dr_mat

I blame the slightly blowing 6-branch .. Leakage at that point could cause problems with fuelling, which can very well lead to pinking (and ignition retard) if it results in underfuelling. OR, the obvious bunnies are fuel pump, fuel filter, fuel pressure regulator ... yada yada ... To be fair to Vince I'm sure he would have thought of those too, but I doubt they would have had time to test everything.

Stealth will do the camber and tracking the old fashioned way if you ask.

"Bora". Says it all, really. The reality of owning and running an old car is a little less than the lovely green pastures you once imagined, isn't it? Particularly when that old car is a VW with a bit of "we can charge you more" rarity thrown in for free.

I dunno what temp it was at when they tested it, I wasn't there. But see this is the problem. Without a factory book that states: at X degrees C, and Y rpm the oil pressure should be Z bar, you're just guessing aren't ya?

Pair of pliers, lots of plusgas. Apply latter to former, waggle it a lot and it'll probably free up. Of course, you can also just replace it. They're about £70 iirc.

Vince says ... (for 'tis he) ... 2 bar at 2000 rpm. Idle pressure can be lower than that. He doesn't seem to have any documentation to back this up, but I've heard so many slightly different pieces of information about this that I'm beginning to doubt my own sanity..

Does ETKA or bentley manual have any actual *figures* for the correct oil pressures? Anyone know what they are?

Eh? I dunno, it's your car ...

VSR has holes for the spark plug leads (which means you don't have to remove the manifold to change the plugs), and fits much more snugly. It also fits beneath the standard plastic engine cover. The VSR looks well sweet, in that respect. The Schrick is alleged to flow slightly better, particularly at high revs, but I don't know if anyone's ever really thoroughly tested that. The Schrick does have unequal length inlet runners though, to balance up the length of the flow path to the front and rear bank of cylinders, so that's gotta help a little.

Tappety noise is obviously nothing to do with the timing chains though, so I can see why changing the timing chains wouldn't fix it .. ! Anyway, you ain't MAD, if your timing chains clatter (they don't tap, they clatter), then they need fixing. Otherwise you're looking at engine rebuild when they go ..

Dunno mate, I asked Stealth and they tested it .. then couldn't tell me if the figure they got was normal or not, cos they don't have any docs about it! I've heard about oil pressure shortages in long sweeping corners too, I think that's why you need to keep the oil level topped up to the line, mostly.

I assume you're checked for spark problems .. coil pack / distributor, leads, plugs .. ? Could be the fuel pump too I guess. Ever changed the fuel filter?

First spot the VRs tend to blow is the hose on the rear of the cylinder head, beneath the HT lead guides. It's quite hard to spot when the engine is very hot, because it tends to come out as steam (and it's right on top of the exhaust manifold too). The break there is usually caused by a combination of old hoses and a sloppy front engine mount.

Not necessarily going to help you right now, but I got one in a french hypermarket this summer for believe it or not EUR 3.00 ... I think it's the same basic design as the el cheapo ones in Maplins in the UK, but the probe cables are better quality!

I've heard the same noise on 1.6 and 1.8 four-cylinder VWs. They don't have the same VR head or timing chains, yet they sound the same. I restate - it has to be the oil pump.

Gotta be the sunroof drains ...

It's often caused by a blocked leaf mesh in the scuttle area. The water can wind up running down the inside of the car instead .. Or so I'm told.. Take the ABS controller out and liberally dose it with WD40 or electrical contact cleaner. Should be fine, as long as it hasn't shorted 12V across anything sensitive. If it has, ABS ECUs are cheap and cheerful on the 2nd hand market.

Not any more! We all grew up and got over it!

Agreed it's the oil pump. Lots of VWs seem to make that noise when the oil is ultra-thick, it's just how it is.

Be clear about whether it's a VSR or the Schrick VGI. They both do the same job, but the VSR came out of VW and the Schrick .. well it came out of Schrick. Original VSRs also come with an EPROM for the early ECU to remove the need for a remap. Of course that eprom doesn't work on later cars .. :(

Direct amperage output of a car battery when shorted is in the *hundreds* of amps, and not many multimeters can handle that. Well, certainly not the type you're likely to have at home. If you're sure you want to test the loading capacity of the battery, you'll need a proper battery tester (and some training), or as stated you can get Halfords to do it .. TBH you can learn almost all you need to know about the state of your battery with a multimeter anyway. If it's reading 12.6V then it's fully charged. Every 0.2 drop in voltage equates to about a 20% drop in capacity. So by the time you're down to 11.8V then you're pretty close to where it'll fail to start the car.

We keep mentioning it in threads on the forum ..

"Squeaky" Butler Henderson

Just sign something that says you take responsibility for your own safety when driving on company business. Or sign stating that you intend to use a hire car (or the TRAIN fgs!) for ALL business miles. If they're not actually providing a vehicle, they can't dictate how you travel to business appointments.

VW main dealer? They will have used the right parts, no chance of potentially dodgy mk4 tensioners there mate.. ! Doesn't sound right. There shouldn't be any noise from the chains, and there shouldn't be any noise from the rest of the car just because they took the clutch out either.