either....can't be too much to rebuilding one if the seals can be found I'm sure.

Spent the day pulling and tugging the rear beam out then stripping it down ready for blasting and powder coating. Loads of seized bits, rusty bits and bits that'll need replacing.....I can feel a big shopping list approaching! Ended up with a big pile of bits to drop in at the powder coaters tomorrow!

I've got both the manifold and the throttle body in for sale at the moment for £30 each, TB inc postage and manifold plus postage. £50 for both collected, depending on whereabouts in Sheffield you live I could be pretty close to you too as I'm about 5 minutes from M1 J30. No spare rocker cover though.

Oh dear, the day mine was registered 01/11/95 it was Gansta's Paradise by Coolio Feat. L.V. So I tried for something better on the day I bought it 11/09/2000 and came up with Lady by Modjo......I give up!!!

I have grey leather recaros, very nice they are too!

Although I've not started looking seriously at what size item I can squeeze under the slam panel I've been looking at the condenser driers that Autokool list on ebay for the various VAG models, something like this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SEAT-ALTEA-LEON-TOLEDO-MK3-A-C-CONDENSER-NEW-/400038988237?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item5d242e89cd#ht_4155wt_1139 Which to me looks like it would kill two birds with one stone? My drier is currently squeezed under the right side arch liner where the carbon canister used to be and needs a hose to connect it to the condenser and then another hose back to the evaporator. Autokool are only up the road from me so I plan to visit with a tape measure one day and see what they can kit me out with! There seem to be loads of horror stories when it comes to brake bleeding and I've yet to have any problems with it....Get the car in the air but ensure the rear bias valve is fully loaded and then with an easi-bleed work rear left, rear right, front left, front right, ABS pump and finally the master cylinder and it's done. Half a dozen pumps on each one before topping up the brake fluid each time works a treat......or maybe I'm missing out the step that makes it difficult???

I know it's a long shot but I need a gearbox for my daughter's Lupo 1.4 and wondered if anybody might have one laying about they'd like to swap for some beer tokens??? Code is FFR, think they were used in Polos too.

If hawwy's not interested in the steelies and winter tyres I'll have them. Sorry, forget that. I'm looking for a set for my daughter's Leon and it has 195/65R15 as standard so yours would probably a bit too much of a drop......back to looking!

^^^^^^^^^^^^Tony beat me to it but I was going to say the same thing!^^^^^^^^^^

The cooling fan stays the same as original, three speeds controlled by the existing fan controller, assuming that is you have the later fan controller. The relay for the a/c compressor clutch is in there but not used even if you have Diavia a/c system as that has it's own relay, the fans run exactly the same as before except that if CC is on the fans are never stopped and will run at minimum of speed 1 to keep the condenser cool.

Just crack on with it, it's only a handful of screws........................and then a couple of lacerated hands getting at the two nuts under the scuttle!!!!!

Here's a few photos of the passenger side shelf, it's not the prettiest thing but I think that by the time I got to this I'd probably had enough of the climatronic install! Hassan, you asked about the fans, noise and flow, can't speak for the other Tony's but my fan is really quiet, certainly no louder than the original until the flow is wound up that is. The flow rate is the biggest improvement from the install, even better than getting A/C in a previously non A/C car! As everyone has found at some time the fan in Corrado struggles to clear the windows, get in the car with wet clothes, put the fan on 4 and see a patch the size of your hand gradually clear on the screen.....The climatronic fan just blows it all away, screen and side windows too! I can only show my sunlight sensor from the outside as it's buried in the top of the dash, I put mine through the grill in the centre of the dash that's not a speaker with a small lens over it that I robbed from an old TV remote control!

I like that, it fits the dash much better than mine does, the Passat centre console is wider so the panel had to be cut down to fit which shows in the moulding plus it's a couple of mm proud of being fully flush on the front.....don't think I'll be changing it though, can't imagine the pain of doing it a third time!!!

I was trying to find a photo of mine to post but haven't got any on my computer and I'm hundreds of miles from my car up in Aberdeen until Friday. Basically I cut the back off the shelf until I could get it to fit into the car and then cut a piece of plywood to blank the back off. The plywood is then covered with a piece of carpet I cut from an old floor mat and stuck in with spray glue......it is however a perfect dark grey colour to match the interior. The shelf I have left is only about 20mm deep, enough for a couple of biros and little else!!! Only difficult bit if I remember right is that it took away one of the fixing holes for the screws that go into the centre console so maybe I ended up having to make a new hole......I don't remember exactly as it was way back in 2006 that I did mine. It's out of the car at the moment as I've not got around to refitting everything since I had the dash out for my OBD2 wiring so I can probably get some pictures at the weekend if you like.

I was just looking through the Passat drawings, mine comes from pin T28a/24 but I'm sure that's of little help. My vagcom does though talk to the climatronic controller perfectly well, it took no setting up it just worked from the first time I powered things up, easiest part of the install!

Gutted for you, it seemed to be going so well yesterday, all things considered anyway. I can't even volunteer to have a run over to offer some assistance as I'm in Aberdeen until Friday afternoon. Can the holes not be re-drilled to suit all the studs as long as the basics can be lined up such as the air intake and centre ducting? Problem is that you're breaking new ground here fitting a Mk4 CC box (if it is indeed a Mk4 box) to what is basically a Mk2 bulkhead.

Sorry I missed this earlier, everyone keeps dumping paper on my desk this morning and I don't seem to be getting through any of it! Good luck with the install, it's all straight forward and bolts into place just like it belongs there........except maybe for the parcel shelf big enough to hold one pen that you are left with??? I've been looking at the condensers with the drier built in from various random VAG motors, thinking I might try going that route which will get rid of one piece of piping. There are a number of condensers that seem to have both connections in the bottom left corner (looking from the front of the car) which would only need one short pipe connecting from compressor to condenser and then some kind of modification to get from condenser to evaporator pipe.......would certainly neaten things up a bit.