mic_VR

Simply amazing, I can't wait to see this thing finished and in the flesh. Congrats sir on some superb work! :salute:

trudubrstu, :lol: cheers mate. I aim to please and I'm hoping to speak to Andi about putting it on the wiki. mattkh, Don't worry, the thermostat only really seems go in one way, well on the VR anyway, which was with the spring facing into the housing (makes more sense when you've got it in front of you but you'll see what I mean). As for the leads, on the VR the coilpack has the numbers on it and you just match it up with the correct lead for that cylinder, which if already clipped into the plastic covers in correct order is quite straight forward. If not the cylinders are numbered as follows (standing in front of the car looking at the engine) back 3 cylinders from left to right are numbers 1, 3, 5. Front 3 (L to R) are 2, 4, 6. Hope this helps

Sounds like thermostat to me I'm afraid mate. The boiling over is probably occuring because the stat isn't opening up enough. Get it out of the car and test it in some hot water. Should start to open at about 80c and be fully open be fully open about 110c? (someone on here will know for certain). If you're really not sure try running the car without the thermostat in at all and it'll run cold all the time, this isn't a good idea for too long but is a definite way of proving the stat is faulty

Goldie, yeah I replaced the main housing with a new vag part but both of my connection hoses were fine. Part was 021 121 117A and set me back a massive....... £26.87! As for the seals, the one between the housing and the cylinder head wasn't there. Completely destroyed, all that remained one bit about 1cm long attached to the housing. dinkus, I'll send him a PM, cheers mate

Cheers guys, only sorry I couldn't get it up in time to help a few of you out. DanVW, Goldie, I used my old thermostat as I've never had a problem with it overheating. I've heard about all the issues with the newer vw ones and tbh I'm taking a bit of a risk not replacing mine while I had the chance. But I've done about 60/70 miles it in today with plenty varied driving and water temp has been rock steady at 85c all day so fairly happy that all is well.

After all the fun I had with the replacment of my thermostat housing I decided that maybe a write up was in order. Ok the first thing is to drain the coolant from the system. Found the easiest way to do this was to crawl under the car and undo the drain plug on the underside of the drainage pipe('crackpipe'). Get under the car and look up between the rad and the engine block and you'll see it. Just be careful to have something ready to catch the water and have something to cover your eyes as you will get coolant splash on you. Now remove the plugs from the coilpack and move out of the way, and if you can (I couldn't :( ) remove the plastic cover from on top of the coilpack. Now undo the four bolts holding the coilpack in place using a 5mm allen key attachment and a socket set, and unclip the electrics and remove/put the coilpack somewhere safe. Next thing is to remove the 3 hoses that attach to the housing. Watch the bottom rad hose as there will still be a bit of water left in the rad that hasn't drained off and I also found it easier once i'd removed the fan electrics and tucked out of the way. The hoses were a pain in the a*@e to remove and i'll admit that I did swear a little bit at this point, ok a lot! :oops: Make sure you have a good pair of mole grips is my tip and something to ease the hoses off the housing. Ok now disconnect the electrics from the senders and tuck out of the way. The housing is held onto the engine with 3 bolts for which you'll need your 5mm allen key attachment again. The front 2 are easy to get at and are just behind/to the right of the senders. The rear one is a bit more tricky (cue more swearing). This one is a short bolt at the back of the housing and is recessed between the housing and the cam chain cover. To get this one you'll need a universal joint and extender bar on your socket set but it should come out quite easily. Now you're ready to remove the housing from the car. Pull it towards the battery but you'll need to give it a good bit of force as it'll be quite well attached to the drainage pipe but don't worry, it will go. Now the housing is out of the car, strip it down and check it over for any damage/cracks. Also have a good look at your senders and thermostat for any damage or dodgy looking marks. My thermostat and senders were fine, as were the lower and upper connection joints. The housing though was cracked all around where it attaches to the cylinder head. Now it's time to clean up any parts you're not replacing with a cloth and some engine degreasant, I used Auto Glym Engine cleaner as it doesn't corrode plastics. Then you can rebuild your new housing up in the comfort of your kitchen (don't tell the missus) with all new seals, any new parts and all the freshly cleaned old parts. VW recommend that you put all the seals in dry but I used very very small bit of clean oil to make it easier to put all the parts back together and help the seals sit correctly, but I'm not sure how much difference it makes. Now you'll need to clean up the face on the cylinder head with the engine degreasant and a little bit of emery cloth, you can also check over the electrics and the coilpack and clean/repair as required. My coilpack had a very slight crack so I got some epoxy resin glue on it to make sure it doesn't get any worse. Once all the areas are cleaned time to put the housing back in. Reverse the removal procedure and all should be fine, although I little more swearing my be needed in order the line up the housing ready to put the bolts back in! VW say you should torque the bolts up to 10nm but my torque wrench doesn't register that low so you'll have to use your better judgement as to how tight you go, sorry I can't be more accurate on this. Then its time to refit all the hoses. TOP TIP - make sure that when you put the hoses back on go: small hose at the front, then bottom rad hose, and lastly top rad hose. Making sure you line up the clips in such a way that it is easy to get at them again at a later date. Believe me, if I ever meet the person who put the ones on my car originally in such a stupid manner I swear I will not be held responsible for my actions :mad: Reconnect all your electrics up to the sender, put the coilpack back in and reattach ALL the spark plug leads :oops: and generally give the engine bay a good clean up and make sure you've not buried any tools in and around the engine area. Then its time to refill with coolant and run up to temp. VW state that you should use a coolant mixture of 35% anti-freeze. As the VR coolant system holds about 9 litres in total I used 3 litres of G12+ coolant and topped up with distilled water. This should give you almost the correct mix, just top up with pure coolent if you lose little amounts to start with. I know that people have differing views on how to fill the system but I filled from the header tank with about 5 litres of the mixture then started the car with the cap off the header tank and slowly filled up with the rest of the mixture as the car warmed, letting all the air out of the system and making sure I had the heating on in the car on max to make sure the heater matrix got filled. Be careful when the car gets up to temp as it can overflow but just get the cap on quickly and you should be ok. Just make sure you take your time and fill slowly. Once the cap is back on make sure all your pipes are warmed up nicely, especially the top and bottom rad hoses. Check all around for any leaks or anything untoward and let it idle for a few more mins. Then, if all is ok and you're feeling brave enough, take it for a spin and enjoy the fruits of your labour! :D Hope this is of help to others and I'd like to give a massive thanks to all those that helped me while I did mine, a special thanks to big_chris1981 for all the advice and all the part numbers which can be found in this thread. http://the-corrado.net/.archive/forum/viewtopic.php?t=54730&highlight=

