pete_griff

you should also get hold of a new steering rack bush while you are at it - they are inexpensive even from VW. when i replaced my front wishbone bushes i used 3.2 TT bushes, as they don't have the cut-out's in like the original corrado ones. they ride just as nicely as the originals, but as they flex that little bit less, they seem to hold the car better round the bends etc - just a thought while you still haven't fitted them... it has also been said on here previously that the standard top mounts don't fair too well when used with coilovers due to the increased stress. i'm honestly unsure as i've never experienced this myself as i don't yet use coilovers... i will however be buying some KW V3's towards the end of the year and i will also be buying some bonrath (think that's how you spell it) top mounts at the same time. - you may want to look into that if you google them then i'm sure you'll find something, but here's a quick link that i found if you fancy a gander... http://modworld.co.uk/catalog/product_i ... 75d8f846aa

hey there james, i've only just read through this thread - have to say mate - truly well done. it gets sooooo addictive once you're into a project like that doesn't it?! top marks for your fabrication skills as well, very impressive - i really must learn how to weld :) good luck with the rest of it my friend, it won't be long now looking at it - when are you going to start installing the megasquirt? it's good to see someone who has the confidence and the motivation to do projects like this - it always makes me wish i had my own garage keep up the good work mate :D (thanks once again by the way for sorting me out with that inlet manifold a while ago - i haven't forgotten :) )

you can also have the pressure test done on the cooling system as well as the compression test on the cylinders. they just stick was is basically a small hand pump type thing onto where the coolant filler cap goes and use the pump to pressurise the system. this should show you where the water is leaking from. if you can't see it on the outside of the car, then chances are it's the heater matrix...

sorry buddy, but i've honestly got no idea - if they could both be used then i doubt that there would still be an option to buy both (i.e there would only be one option to buy) - but you never know...

you can just ask then to tow it mate - explain that it's the elbow on the top of the rad (i.e a part that he won't be able to bodge) and just tell him that you want it towed home and you will get it sorted yourself - if you have relay (or whatever it is they call it), then they should do that for you no questions asked! i was with the aa (now switched to rac) and i knew my gearbox on one of my old cars was about to go, so i rang them up, said it had died and that i wanted it transported home on the back of a low-loader. the bloke came out and was really sound about it, i actually drove the car onto the back of the low loader after explaining the plan to him, then got it transported 200 miles, at which point, i drove it off the low-loader and then 3 miles down the road to my mum's where i swapped the gearbox that weekend! as long as you don't get some arsehole of a bloke come to help you, they will normally do anything to help you

fair enough, but be warned you MUST stop if it gets too hot - DO NOT keep driving it as it creeps up towards the red as you will be likely to do damage. like i said, it's a horrible game waiting for it to cool down before you can set off again. 16 miles seems a bit of a long way - i'd check that it's only a small leak before you leave otherwise you will be twiddling your thumbs on the side of the road!

wait until it's cold before you refill it (as you risk damaging things if you put cold water into a hot engine), then see how much it leaks. if you have a long drive home then i wouldn't risk it (give mr AA man a shout about an hour before you finish work!) as cooking an engine really is horrible. if you've only got a short drive then, you could try it - obviously keep a very close eye on the temp gauge. if it does get too warm then you will have to stop and wait for it to cool right down again before you can refill it/drive it any further; and trust me that's a horrible game, as a 20 minute journey will take you at least a couple of hours! i wouldn't bother driving with the expansion cap off, as you will just risk loosing more water out of the top anyway and the coolant will boil more easily (the whole point of the expansion cap is to keep the pressure as water boils at a higher temp when under pressure-the reason for the cap!) basically if it's a long drive i wouldn't even think about it, if it's short, then you will have to think about whether you can risk it or not, depending on distance/leakage!

only thing i didn't mention before you do that, is that the new sensors are a little expensive - roughly £50 a side which is a bit salty! a good place to go (i haven't looked at the price) which is cheap is AVS car parts - http://www.vwspares.co.uk i've always found them to be about the cheapest place to buy stuff

wait for the car to cool down before refilling the coolant, but once it's refilled, start the car and watch under the bonnet and you should be able to see where it's coming out - looks like it may be the elbow on the top of the radiator (as i think these are prone to going), but in all honesty it's pretty difficult to tell just from photos. look yourself with the engine running (you may have to wait for it to get hot before it starts to leak). if you still can't source it yourself, then get it pressure tested at any half decent garage and you will see it squirt out. there's always something with rado's isn't there :)

