kerrly

Thats a nice corrado and it looks like its now in good hands. Very jealous of the VDO gauges, id love a set of those!

cheers, there is a danger that the longer it is off the road the more jobs I do and the "daily" starts becoming too nice to use all the time.. At this stage I want to have completely sorted engine, suspension and running gear all the potential rust issues done and be left in a position where long term it's a respray away from a minter. Man maths suggests that what it owes me now plus £1k for a respray combined with current prices of good ones around £2000-3500 should help future proof this one :-)

Had a productive day today. My brother very kindly organised a deal where I sold some wheels to SMITHY220 who is a professional welder.... well I didn't need the cash so we put a plan together for him to come down an help out. So the once nasty battery tray that looked like this: Luckily the inside chassis leg is perfect The top part of the tray was hacked out - i HATE spot welds - to leave this to work with Smithy hard at work YES all of this is getting done in a car park, no fancy workshop for me! getting there And done some extra bracing on the bumper mount for good measure Since I had removed the passenger side wing to make it easier to weld I thought I'd use now as an opportunity to remove the driver's side wing as the previous owner ran the car without inner arches so there was tonnes of mud/crap and a little hole... A little hole that became a BIGGER hole NO HOLE Also decided to wire brush the inner arch and apply a quick coat of Zinc so that tomorrow i can waxoil the whole lot And the passenger side now the welding is done. Hopefully tomorrow i will finish painting up all the inner arches, paint the insides of the wings, remove the front suspension in order to fit my new AVOs and make a start at painting the lower cross member and spend more time cleaning the engine bay. That's enough for one day!

Cheers chaps. The new parts should turning up at the weekend but there is still plenty of cleaning and prep work to do before the engine goes near the bay again. My only slight concern at the moment is being able to arrange a time for the welding to be done. That has the potential to slow things down but since the MOT is due at the end of April it would be foolish not to have the work done now.

update time. Got my head back from the machinist, 7 new valves , 4 new valve guides, 40thou skim and a proper clean. Cracked on and got the engine/box out and front end off after having few issues with a couple of the driveshaft bolts and continuing my bad luck with engine mounts - ANOTHER sheered bolt to deal with ..grrrrrrrrrrr Confirmation that the bottom chain snapped first then the chain wiped out all the tensioners. red circles highlight cracks and missing sections Also decided that whilst the front end is off I'm going to have a new battery tray welded in. Then the whole bay will be stripped/repainted where needed and covered in clear wax oil. Fortunately the chassis leg is spot on Also made a start at port matching the inlet manifold and giving it a clean. Finally my flywheel, off to be lightened a bit... it's stamped up Nov 2010 when the clutch was changed but the clutch is junk - very nearly on it's last legs. Just need the parts to arrive now.. --- head gasket kit and bolts --- timing chain and tensioner kit --- water pump --- auxiliary belt and tensioner --- sachs clutch kit --- crack pipe, thermostat housing and thermostat --- oil cooler seals --- oil filter --- sump seal --- rocker cover gasket That should** do it and hopefully this whole lot will be under £500.... not bad when a garage quotes £1300!

Cheers guys, it's been a worrying few days thinking about worst case scenarios and trying to guesstimate how much this little mishap is going to cost but Im confident that this won't be the death of the car. MOT is due in April so this is an opportunity to give the car a good going over, actually, thinking about it now might be a good time to get the battery tray welded up.... yet more jobs for the DAILY which reduce the time i can spend on the PROJECT.

Bit of an update, and certainly NOT the one I wanted to share. I was intending on fitting, new indicators, new AVO suspension kit, new front bushes and some different wheels but disaster struck. The lower timing chain snapped!!!!! Although when the engine first died it wasn't apparent that was what happened. There was a distinct lack of BANGS or knocking just 20mph>0 in a few yards after I switched the engine off. I tried to restart it once but the engine sounded a bit like Hammond's NOVA. The AA arrived (within 10minutes which is ASTONISHING) tried to turn it over again before dragging me home Once at home I tried checking the compression on cylinder number 1 and got ZERO not even a bit of movement from the needle. That confirmed that it was time to strip the engine and get to know a VR6 innards. Inlet & rocker cover off revealed, this, a slack looking chain. Then the next find... where has the lower timing chain gone... Umm this is meant to be in one piece upper guide. The plastic that is within the red ring has disappeared and must be somewhere! Off came it's head, that's 5 of the 12 valves wrecked After that it was time to see how many (if any) pistons survived, ALL OF THEM WOOOOOO HOOOOOOO my biggest concern was that the bottom end would be wrecked. Next task is to split the gearbox, get the block out for a thorough examination to find the remains of the timing chain and what it may have done. On the plus side (if there can ever be a plus to nearly wrecking an engine) this is an opportunity to future proof the engine with - new chains/tensioners - lighten/balance the flywheel, - replace the clutch - new rear crank seal - Port match/clean up the head with new valves/guides/stem seals - new headgasket/bolts and every seal - new crack pipe - new thermostat housing and thermostat - port match the manifold Looks like it will be off the road for a few weeks bit hopefully it will return a healthier 2.9 and not a 2.8 as a first feared.

