Lufbramatt

according to a thread i read the other day on cludgti, the ratios in the corrado and passat boxes were different to the golf/vento vr6 boxes. Apparently there were 2 codes, CDM and CCM. Difference being the final drive ratio, 3.65 for the CDM and 3.39 for the CCM. The corrado had the CDM box and the golf vr6 had the CCM. I think, bit confusing tho lol

wouldve thought VW will do a rebuild kit with all the bits you need in, the certainly do for rear wheel bearings- you get a little box with the bearings, split pin, grease cap, grease seal etc. Might be worth giving your local parts dept a ring to check, mine are always really helpful tbh :)

a guy on ukpassats sprayed the inserts on his doorcards and his headlining black with fabric dye in a spray can, and it did look really neat. Only thing id be worried about is the dye coming back off on your clothes, cant see the gf being too happy when youve dyed her white jeans grey lol

Thats what happened to me too- I clipped a parked car due to someone pulling out in front of me, minimal damage to the passat, but £1400 worth of damage to the little citroen C3. I didnt claim for any repairs to my car from fear of them writing it off (one dented panel, fixed with a £10 wing from the scrappers and sprayed it myself) but the girl I hit went through insurance. As I didnt claim anything for mine I didnt have to pay the excess. Lost that years no-claims but switched insurers this year so still got a cheaper renewal price :) So wouldve thought if you didnt claim for any of your damage youd be able to repair the C pretty cheaply with 2nd hand parts, certainly much less than £3k! and should be able to negate the £300 excess too.

hehehehe thats the same argument that lets me spend as much as i want on my old bus :) what shut them up competely was when brentacre beat all the "normal" insurance quotes I got but with all the mods declared. To think i almost blew £5k on a mk4 golf before i found the B3 GT. Havent spent anywhere near that on the old girl, buts its had new shocks+springs, alloys+tyres, new bushes, new discs, pads +bearings all round, complete new interior, leather steering wheel etc and from driving my dads octavia (same platform as the golf) handles better too! Plus the amount of knowledge ive gained over the last 18 months from mending stuff myself = priceless 8)

the bus: :D although not strictly the best other dub ive owned as i havent got a C yet hehe

cool sounds like a good result :) got any pics and how much were they? is the car lowered and have you had any rubbing? need to get a set of tyres for my 16x7.5 borbets at some point.

you can get 215/45/16 tyres, oem on a toyota MR2 apparently. seen them (in bridgestone guise) go really cheap on ebay.

i agree that little fiat is so cool. 155bhp abarth version next year too 8)

:) id just cut it off with tinsnips/dremel/hacksaw not sure how the new one goes on but looked like you might have to remove the stub axle? Think its held on with teh same bolts. those bolts looked like they would be a bitch when i did my rear wheel bearings a little while ago :(

Bargain. Last I heard, VW drop links for the VR6 Corrado were £75 a piece. just checked vagcat, didnt realise they were different. even more outrageous then for a metal rod with 2 bits of rubber in!

re. the ARB links- had to replace an ARB drop link on mine the other day as it snapped when i tried undoing it to take the wishbones off. Didnt want a Febi one after hearing all the storie on here about them being crap, but the VW one i got was £25 :shock: Also its been superceeded by a slightly different part with a different bushing, which is much larger and is designed to fit 21mm roll bars. On my passat it has a 24mm roll bar so had to dremel out a bit of material from inside the bushing. When i got it i wasnt convinced it was the right bit, but the guy checked on ETKA and it all checked out, and it had a note on the entry saying "workshop modification may be needed" or something. Bit rubbish on a £25 part lol :(

brake disc backing plate/shield come loose or been damaged/corroded? loose caliper carrier bolt?

sounds like youve got it sussed. the order you say is right. make sure you have the nuts the right way round- the one that holds the bearing on is a normal flat grey nut, and the one at the top above the top plate is gold coloured and has a chamfer on the top as its a self locking nut. the spring plate has a flat area in the middle, make sure you get it the right way up, the top mount bearing needs to fit down into this recess. The spring should also be secure in the cap, should be pretty obvious what way it goes whaen youve got it together. more info here: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=62030 and boge shocks should be pretty much identical from oem, the turbogas ones are the upgraded ones, meant to be 15% stiffer. Lots of VW's have standard boge shocks on as standard from the factory. have you had an alignment done? the two bolts at the bottom of the strut set the camber (which in turn affects the tracking) so the alignment may be well out after changing the struts.

just a quick note to the above info, the spring cap for 92mm springs and vr6top mounts has been superceeded by a mk4 golf part. The new number is 1j0 412 341. Got all my new stuff today and the golf 4 part fits perfectly.

if it had 18" pirelli P-slots then it be a bit special. shame. :(

bearing in the steering lock housing run dry? might be the round contact tracks for the horn, put a little bit of vaseline on them. or could be the universal joint down near your feet . . .

cheers yandards, good link. Hadnt come accross that before. It seems you can read around a subject for weeks and think youve made a good decision and someone somewhere will always have a reason why it wasnt lol I'll see how they go for the next few months, tbh it wasnt that hard a job to change them so if they start going sloppy ill try out the TT bushes :)

would disagree about the ride being harsh on polybushes, ive got Polysport bushes on mine, which are supposedly a slightly softer compound than the powerflex/polyrace ones and the ride is very smooth, not jarring or crashy at all, noticably better than the worn out oem bushes i replaced. I was expecting it to be ahrsh, but was really suprized at the improvement :)

first setting on switch is sidelights, and if the ignition is on then dim-dip will come on too (dip beam at 1/2 voltage) second setting is dip beam pulling stalk gives main beam. fitting the realy kit will get rid of the dim-dip as you need to unplug the yellow wires going to the resisitor under the wing. Otherwise turning your sidelights on will make your dip beam come on.

Lucky you! On some cars that would just twist the bolt till it sheared and leave you having to carefully drill out the rest from the captive bolts in the subframe ... :shock: cool looks like i was lucky then, every other bolt ive had to undo on the thing has been a pig! The rear bolt on the passenger side was covered in copper grease so mustve been out at some point, no idea why though. cant find anything in the service history to explain it. i did manage to snap one of the ARB links tho trying to undo it, so wasnt all plain sailing :(

http://www.rallydesign.co.uk do polybushes for about £35 a set to do your wishbones, fittied a set to the passat last weekend and the ride and handling is much improved. dead easy to press them in too. wishbone bolts were easy, just use a 600mm breaker bar :)

£437! ouch :D

my passat had a wolfsburg edition gear knob on it when i got it, two problems: - passats were made in Emden - is was a peice of crap and kept falling off no matter how tight you did the grub screws up. I swapped it for a nice subtle machined aluminium one with a VW logo CNCed into the top, and it has a proper screw thread on it so it doesnt fall off. much nicer! who actually even makes the wolfburg edition bits? all seems like halfords/motorworld tat to me tbh

you want one of the B+Q warehouse places- they all seem to have a whole aisle just for little bags of screws :)