Bruno

The MK4 calipers dont make it feel soft. New pads can do that. Did you bleed the brakes with the beam at full drop? If you did, you effectively closed off all pressure to the back in the bleeding. Jack up the car, put it on stands on the back and front, then put the beam on stands to make sure that the brake proportioning valve thinks the back of your car is fully loaded. Yes thats five stands at least. Run the engine, keep pressing the brakes until the hub is a little warm at the back on both sides, then stop the engine. Turn the ignition off and keep pumping the pedal until all of the pressure is loaded out of the ABS system. Then load the pressure bleeder,and bleed from ns/r, then os/r, then os/f then ns/f. Its best to clear all the fluid when you are working with a caliper swap. Stop. leave it for an hour. Go back and check the pedal when the engine is running...if in doubt, repeat. If after 5 goes you cant clear it, you need to check the calipers for a stuck piston, or admit that your bleeding technique is not effective. If you are still of the opinon that it could be an air problem.... sometimes, depending on how you started your original bleeding cycle, it is true that you can get air stuck in the abs reservoir. The only way I know out of that is to take it to a place which has a bleeding machine which works by suction, and where they induct a brand new cycle of fluid. Most back road garages know someone who can do it swiftly for you whilst you wait.

1. Take the dash off. Do it slowly, methodically, dont force stuff without thinking. There are lots of little tabs that get broken due to haste. Careful about the loom sections, make sure you photo and note how they were routed. Careful with your alarm system....When you remove the heater controls, label and mark the bowden cables. This is important. Note exactly where each screw came from - it will save you loads of grief later. A simple way is to do a drawing of the dash on an A4 sheet, and then pin the drawing with the screws as you take them off. Anal- no, it will prevent rattles later. 2. Dismantle the air exchange unit, wash the plastics clean and inspect all the gaskets, bowden cables. Literally disinfect all the airways until squeaky clean. Then look up the wiki on this forum and replace the air intake gasket and fit a pollen filter. You wont regret doing any of this. 3. Silicon grease all the bowden cables and if still sticking, replace them. Check all the cogs and the ease of their movement on the flaps. Replace if necessary, inc the foam gaskets on the doors if needed. 4. Pop out the blower motor and inspect it. It is easy to remove, but dont force it, it just takes brains. Then inspect. If the brushes are worn right down and/or the commutator is heavily scored you can find new brushes on ebay. If the commutator needs sorting, find someone to put the motor on a lathe and skim down the commutator until it is smooth, clean, balanced. A clean commutator and brushes will last you at least 60,000 miles. If you cant fix the commutator then source a new motor intact. Dont bother getting a second hand one. 5. Check the blower switch assembly. Look to see if the plug into the control unit is cooked, charred, etc. If it is, as carefully as possible, clean the contacts with cillit bang, soaked overnight. Then use silicon dielectric grease over the contacts when you refit. This will stop further charring. If the rotor contacts are cooked (you can pull off the rotary controls), then consider replacing the control. Whether or not you do, stick dielectric grease on the tracks - this will stop once and for all the arcing that breaks these down. 6. May be worth looking for signs of water ingres whilst it is all off. The ABS brain is a common place where it drips down, the passenger carpet, etc. Trace it back and fix it before refitting the dash. 7. Put it all back carefully, refit slowly, making sure that everything is working as it should, as you put layer by layer back. Grab a pack of zip ties- they will come in useful. When refitting the side panels by the central tunnel, you might have problems getting the screws to find their mating point on the steel plate. I use a long thin zip tie, thread it through, cut the head off, and then follow the tie with the screw: works every time.

Get it down to someone who can put an OBD1 scanner on it. Usually the ABS sensors have gone. Less often, but likely, is the ABS brain has gone, usually due to water ingres. Least likely is the ABS pump and valve set. Follow that sequence. The fact that the ABS light has gone off is a clear sign that you will have a decent set of error codes. Find a place with a scanner, ask for the diagnosis to be done. It usually costs no more than £30-40 from a back street repair shop...