Got a chance to spend a bit of time on the car today, slow progress due to the hangover from hell. Head is off.......... and the results are..... Which meant it was time to look at the pistons... No damage to any pistons was a very pleasant surprise. Plans now is to port match the head before sending it off to be stripped, new triple cut valves, stem seals and a light skim/clean up. Whilst that's being done, the flywheel will be lightened/balanced, new clutch sorted and strip the bottom end. At this stage im still completely unsure what I am going to find!!!! I'd love to use now as an opportunity to put a 6 branch and set of cams in to but that would eat into the G60 fund too much. Finally, as i'm going to start ordering parts what is the deal with the Mk4 2.8 24v Headgasket?

RB - thanks for advice especially regarding the crank - useful to know a 2.8 will work. Coulstar: I don't think I can do a OBD2 swap in less i have a whole mk3 golf donor car available which further complicates things. My current situation is I live in a flat with 1 reserved parking space, this has the mk2 golf in right now (no tax/test), then my brother puts his Corrado vr6 in one of the other residents spaces, my corrado VR6 is now dumped in someone else's space who may want to use it. I have two rented garages, one with my brother's mk2 polo (minus engine/running gear) and the other with the Polo running gear/engine and tonnes of other bits. I was able to use my dad's driveway which until recently had my Corrado G60 stored on it, now that is not an option due to building work at my dads house so the G60 is 25 miles away in a lockup. I can't buy another mk3 golf to park next to the corrado and do the swap in the car park, nor can the cars in the garages be moved hence I need to act fast an swap the bare minimum to get the car moving again. really appreciate all your input though :-)

^ well that's the issue I can afford to spend some cash on it as I got it exceptionally cheap. I could even sacrifice the full heated leather interior as a means of funding an engine as this Corrado is a "daily" more so than a keeper. The timing is so bad for me right now, I had planned on letting the tax expire on the VR6 at the end of March and getting my G60 on the road. The G60 still needs a few jobs like brake lines, rear brakes, waterpump/cambelt/charger belts a host of other service items plus MOT but it's just been relocated to a workshop that is 25miles from my house!!!! Hence no daily = no work on the other Corrado so I'm a bit stumped right now. The more I spend on the VR6 the less likely the G60 comes out next month and to be honest I want the G60 more!!

Agree with Stealth or Storm developments.

Thanks for all the feedback. Just to give you a bit more information about the later cam chain set up , the car had a new engine fitted at VW in 2002 (the short engine is listed as £4600 +VAT on the invoice and along with all the other parts replaced comes to over £6500! Having checked all the MOTs the engine has done around 100k. Hopefully I should have the head off at the weekend and can go from there. looking at this picture then, worst case now appears to be a snapped bottom chain which if the chain has then ended up wrapped around crank could have made a huge mess of the bottom end. It would be an enormous shame if the bottom end is dead! Ummmmm , I feel i can justify upper/lower chains/tensioners, HG, clutch, rebuilt head as i can most of it myself. Part of me thinks if I buy a cheap 2.8 it would be wise to do chains/tensioners/HG etc on that as well so I don't think I'd save a huge amount ,I'd be down on power and it would make the car less valuable come resale time.

The weather has been dreadful but I managed to get the cam and tensioner covers off....result... not good. It's tensioner failure note damage to the area around the top bolt and a 3inch section Managed to recover this part. too dark and crap now to continue, at this stage I have 4 more manifold bolts to undo and the headbolts and the head is off. At that point I can decide how far I need to go. 2nd hand head/clutch/tensioners or 2.8 VR, or VW heaven.

funnily enough I put a new coilpack on a couple of months ago, even paid a bit extra for a Beru one with 2year guarantee. The engine was running absolutely fine prior to today... at the time of death - coolant temp was 80, oil 88, 25miles at 29.8mpg , previously idling at 600rpm smoooth as. According to the service history it had a brand new engine fitted at VW in 2004 which would now be on around 90k