the original sensors (or at least i think that's what mine were) had metal sleeves around them that located them in the stub-axles. metal-metal is obviously going to seize like a biatch over time, so when it came to getting mine out, i did try very carefully with twisting the backs of the sensors etc to loosen them nicely, but nothing was working. in the end i just said bugger it as both sensors were old and one was dodgy anyway and i twatted them both out with a hammer, even this still left the metal sleeve in of of the stub-axles which i had to gently chisel out. the new sensors that i bought had plastic outers where they went through the stub-axles, so someone has obviously thought about it and put it right. i reinstalled mine with a load of copper grease, and should be able to remove them very easily now if i need to. as for removing the original sensors though, if no amount of plus-gas and gentle twisting etc is working, then i would just say bugger it and shell out for the new ones - it may be expensive, but at least you will know they won't fail, probably for as long as you own the car anyway

it's worth taking it to another garage to get them to do some confirmatory tests - they should test the coolant (as your man at VW did) to see if any carbons/contaminants are getting into it and they should also do a compression test on the cylinders. this should tell you exactly where you stand. if it did get that hot, then chances are you may have done some damage... i would be surprised if the block has cracked (although it is entirely possible) unless you properly cooked it for a prolonged period. i would say that it would be more likely to be the head gasket on the way out... this is certainly not the end for your car as the head gasket (if it is that) is pretty straight forward to change (i did mine by myself over the period of my christmas holiday!) and you shouldn't get cained too much on the price. depending on the mileage of the car and whether you are planning on keeping it or not, it may well be worth having the chains/tensioners/clutch all done at the same time. it will obviously be more expensive, but it will give you peace of mind then for the rest of the time you own the car, and it shouldn't let you down ever again (touch wood!) as generally speaking the vr6 engine is fairly bombproof

i've used heat-wrap on a couple of cars mate - as long as you go for a reputable named brand, then it should sort your problems out - obviously it won't stop heat to the extent something like ceramic coating will, but it's surprisingly effective, and as long as you take your time and do a good job when wrapping it - you should hopefully stop burning things! heat wrap is also good as it takes heat away from the engine bay, giving you better throttle response due to denser air :)

hey there my friend - you should try some connolly's hide feed (or hide food, not sure) - do a search for it on google. i have got some, but i've never actually used it yet so i can't comment. however i have a friend who is unbelievably festidious about his interior and he swears by it - i've seen the results as well and they are very impressive. he was saying that he had tried all sorts of leather products before, including glyptone, but he will never go back now. horsey people use it on their saddles, but it brings up the leather in your car very well indeed - leaves a nice leathery smell in the car as well.

It's spot on my man ;-) I would dab a blob of tippex on the intermediate pulley's marker so that you can see it easily when the gearbox is back on. tippex is awesome stuff! :D

when you take the bottom end appart, you could get the whole lot steam cleaned (crank, con-rods etc, just make sure that the second it dries out you whack some engine assembly lube over at the very least all the working parts to keep them free from corrosion. also make sure that the second the bearing come out of the block, you get them cleaned up (wd40 will do) and then covered in lube so they don't corrode. i guess that's a fair one about you worrying about corrosion on the block, but once its clean, as long as you keep it somewhere dry, then i wouldn't worry too much about that - you will be putting it back together before long, so as long as you wipe the bores etc with an oil-soaked rag, you shouldn't have any dramas. as for getting the steam cleaning done, if you ask around there are plenty of people who will steam clean things for you - if you have a dedicated engine mechanic worth his salt near you, then he will almost certainly have a steam cleaner, but really anywhere where you can find one. also with the cleaning blasting stuff out of sight, it's best practice (especially when skimming heads and things that involve swarf etc) to get an airgun and give all coolant channels/orifices you can find a good squirt to make sure that there is nothing untoward left in them.

hassan buddy - not wishing to criticise or anything like that, but looking at the pics of your engine - the inside is pretty gopping. before you start putting it all back together, now would be a really good time to get it steam cleaned (like i did with my head - and look how that came up) it would not only make putting the engine back together more enjoyable and easier as you won't have to be re-cleaning things every two seconds, but it will also help prolong the life of the engine, as you will remove all those nasty contaminants from the old oil etc that are stuck everywhere at the moment. also (in my humble opinion), the thing which really makes a good rebuild stand out from a bad one is leaks - make sure you give all gasket surfaces a really really good clean to ensure that you have good seals everywhere, and that way the engine will stay nice and shiny once you have put it back in. once again, steam cleaning would help this no end... obviously though, this would mean that you would have to remove the crank/pistons etc, but it would be worth it at the end of the day, as steam cleaning is really cheap and effectively makes the block like new again good luck again anyway matey - hope you get it all sorted soon :)