I'm a little confused by what you aim to do. Quite simply a MKIV rear caliper conversion just requires the right flexible brake lines (you need to get these specially to run off a 'rado system) onto the new caliper. Its then a straight swap of calipers - has nothing to do with the disc/hub, nothing at all to do with the number of studs. Now if you intend swapping discs for 11" rotors--- thats very, very different. There are two routes (1) buy the 11" upgrade from the US or (2) obtain a kit to mount a Mkiv/tt caliper set upon the 11" front rotors slipped over a hub thats been machined down. (1) has the problem of relying upon a specially machined disc, which - if they stop making it - means you are stuck. The latter approach requires an adaptor for the caliper mount as well, but that gives you a better set up. Look up 11" rear upgrades on the forum and theres lots of information...

The part number is 357 937 039. yes it is available still. However thats only the core unit. On 'rado vr6s there are a huge number of add-on bits, ie: - break out connectors; - additional relays, hanging off the top. Whats this post doing in the supplier forum?

Part of the problem is that its cold and you've been using the heater; it is possible that there is coolant loss through there. The exchange unit in our cars tends to be weak in design. Are the carpets wet at all? I would start by taking out the rad, removing all of the coolant, flushing it, replacing the thermostat and temp sensors, check all the hoses, replace the cap on the overflow tank, and refill with deionised water mixed with g12+ (or whatever is current nowadays), in a 25% mixture. The car is old enough to justify a good clean up of its cooling system. I had that kind of loss occuring on my car routinely. The seams on the radiator side tanks allowed seepage. You will find this when you take everything off and examine it. If you have a garage and lots of light, it is worth doing this. And no, I'm not convinced it is a head gasket or crack.

025 906 041 A: local stealers, German Swedish and French, lots of places. Its a common part.

Lots. Lots, better if you got one from a passat vr6, but if you want to do it, it can be sorted in a weekend. Best to start this way: - pull the lot from the engine bay from the fusebox onwards, inc the abs system, headlamp system rad and fan system, ecu, etc; - also pull the interior wires to the diagnostic plug from the fusebox; - if its an obd2 system grab the maf, intake manifold and throttle body; - pull everything for the engine inc the exhaust manifold and cat; - gearchange mechanism; - dont know about the driveshafts and whether they match - check that one; - front cross member. I think you have to get the K section crossmember for a vr6 rado or passat vr6. Someone else will have to validate that. Then at your convenience, using a bentley manual as a guide (they can be bought easily off the internet, amazon has a couple going cheap): - seperate the headlamp wires, windscreen washer wires, abs system wires, radiator and fan wires, from the fusebox to ecu, and ecu to engine plug, engine harness and harness which covers the lambda probe, etc- make up seperate harnesses but dont wrap yet; - keep your existing rado headlamp washer system, - if your rado has abs, replace the brain and pump and wiring with the one from the golf (cut and shut wires to fit) - then wrap and install; - run the diagnostic plug harness, wrap and fit; - measure up all the runs needed on your car (i) from the fusebox to the ecu, ecu to engine plug, and from ecu to lamba probe - make sure you have enough length by cutting and shutting, check, check again for continuity, wrap and fit; - match up the k section, match up the front x member; - source a proper k section for the rear mounts, a corrado vr6 cat, the front mount will drop straight in. - mate up engine gearbox, driveshafts ready; - get a vr6 radiator and fans for a rado, mate and fit; - start and check the engine runs- dont move though; - mate up the clutch and brake hydraulics, bleed; - start again and check for codes, clear all codes on abs first, then clear the engine codes, investigate each one.