Hello all. Well today has had it's ups and downs. On the plus side I relocated my G60 to a new heated/lit/powered secure unit ready to make the final push to get it on the road. However on the way home in my VR6 I was doing around 20mph when it felt like I lost all power, I took my foot off the accelerator and the revs hovered at 1000rpm then dropped and I switched the engine off - IT DIDNT STOP ON IT'S OWN - The starter motors spins and it sounds like the timing has gone but DOESN'T sound like there is metal on metal contact and it's not knocking or banging more whining.... I have tried doing a compression test on cylinder number 2 ( front left - easiest spark plug to get to) and there is NO COMPRESSION. I ended up getting the AA to recover me (which it's worth mentioning, they had a mechanic with me in 10minutes - TEN minutes - AMAZING!!) Tomorrow I am going to strip the inlet manifold/rocker cover off and have a look at the upper timing tensioner/cams and also whip the spark plugs out. What do you think I am likely to find???? At the moment I'm undecided, my possible scenarios are: 1)if there is a obvious cam chain tension failure - whip the head off and if the pistons look ok, buy a second hand head, new timing chains/tensioner and get the clutch done. IF damage to the pistons to , then it's a case of find a cheap 2.8 or strip the car. 2) if there is no obvious damage to the tension & spark plugs all look ok - Crank position sensor??? but doesn't explain the funny sound when turning it over (compared to a traditional non starter from lack of fuel/air type scenario) I can swap the one off my brother's car to do a test. - Are they fragile??? Is it worth buying new just in case? 3) inspect the cams/tensioners, no sign of damage - book it into the garage for VAG COM , if that shows no electrical faults - crank sensor/cam sensor Are there any other tests I can do, I have a Bentley manual, plenty of tools but sadly no VAG COM and only a basic multermeter to work with. I appreciate you taking the time. Dave

^ as above if a G60 is maintained well then they are reliable. I've been quite lucky and over a few months scouring the classifieds got a 70mm pulley, SNS stage 5 chip, 4 branch + full system including decat, rsr outlet (although i need a silicone pipe to join the intercooler) - should be 185+hp all for around £300 I'm undecided on a camshaft upgrade im undecided, id love to try a G60 with a schrick split duration cam. Headwork is where I want to put my money next. 200-220hp is the sweet spot I think when it comes to balancing power/reliability. A diff is a great upgrade but another area of the drivetrain which can be changed to benefit the driving experience is the gear ratios - VR6 1st, 2nd and 5th would appear to be the preferred choice or a mk3 TDI as the longer 1st 2nd 3rd are a little less frantic.

Blimey, that is a lucky escape. As sad as it is to see another Corrado die it held up well , things could have been considerably worse. Get well, let the insurance companies do their job but don't let them mug you off when it comes to valuing your Corrado!!!!!!!!i

tut tut, that was a rather silly stunt. If only he'd had onboard diagnostics to tell him "danger to manifold" he could have avoided blowing his motor!

Woohoo, fingers crossed.

do you have one of these - think it's called a isv dampener??

^ quite. I don't like the use of stretch tyres but I am very interested in more information about tyre pressures

That will be a water pump then. My theory being, that when you are driving around you don't need the fan to be at all. The fans should really only be working if you are stationary in order to draw air through the radiator that would otherwise be getting pushed through by forward motion. On my 16v golf I had a passat radiator that was larger than a factory item , a standard oil cooler set up, standard G11 and OE thermostat and even on track I wouldn't see the temperatures you are seeing during road use. If you remove the coolant lid and run the engine do you see a constant flow of coolant back through the radiator return pipe ?

^ interesting, first time I have heard that one. So for instance a standard 205/50/15 on a Corrado is 32psi and you fit 205/45/17 instead. So the new wheel is 2 inches bigger in diameter but the overall diameter of the wheel & tyre is barely over an 1inch difference. Thus if it's 32psi standard, using your principle am I right saying 34psi for 16 and 36psi for 17 but that only works IF the tyre ratio is maintained as per factory IE 205/50 so reducing the tyre profile thus reducing the side wall area throw that calculation out?

And where exactly is the science that says 38-40PSI is what is needed? I'm not having a go at you as I can tell from your first comment that your reply is a bit tongue in cheek, I just find it bonkers that this trial an error approach results in giving general guestimates about what magic number will allow incorrectly fitted tyres/wheels to "work" Each to their own I guess.

Dam, i'm afraid beyond checking for vacuum leaks I can't offer much assistance, but well done on the work so far, the block/head/components look much better with a fresh coat of paint.