Lufbramatt

ive got a set of german spec VW fully tinted rear lights on the back of the passat, theyre quite dark and passed the mot fine last year . . .

hehe glad you found it :)

newspaper works for cleaning windows (same as with vinegar) because of the high acidity level of the pulp they use and in the ink- hence why newspaper goes yellow so quickly as it oxidises.

I got one of the orange silverline rotary polishers from toolstation.com and have to say ive been very impressed with it (although ive only done my bonnet and half of a scrap fiat uno to test it out lol) but the crappy paint on the fiat that hadnt been washed for about 5 years came out really good lol cant wait till i get a nice dry day so i can do the rest of teh car, my roof really needs doing but need to take the roof rails off really as they get in the way.

check the wishbone bolts through the bushes that go into the subframe. mine did exactly the same thing that you describe. they have to be quite tight- get a torque wrench on them. mine were "tight" but i bought a decent torque wrench (£50 Teng one rather than borrowing my Dads £15 halfords jobbie lol) and it turned out they needed about another 20nm. Think its 140nm they need. Sound disappeared instantly. Literally less than 1/2 a turn cured it. I had been a bit cautious tightening them when i did the bushes as i didnt want to rip the captive nut out of the subframe, but they do need to be on the tight side tbh.

walesy- thats Tim's jack/stand thing isnt it? think he took all the pics down from public forums for the mo as he might be able to get a patent on it or something? unless theyre new pics hes posted up, in which case ignore me hehe

if you look a the aerodynamics of the car, the "corner" between the bonnet and the screen is a high pressure area where air kinda bunches up rather than flow straight over the car. The extra pressure here (where the heater intake is) forces more air through the system when your going along :) The heater motor might be getting a bit tired though which is why it needs a helping hand by the air pressure- which would explain why the thermal fuse in the resistor pack blew- so might be worth taking it out and giving it a clean out and lube/replace the bearings. Apparently you can get ball bearing races meant for radio control cars that will fit in place of the stock bearings, so might be worth trying a decent model shop that does RC stuff as they normally have a box full of random ballrace bearings you could look through.

those little baggies are actually really good (expensive) sound deadening. Basically it works by converting the vibrations in the panel into small amounts of heat energy because of the friction from the particles rubbing against each other. i wanted some for a loudspeaker project i did at uni, in the audio community its much sought after as theres actually some science behind how it works, but was put off by the price! I'd leave it there if i were you, tbh it probably works better than most aftermarket sound deadening.

couple of layers of normal rubber carpet underlay cut to the same shape as the oem stuff and double sided taped together? should be some nice offcuts in teh skip round the back of your local carpet store :D or if you want the proper stuff: http://www.automobiletrim.com/sound-proofing.html

well the second hand prices of pre 2001 performance cars are gonna go up, thats for sure. My best mate is a huge Alfa fan, hes currently got his 2002 2.0TS GTV up for sale, hes gonna trade it for a 2000 3.0 V6 GTV and spend the money hes gonna save on road tax on the extra insurance 8)

was a VW promo shot back in the day wasnt it?

ive got some 25mm^2 welding cable running my amp (which incidentally is the same as yours) and its fine. Got it cheap from ebay, works out about equivalent to 3 guage AWG, and the insulation is nice and bendy so its easy to route through the car. And its black which i prefer in the engine bay, didnt want bright blue/red cable running through there! the manual for the amp suggests to use 2x20 amp ATO fuses, so i used a 40 amp AGU fuse and its been fine. BTW i have a scan of the manula for the amp. if you need it, pm me your email address.

ive got all black pillar plastics, my issue is that ive got a glass sunroof out of a mk4 passat and the interior slidey cover bit is a slightly different shade of grey (bluey grey rather than beigey grey) so im thinking solution = make it all black :D

It is vinyl/plastic paint supplied by dgarwood on here (see a few posts back and you should find him). I sprayed the headlining directly. Few things I would say - it needs a lot of paint. I used 2 full cans on that and to be honest it could do with another one, to get it really evenly covered. To be honest I don't think any of the varaibility will be visible in the car, but it's down to how much of a perfectionist you are (which I am :lol: :lol: ). Also I haven't done the sunroof yet as I can't get it out of the car - therefore that is going to be fun as it will be sprayed in the car. looks like ill be needing a good few cans to do my passat estate with its acres of headlining :shock: dgarwood has pmed me but cheers for the info :D

awesome work, been searching all over (ford and rover forums too :shock: ) to find if anyone has successfully dyed their headlining. so what paint are you suing to do the headlining fabric itself?

headlinings not too hard- did one on my own in a passat estate :shock: without mangling it, but can see how 2 ppl would be a good idea :)

some excellent info on this thread, cheers guys. I own both a 1990 passat and a 1995 passat, and the shift is very different between the 2 (they have similar milage). Both go into reverse and 5th with no problems. The 90 has the earlier shift tower and no weight, whereas the 95 has the later tower and shift weight. To be honest I find the shift to be much better on the 90 passat, although is is slightly more "clunky" (the 95 feels like a much more modern car) the throw is slightly longer with teh earlier tower and the gears are much easier to find. The 95' gears are much closer to the point that it is very easy to "lose" 4th, which is not good when trying to shift quickly. Eventually the engine out of the 95 will be going in the 90 shell, and i think ill be sticking with the early gearstick-end shift tower (re bushed) with the gearbox and shoft weight out of the 95.

does it pull backt he other way under braking? check all your wishbone bolts, should be really tight else the wishbone was move around, depending on what ones loose decided what ay it pulls.

sounds like it needs a new throttle cable, ive just bought a mk4 passat that was the same.

excellent info, cheers for the write up. do you have the part numbers of the new bushings that you used? cheers :D

those roomsters are pretty cool imo, but cant help thinking it would be better if the side windows+back seats wernt there like a skoda "caddy" type van. Would be a damn cool works van :) Love the way the screen and front windows wrap around the front with the black a-pillars.

yea pretty easy, there are two 6mm allen bolts that hold it to the boot floor, these were a pig to get out, ended up drilling the heads and knocking them round with a cold chisel, but the ones on the mk4 passat came off easy so kept the bolts from that. then just a case of bolting the new on on and adjusting it so the boot closes properly (theres a floating captive nut so theres a degree of adjustment possible).

ahhh just solved this on the passat- the issue is with the metal hook/eyelet thing on the boot floor that the tailgate latches to. Have checked the part numbers and the corrado looks like it uses the same parts here. The issue is the early eyelet has a crappy plastic insert which the latch hooks on to, this wears out so you get a few mm of play between the latch and the eyelet which causes the squeaky rattling as the tailgate moves around. I found out that late mk4 passats have a different eyelet which has a round metal bush rather than a plastic insert which holds the tailgate latch much more securely and is a straight swap for the original one. Also has the benefit of making the boot open with a satisfying clunk when you press the button :) The part number you want is 333827511C (rather than 333827511 which is the original part that wears).

im sure the circuits should be split diagonally, so one output has front right/rear left, and vice versa.

just sold a set for £80 (calipers were a bit manky but discs were new), got offers of £100 after id sold them but didnt want to mess the guy around, so id say theyre defo worth 100 notes