James.

Bit of a jelly mould

Price drop bump. Was £105. Then £85. Now £70

Layout is okay on Safari. Is it time to drop the blog section ? Never seemed to take off. Add a calendar tab to the main list ? This could then be updated with show dates, happenings etc ??? Just a thought.

Performance direct (though they may want to shuffle you on to a classic policy). Or Aviva. I shopped around and ended up with Aviva. Cheapest by far. Insurance quotes always seem like a bit of a lottery. There's that many contributing factors that affect the overall result. I find chopping around with details in a screen scraper website (job, car parked, mileage, excess) then ringing the companies that guarantee to beat any quote works for me. There will come a point where it won't get any lower though, as all you'll end up doing is having brokers trimming their margin to get the business. Best of luck James

Location: Lancashire Price: 70.00 GBP Date added to Classifieds: 31st Dec 2011 Description: Removed from a 1996 8 valve (Sale consists of Front / rear seats and door cards). Condition wise, they are very good for their age. I've pictured all the damage (not that there's much). None of it serious, and were it not for replacing it with leather then it would still be happily in the car. I've had positive comments at shows regarding its condition as well. Here's a breakdown of the condition: Front door cards - The vinyl has started to recede a little on the top. There a couple of small (20mm) breaks where someone has tried to remove the cards without undoing all the bolts first. There's also a small amount of over-spray from somewhere (I think dad sprayed something close by). You can see it above one of the securing holes that has been damaged. Seats: Passenger side is spot on. Drivers side is also near spot on. The right hand foam could do with being replaced in the near future to make it perfect. There's also a couple of very light water marks that will come out with a little foam cleaner. Rear cards - Almost spot on. A couple of small dirty marks that will clean off. Rear seats - Just like the fronts, there's a little water staining that will come out. The securing bolts that hold the rear split seat in place have been lost. You can swap these over from any other Corrado rear seat though. Like I said before the seats are in great order for nearly 16 years old and if it were me and I wanted them spot on, I'd take the covers off and run them through the washing machine on a cool wash. Price wise, considering the small issues, I'd be looking for 70 pounds collected (will need a Paypal deposit to secure). No courier. I will offer to meet locally though, so long as my petrol and other costs are covered. Feel free to contact me via PM.

Crumbs. Thought I'd stumbled onto the wrong site for a second. I'll have a roam around and see the changes. Sleep well Jedi

And that's why exercise is bad for you. Now then, where's that yorkie...

Cheers Kev You're right, the Mk4 version does look a lot better. Seeing that the old ones had lasted 175K I thought to replace like for like would be best practice. Didn't realise this was a "do-able" upgrade though. This must have slipped through the net for me. Think I'll take it back and swap it for the Mk4 part. I'm going to need a new tension bolt anyway. And peace of mind is also a bonus. Thanks once again James

... I've been here for years. Liking the RX11's a lot. Was keeping a lazy eye out for these in a sixteen inch / four bolt for the eight valve, but they never appeared at what I consider "sensible money". I too would like to see them fitted with black centers. Though would probably opt for all silver if fitted to mine. Dad runs LMs that are black and polished and they look peachy. But his car is black, so I guess it really depends on the colour of the coachwork. Funny to see snow in the north west. We didn't get a flake over this way.

Just got round to replacing the tension plates in the old VR. When I opened up the new one, I noticed that the friction part wasn't as flush as the original one. The new one is a VAG part from the dealer. The only difference being that the friction plate is grey (nearest in photo) instead of a light brown. The gap is about 3mm. Enough to concern me. As you can imagine, it's not the kind of part that you can just take off and give them back if I'm not happy. Let alone if it decided to let go inside the engine. Engine internal bods and those with these kind of experiences, comments very welcome. Many thanks James

Managed a good half day on the engine today. Set to scraping all the old paint/oil/rust off the block (what a joy of a job) and then broke out the set of triple square sockets that arrived in the post this week. Before I know it, the flywheel's off and we're into the realms of chains and tensioners. It's a job that in the back of mind I knew would need doing. The car came stacked with history (and 175k miles), but nowhere in there was any evidence of them being replaced before. It would be foolish to take the engine out and not replace them so here we are. Time to be hopefully proved right that it was the right decision. Judging by what I found, it looks like I caught them in good time. The upper guide had broken at the lower mount. Part of it loitering about in the sump. Whilst halfway down, the old guide is a quarter width from breaking in half. Crikey ! Lower guide is worn but not that badly. The lower tensioner is worn and fit for replacement but it's the upper tensioner that's taken a beating. Worn through to the rivets at the top, and then broken away at the bottom. I'd have replaced them today but I wasn't happy with the quality of the new upper tensioner (see other thread). So this may need to go back yet. So it seems my engine may have lived long enough for me to catch them. Now then, where's the Swarfega ?

Group hug.

When we changed the kitchen a few years back, we put the old one in the garage. Twelve foot worktop is the nuts. Stores all the power tools out of view. Compressor fits into an end cupboard, PC and monitor at one end, vice and grinder at the other. Top box is bolted to an extension, so as to not use up worktop space. One thing I've found over the years is that you can never have enough worktop surface. The old wall mounted Cupboards come in real handy as well. Insulation is the key. Especially the floor.

Well, from here they look like a paid for job. Wonderful result. So what gives, are these for (and I use the term loosely) day to day use, or are you having a rewind on the mod front and going all "factory" on us ?

You done them yourself or had a company do them (because from here I can't tell !).

I know exactly what you mean. My dad's 70 and rolls about in a BM with 18" BBS RS's bolted on. He also has a penchant for chasing down other moded motors. Fair play I say.

Coils are a known weak point on this engine ( as per mk3 golf ). Mine gave up without any notice. Would certainly get the ecu scanned before throwing money at it first though. Tower sized respect for your dad keeping the Corrado flame alive. How longs he had it ? Tell him there's a fellow sherry pearl 8v sufferer, erm sorry driver in the northwest as well. Top man for helping him out.

From personal experience, may be best to keep a lookout for a complete lower grill/tow eye cover set up. They pop up for about a tenner in fair nick. You then get the other side as a spare.

I think that top gear has (hopefully just for the moment) topped out. Tonight was their usually offering but none the less entertaining. There are peaks and troughs with any tv series and top gear is no different. I do get the feeling that the programme is (and has been for a while) coasting. Maybe the budget has been trimmed back etc. But it could be worse. Anyone suffered the pain of the US version ? On a plus note. I noticed a green Morgan three wheeler on the intro tonight. I saw this driving through Birkdale, near the beach on Saturday. Fingers crossed it'll be on again this series.

Who are you calling clever ? But yes, it would be a shame if I had all this technology at my hands and didn't use it !

Sounds like a fuse to me. This happened to me on the VR6. swapped a few fuses and it was back in action.

What with the wheels being well on their way to being refurbished, it just remained that the centre caps receive a small refresh to complete the deal. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one for cutting corners. But when I noticed that a new set of Borbet centers would tax me of more than thirty of the queens finest, the have a go hero sat on my shoulder, thought it prudent to try my hand at re-creating some. So between other jobs today, I made a set up. They're not perfect, But they're also not thirty pounds. I designed them on 2D design, cut the acrylic parts from 3mm clear on the laser cutter, cut the lettering parts on the sticker cutter, backed them in black vinyl, then finally removed the old ones from the brackets and replaced with the new versions. Here's a couple of images of how the job went. On the whole I'm happy with them. Might even try some other brands if anyone's interested.

I've not. But I will now. Cheers Jim

Yeah thanks I got yours. There was another a few days ago though. Feel like a right ignorant fool now.