Ok well i'm thinking of doing a right up later but the seals I used were 021 121 119A - x1 - Housing to cylinderhead seal N101 392 01 - x2 - Crackpipe to lower connection socket and to thermostat housing seals N901 368 02 - x1 - Thermostat seal N903 168 02 - x3 - Sender units seals Hope this helps.

All fixed now, i'll get a pic up of my old housing tomorrow. Muchos thanks to big_chris1981, all went 'relatively' smoothly with a selection of carefully chosen swear words. But all done and running now with the correct coolant and everything! :mrgreen:

Anyone got any good ways of cleaning the inside of a header tank? Took mine off whilst sorting out my water leak and it's full of brown gunk. Any ideas?

Which is another joke. How long have we known that income tax cuts are the least fair way of redistributing wealth among the population? Though at least he's made the first little baby step towards simplifying the tax system by getting rid of one of the bands. (Why do we need bands at all??!) Don't forget he may be cutting the basic rate band from 22% to 20% but he's getting rid of the 10% band altogether. Which means that a person earning £20K is only going to be about £20 better off. Classic gives with one hand, takes with the other!

:twisted: Turbo powered Bug!!!!!! Mr Beige you know me too well...... I once drove a friends turbo'd bug at Santa pod, that thing was lethal! Sub 13sec 1/4mile and in the real world it would easily show the merc/bmw/subaru drivers that their cars ain't always as quick as they think.

Although the good folks of the CF have over reacted to the whole tax thing, i still think some very valid point have been raised. TBH i'm just glad that i'll be able to afford my car tax this month, although I'm not so hopeful for subsequent months now that good old Gordon has screwed us all on Income tax! :cry:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/DG_066693 Corrado is going to be £180 for the RFL. £5 increase isn't too bad really.

Beetle! Think that chasing the local chavs around in a Corrado is fun?, just wait to see the shock on their faces when you do it in a 35 year old bug!

Cool, I can't get it up on a ramp at the mo so I think I'm going to get the drain plug out, drain the top half, then get the thermostat housing out of the way and drain the rad out of the bottom hose. All good fun. Cheers Chris, again :oops:

ok, having had a closer look at the pipes etc on the vr I'm not sure on the best way to drain the coolant. Removing the bottom rad hose seems the logical choice but is a bugger to get at, and if i use the drainage plug I assume i still need to drain the rad somehow? any ideas chaps/chapettes?

You're kidding! I've got to get my insurance before I can tax the car, that won't be until next week now...... Damn money grabbing b*****ds! :mad:

Got my renewal through today, £175 for the VR which i guess isn't the worst in the world. Only hope it doesn't go up straight after the budget, ie: before i get a chance to pay it! :( plateletboy, I completely agree with what you're saying. I'm lucky enough to live close enough to walk to work but half the people dropping their kids off at the various schools in cambridge probably only live in the city like me but still insist on using the car day in day out. I'm currently only using my car at the weekend but if the tax went up a load i think i'd be tempted to try and get my monies worth

Unfortunately didn't get much chance to look at it over the weekend in the end. Think the oil is coming from around the chain housing covers above the thermostat housing. I think i'm just going to get all the pipes off and have a good look at it....... if i get a chance in this crazy weather....

Amazing pics mate, first one is my fav. as others have said, wish i could do that....

whilst looking at taking the housing off, noticed quite a bad oil leak. Problem is that the engine is so covered in crap that i can't really see which bits are worse! Hopefully I'm going to be able to get on today and clean it all off and then have a better idea of what to do next. In reality the oil loss isn't stopping it running whereas the water loss means i cant move it at the moment. so still fixing that first but if i can i'll look at the oil leak at the same time i will All good fun! :roll:

Ok this problem is turning out to be a bit trickier than I first thought. Anyone members live close to cambridge who are good with/have experience of the VR engine who might be able to offer a second opinion?

We'll tried to relocate the CC but just couldn't get happy with it. So it's now gone. Black tube blocked and clear tube venting to atmosphere (down the side of the airbox and out of the hole where the CC used to be) Car starts and runs fine so have now drilled the airbox directly above where the CC used to be and fed a cold air feed down to next to the towing eye, where the outside air temp is. Can't take it out for a run though unfortunately as it's got a major water leak but when i do I'll let you all know how it feels/runs etc. JayG60, i'd say, judging from your pick, that you'll need to be blocking the larger tube (the one resting on your little finger in the pic) although Mr Wire will be able to tell you for sure

Nicely done mate, I'll get onto my local stealer in a bit to sort it out.

Very true, but i've found that the previous owner was not exactly mechanically minded. Probably start taking all the bits off and find more issues with it. TBH i wonder sometimes how he kept it running!