There are three feeds. The large pure red one is the primary 12V feed to the switch. The red/white one is the low speed one; the other is the mid speed one. High speed is turned on via a third sensor fitted to the thermostat housing, which has to have special wiring for it, not normally provided on a non a/c car. The part number to replace your plug to the switch (assuming all the pins are inline) is 893 906 231; if they arent in-line its likely to be 1h0 973 203. Get a vw stealer to source one with the pigtails, solder them onto your existing wires and sleeve it properly with split corrugated sleeving - it gets very hot in that bay! The switch boot is 867 972 525 B. An exposed switch will be compromised within a couple of years. The pinouts are: - PIN 3 = RED - PIN 2= RED/WHITE - PIN 1= RED/BLK or RED/YELL (depends on the year of your car). If you look at the rad switch it does have the pinout numbers embossed on the plastic. If you suspect that your switch is in trouble, I would suggest you get the plug and switch at the same time - so that they match. Now onto the problem. Turn the ignition on whilst you do this or the relays will mess you around. Dont start the car. If you hotwire from red to red/white the slow fan should kick in. If it doesnt then it means that that winding has broken down, then hotwire red to whatever is meant to lead to pin 1 - and the second speed fan kicks in. Now if you arent sure - hot wire to the red-white on the rad fan directly, and to the red-yellow after that, and that will confirm whether the fan or the switch is your problem. Once you've worked it out, your options are: - if the rad fan is the problem - probably simpler to fit one of the spal or other twin replacements with a decent all alloy rad. - if its the switch - then you've had a cheap day. If after getting all this to work with the engine off - it still overheats, then you can only conclude that the brains and controls are not working well. Start by changing all sensors on the thermostat housing. If still no improvement, the fan controller is probably to blame - they werent very strong. Failing that you need to get a vag-com on the car and check the ECU temp readings. I hope thats all clear. Dont even try and rig for permanent speed 1, 2 or 3 cos you will burn out the fan. Its a 350 watt motor designed to run for a max of 1 hour before cooling down. It does not have a thermal cut out so it will burn out.

Two problems. First the blower. If you look carefully, theres a way of turning, and lifting the blower out of its housing. Remove it, and run a 12 volt feed direct onto it to make sure it does actually respond to power. If it doesnt, you've likely got knackered brushes. You have two options: - if you know anything about electric motors, replace the brushes (look up 'valeo+brushes' on ebay, contact the guy, identify the bower you have); but before you install the new brushes make sure you spin the armature and use a good oiled block to smooth the armature, otherwise it will wreck the brushes in 3 months again; - if you dont, search for a new blower motor - some are being sold on this forum. The second problem is solved by looking at this thread. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=68720 If you want to do it in a hurry change the following (as a probable cause): - radiator fan switch; - the two temp sensors at the front of the engine.

I wouldnt start there. Best to get a fully functioning wiper assembly mechanism from a car which did work. Loads available from vortex, or from ebay germany..... These assemblies tend to become bent and detached over time, so if you can can two of them they will last another 12-13 years.

You need to get this tested by real Diavia experienced fitters. It is really easy to hammer the clutch on the compressor on the one hand, and on the other, to frost up the airways in the system. Look up Keith on the aircon thread.... he's near Heathrow.

we have the tone for the door chime that lets us know if our lights are on, so no write up for US guys cause it was standard. Really you guys have no warning tone for lights either? wow. I've never seen a low fuel light on a US spec 'rado. But AFAIK the relay buzzer fits stright into socket 9 on the fusebox. I'm still trying to find out whether Relay 36 will do that job (it fits into MK3s in the same place), but it looks like I'll have to try it anyway. If someone does know of a low fuel warning, can you point me to the page on Bentley. We might be able to rig up an equivalent given that there is at least one unused spot on the dash (next to the fog lights) on the late models.

You have two options. 1. Cut an splice into the existing car loom. Go to the Corrado Canada site (http://www.corrado-club.ca/), select resources, then select electrcal, then pick the year of your car and download the pdf. One of those pages is dedicated to the OEM alarm wiring. It makes the job of locating and sorting out leads much - MUCH clearer, but you have to be willing to label up as you go along before finishing the wiring, testing and then removing the labels. This gives you a logical way of messing with the loom. 2. Takes more time, but makes life much easier and safer. Find a second hand US OEM alarm system for a Corrado, complete with its bonnet sensor, horn and the plug and play section that fits brilliantly into the existing loom. It simply does not require one wire to be cut! Using this patch, you can then access - in one step - the feed for indicators, fuel cut out, ignition, door locks, headlamps, load relay and starter relay feed. If you piggy back off the OEM alarm, the trigger pin can then drive a relay for the Ai606 to fire. The Ai606 can also send one arming message to the OEM alarm to fire the indicators, parking lights, central locking control, fuel and ignition cut off . You dont have to splice into the door sensors, starter relay feed, etc. If the cat5 brain fails, you simply leave the oem system in place, and you still have an operational immobiliser/alarm which OBD1 and OBDII diagnostics can read. If the OEM system fails you can still piggy pack on the additional wiring to run the car from that additional 9" section of loom with all the right wires ready to go. Where best to hang the horn? Not in the engine bay. Most make that mistake and then live with the impact of coolant overspill and heat deterioration. There is an alternative: unbolt the wing (it doesnt matter which), and you will find a hanger point on the inner wing which will house the horn, well out of harms way and very inaccessible even for a professional thief. There are holes in the vertical panel by the door, in the cockpit, which allow you to push the wires through into the inner wing area.