hey again buddy - after much arguing with the works computer, it won't let me upload a file that i saved onto it after editing one of the photos just to highlight more clearly where a bit was. basically if you check out the pic, just under where the vacuum line runs off the inlet manifold to the brake servo you can see where the solid line from the clutch master joins onto and becomes the flexi-line that runs to the clutch slave... hope the pics help buddy... download/file.php?id=49254&mode=view

hey buddy, good to see your progressing - it's such a good feeling when you get it all done - when you start it up again for the first time... hmmmm.... :D mate i've just had a quick look through my old pics of when i replaced my head gasket and found a couple of pics that you may find useful... i'm nowhere near my car now, as i've taken it off the road before i leave the country for 6 months in a couple of weeks. however, looking at the pics, it looks like the line from the clutch master cylinder follows the brake lines from the brake master, then goes behind the abs pump and then bends round where it joins onto the flexi-hose that goes down to the clutch slave. i've included an attachment and a link to one of my old pics below - they are not amazingly clear, but should give you some idea... keep up the good work anyway my friend - like i said; it's sooooo worth it in the end :) download/file.php?id=49255&mode=view

thinking about it - a more definite way would be to look at the part numbers for the injectors between the mk4/mk5 - surely those are different for FSI/non-FSI variants...

if anyone has got a recent version of etka - surely they could confirm about the mk5 block - that would be an easy way to tell for sure, if it is indeed the same as the mk4 r32 block...

what does make things more difficult though is the fact that they changed the angle of the vee (from 15-10 degrees i think) between the mk4 and mk5, meaning that the mk5 is a slightly taller engine and you will have trouble getting bonnet clearance. then if you lower the engine by modifying the mounts the sump will sit fairly low and you will need to be careful of clearance issues there to the tarmac. i had heard that the mk5 r32 did have fsi, but if kev has heard otherwise then i don't know what to suggest. i think it's easier to make the mk4 lump fit, but i'm sure either could be done if you get inventive enough :)

i recon the problem initially sounds like an electrical gremlin just appearing very quickly, but if it came and went like that, it may just be a bit of crap fuel (but that's a bit weird if you're already on half a tank, as you would have thought something would have shown up nearer to when you filled up...) what was happening when you tried to rev the car - was it dying, trying to rev and spluttering, or just not responding to anything at all?

sorry - when i said modify the inlet i didn't mean the manifold! - i meant running a throttle body with a bend already in it, and getting some metal pipework to take the induction route back round to where it was originally with the vr engine - as yes, modifying the r32 inlet may prove tricky! just wanted to say cheers by the way for all the useful input you've all given me so far - it's really useful and really really appreciated.

i've noticed that you don't have a maf on yours (that i could see) - i take it the standalone deletes the need for one entirely and replaces it with the intake barometric pressure sensor/air intake temp sensor and ignition controls etc cheers for the explaination of pwm - makes sense. with the throttle body i was hoping to get one made of find one that means i can twist the inlet so that it goes round the back of the head and i can retain the normal position of the airbox - as long as it's done with care, i can't see that the direction change would adversely affect things - i just really want an airbox and if i can retain the standard one in the standard place that would again make things easier i also knew roughly how launch control worked but cheers for confirming; still i'm unsure whether piggy-backing wires off the abs sensors would work for driven/undriven wheel sensors - don't see why not as long as the ecu has the capability to be told exactly what voltages and frequency thereof etc to expect - probably a pretty standard thing across the board though... anyway, i'm still not getting the bloody thing for 6 months which is really annoying as i want to get stuck into it now! i guess it'll give me something to think about other than work while i'm in hotter climes!

thinking about it - you're right with the cable throttle - it would save modification of the pedal box and be one less thing to worry about if i just got hold of a different throttle body - hopefully be able to retain the position of my standard aixbox then too as i hate the chavy noise of induction kits. what do you mean by PWM controlled - i'm probably just being a mong, but i'm unsure exactly what you're on about. also i've been thinking that the only way (i can realistically see) to get road/wheel speed to the aftermarket ecu is too piggyback a couple of cables off the abs sensors... any thoughts on that? - would be good to have launch control though! i've seen a couple of pics of the tensioner/hydraulic ram that controls the tension of the chain between the respective camshafts - clever idea isn't it!