Ian. The distributor version of the VR6 was sold in far greater quantities in the USA than in Europe. I suggest you log into forums.vwvortex.com , go to the classified ads for Corrado Parts, and start a thread in there stating you want to buy. - Do the same on the Passat classified forum (I think the B3 used the same engine). - Keep bumping the threads every day for two weeks. Someone usually bites. The Seat people carrier (I forget the name) also made use of the distributor version ofthe VR6 engine. The Ford Galaxy doesnt use it. Good luck.

I've had three 'rados and loads of Golf's before that. Not one with that problem. This isnt simple, as you need to trace why the crossover isnt resetting. First pull out fuses 7 and 8. That will kill those sidelights. Then try changing relay 4, ie the one with number 18 on the front. It is meant to be the main relay to handover power to the "accessories on" setting of the ignition switch. Failing that, I would get a multimeter out and check whether your ignition switch is turning on your accessories, because if it isnt, then that would explain the lack of power to switch the quarter lights back over to your headlamp switch. Otherwise I would get a corrado circuit diagram and start tracing whats happened.

Assuming you have checked really carefully all the vacuum lines - do this carefully - then try this sequence: 1. Unplug the temp sensors altogether. Drive it until it is hot (dont worry, the rad fan will cut in anyway at the right time), turn off, then see if it develops the problem. If it does start then you need to check the wiring to the temp sensors (both of them, starting with the blue one). 2. Failing that, do a complete ECU reset when it is piping hot, ie deliberately undo the battery, etc. If the reset clears it, then you are trying to chase down an intermittent sensor. Then you need to watch the message blocks as the engine is running to find out which one it is. 3. If it is an intermittent sensor, and you dont have a way of reading those whilst the engine is running (not just the error codes), then unplug the following one by one to see if them being unplugged makes a difference between 71 and 80 degrees, not quite hot: - cam sensor; - knock sensors; - MAF sensor; - lambda probe. You may be lucky.... one of these, if it makes no difference to your engine's behaviour when unplugged may be the source of an intermittent signal. Check the wires, the connections, etc. 3. If the ECU reset made no difference, then the Fuel Pressure regulator might be a problem. Tap it, sometimes this gets grit into the grommet and locks up at high temps. If that works, take it out, clean it and/or fully replace. 4. Go get a new ECU relay (thats if your OBD2 wires through relay 109), and relay 167 or 67 (fuel pump). You'd be amazed at the nonsense these two relays get up to in older cars. 5. Failing that, see if you can borrow another owner's ECU.

You do have to remove it. It isnt a big deal to do that. It is possible to remove it without removing the lens, but there is a serious danger that if you pull it wrongly, you damage the seat which the new one pushes into. Best to remove the lens. - Use surgical gloves - the vacuum coating on the reflector degrades rapidly after it the natural oil on your skin comes into contact with it. - Then stare at the new adjuster, you will see how it is meant to lock into place. - Then peer through the back of the reflector as you jiggle the old one out. - Refit, and at night adjust it to match the position of the other lamp (hoping that that one isnt out). If this is the first time you've taken apart the headlamp, give yourself 1-2 hours to remove, do the change and refit.

Yes there is. Pop the instrument cowl off, also remove the right hand vent and its cover.This will expose a vertical metal section which holds the control unit for i-dont-remember-what. The other side of that same metal section is free. If you look carefully, from that point you will be within 10 inches of the trigger wires to the central locking unit. Thats also exactly where the OEM alarm/remote control unit is meant to be placed. VW still sells the short piece of OEM wiring to link to the OEM alarm, which means that you dont need to butcher the main loom, but can use that to splice in the remote locking interface, and use it to trigger your alarm go-hot wire, without cutting into anything else. Then if it breaks down, you only have to unplug this additional section and you can still operate the car.

1. Get some dielectric silicone grease - available from ebay quite cheap. 2. Grab a large piece of cloth and cover the pedals all the way to the top. 3. Drop the fusebox, take it off its mountings, GENTLY. 4. Pull the release lever on the side to unlock the plugs 5. Unplug one plug at a time, smear some dielectric grease on it, plug it back in, ensuring that all the pins are pushed home (double check). Do the next one until you have finished the lot. DO NOT UNPLUG THE LOT AND THEN PUT THEM BACK ASSUMING YOU WILL REMEMBER. 6. Push the locking lever back and with the box hanging down use a multimeter to check that the ignition switch is doing its job. This is often the culprit. If in doubt check with the Corrado Canada site and look up Dennis' wiring details and tips on debugging the starting. 7. It may be that your immobiliser has been spliced in somewhere near all of this and that as you jiggled the box, the solder/pressure joints in the immobiliser spicing worked loose and now makes intermittent contact. Its not unusual, I had to spend 3 months replacing butchered wiring caused by sloppy immobiliser installers. 8. If this doesnt sort it out, download from Corrado Canada's forum the wiring diagrams for your year. - Specially check that the mini (typically one pin) plugs are actually sitting in the right point on the rails. Often these fall out and people put them back onto the wrong rail. Logically check that the power to each service is working as you go along. - This way you end up debugging it. If you focus, you can do this in about 18 hours (much less if you know the car well). 9. When its all logically working, the wiring should be ok. Dont forget to check the relays and make sure that you remove the fuel pump, ECU, relays, check their contacts, etc and that they are actually delivering power when they should. A pain perhaps. Somewhere along this debugging, you will end up making up for the sloppiness of a fitter who worked on your car in the past. This is a really good map of what to find and where on the fusebox cluster http://www.a2resource.com/electrical/CE2.html. It does vary from model to model, hence it is necessary to check with the wiring diagrams I mentioned earlier.

I've heard it claimed that one can do it. I couldnt. Frankly better to get hold of one of the aftermarket all-alloy versions which offer far better cooling than the plastic tanked OEM versions.

Dave I dont think its that simple. You sure your speaker system isnt an Activ system? If it isnt, I'd add this http://www.autoleads.co.uk/products/harness.html and then go to a auto-electrician and ask them to add the splice for the spur for the additional loudspeaker. This way, if you need to go back to standard, you simply pull this out of the circuit and you are back to normal.

Ben: - first make sure the rheostat is good, or just bridge over it for testing purposes: - then disconnect one seat at a time and see if the heating level increases on the remaining seat; - if it does, then the main feed isnt up to handling the current, so replace the primary wire from rheostat to seats (pull out the seats, and lift the carpet, and splice in fresh 2-2.5 mm braided copper wire for the main heater feed to the two seats - after 8 or so years these tend to cook, develop a coating of oxide inside the insulation and then the resistance climbs, eventually when the oxide is hot, it arcs from strand to strand, etc) - if it doesnt rise, then try another relay, or bridge over that and try again. Whatever - you are trying to find oxide build up somewhere in the system. The likley culprits are (in the following order) - rheostat; - thick heater current wire delivering power to the matrix on the two seats; - the heater panel within the seats.

If its a VR, you need to first do a complete ECU reset. Then reprogramme it when hot. The check the following, in this order: - All spark plugs and leads (these going off can mess up the lambda probe readings, and force excessive retard or late injection timing) - MAF (make sure it is intact and clean) - Cam position sensor (tends to go more often than people think, also delivers your symptoms, particularly with a full kick-down throttle position) - ECU relay (particularly if you have the original relay, they were rubbish) - Fuel pump relay (unlikely, unless you have starting problems as well) - Lamba probe (could be responsible for the catasrophic drop in revs, and the ECU just recovers it in time

Wonder if you can help out. With the group buy aborting, I've noticed a few of us moving to using a machined rear disc core, with a 280mm vented system slipped over it. This seems much more credible than the big disc conversion. May I ask where you obtained the fabricated adaptor to enable the larger rotor and caliper for vented brakes to be hung. I'd rather not have to hunt for this from the USA. Suggestions?