pete_griff

cheers again - can't really be bothered to go dismantling the bottom end as well in all honesty, especially as the engine has hopefully only got to last another year or so. cheers for the advice though, it will be nice not to have to put quite so much oil in it!

cheers for that - in all honesty i don't want that much power anyway - going for about 250ish, so the r32 will do nicely - would have liked the mk V, but with the FSI it doesn't sounds feasable - never mind, guess i'll have to be happy with the mk IV !!! cheers again

she has done near enough 145k now - and the cams/buckets are in pretty good nick considering - no pitting anywhere which is good to see - the tensioners could do with changing, but as they are still nowhere near the metal work i'm not looking at those - they will just depress me! got a head gasket kit from gsf and it came with new valve stem seals, so when i get the head lightly skimmed i will get the bloke to pop those on for me as well as i don't posess a valve spring compressor, as for the bores i forgot to check in all honesty - had my mum waiting to give me a lift home so i was in a bit of a rush and didn't check - from the pictures ive taken they look ok - but i'll check again when i go out next - not that i'm going to do anything about it anyway unless they are horrific hopefully lose a fair bit less oil after doing this, as the car leaves a very small 5p sized spot when parked which annoys and embarrasess the hell out of me when i go anywhere. from the pics you can see that it looks like im losing a fair bit out of the filler through a crap oil cap - anyone else experienced this - any easy/quick solutions other than buying a new one? also you can't really see very well from the pics but only 1 and 6 have that horrible orange tinge on the crowns, and only those two plugs were getting fouled so all being well it will run nice and sweet again after this...

fair enough - as far as i know my friend (who is a mechanic by trade) and has changed many vr head gaskets etc has never bothered making sure that's timed up as long as the top and bottom are ok and he's never had a problem reported with any of the cars that he has done... really can't see how it would affect the injection timing??? maybe vw kicking up a fuss so they can get more trade with themselves, or maybe people have been putting too many vr's back together and getting the timing wrong - but why would they do that for what is really no reason - weird :? well, when i put my engine back together, it won't have moved at all and i have my nice tippex marks and some 3mm plates to make sure everything is ok - still that's odd nonetheless

howdy gents, merry xmas and all that pish :) i was wondering - read earlier in this thread and it was asked, but with no definite response - does anyone know if the r32 engine out of a mk V will fit straight into a C, also was wondering about the passat r36 engine - not gonna happen to my car for about a year yet, but will give me something to think about in the mean time! cheers again

:lol: haha - fair enough. just remember that corrados are old and are now developing "quirks"! its all worth it in the end - just remember the grin that appears on your face when you go out for a drive in it "because you can" :D

also while you're at it - you may as well whip a wheel off and make sure the sliders that the pads use on the carrier and free from dirt and crap and re-grease them with copper slip - its only two bolts that hold the caliper onto the carrier and a 10 min job per side at most - make sure you get some brake cleaner from halfords or somewhere similar before hand though as you don't want copperslip contaminating your pads, especially if they are sticking on all the time

sounds silly - but if you're getting nothing at all have you checked the fuses/relays - might be an easy fix save you ripping it all apart...

hey buddy - one other thing i can think of is that when a rear bearing is on the way out, the play in the rear wheels can cause the light to come on intermittently, so you might want to check them - also if the sensors have a loads of swarf attached to them as they are magnetic (like my old ones did), this can send out odd readings as well - again probably not what the actual problem is oweing to the fact the fault code says wiring etc, but at least you could eliminate it from your list...

if you can get hold of a pressure tester then pop it onto the top of the coolant header tank and pump away - watch for water squirting out of the radiator (watch closely as it may only be a very thin squirt coming out). if you go to a friendly garage (i.e not the stealers!) then they will probably do the test for you for free... hope that helps

yeah - ditto what RB said - i was under the impression it's orientation didn't matter, as long as the top and bottom are timed up correctly - at least thats what my "knowledgable" friend said :?... can't see any sensors etc or anciliaries in the area other than the oil pump which would be affected???

i ordered the brake bias valve off ebay - can't remember the supplier now sorry - but they are on there for about £39.99 i think - thats what i paid for mine and it's a genuine Ate valve, so i'm happy with it - seems to work so far anyway! the rack isn't a new one, i sent it away straight off the car - nothing actually wrong with it yet, but being as the car has done lots of miles and the racks are notoriously a pain to sort out, thought i would do it now to avoid complications in future - according to my friend who works @ VW though who ordered the bushes, the rack is off a mk3 golf and not a corrado, as the wrong rack bush came through to begin with, so mine may well have been changed at some point in the car's life... refitting the rack/subframe was relatively easy - just make sure you get the splines and bolt recesses lined up before you offer up the assembly then you will probaly have to lightly tap the end of the universal joint on the car over the splines on the rack just with a long piece of straight bar or something... as for the refurb..... i de-rusted and sprayed up the: rear beam, subframe, anti-roll bar, lower arms, stub axles, rear disc guards the steering rack and pump i sent away and have been reconed and sprayed up has TT bushes on the front, powerflex on the rear beam and new standard bushes everywhere else has new: drops links, track rods, track rod ends, ball joints, wheel bearings (all round), abs sensors (all round) - as the originals were so stubborn to remove (and were becoming tempromental) i thought bugger it and "encouraged" them out with the hammer new cupro-nickel brake lines throughout new clutch slave cylinder reconned brake calipers/carriers/hubs with TT 312mm setup there may be more, but i can't remember off hand - basically everything, but driveshafts, shockers and engine has been replaced (and i have got plans to replace them next year) with the stub axles i covered the bearing surfaces to spray them after de-rusting them, then got a fine piece of scotchbrite and cleaned the crap off the bearing surface, especially around where the seal sits - nothing difficult or complicated, just time consuming. basically the same sort of thing with the rear beam - nothing new, just refurbed. sandblasting guns are good - my friend did the gearbox on his scirocco with impressive results - just obviously make sure you sufficiently protect anything with moving parts as sand + moving parts & grease = :( ! hope that helps...

aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh - thinking about the numbering that really does make sense - the only reason for the overfuelling was because no. 6 cylinder wasn't firing oweing to a combination of the plug being f*cked and probably the lack of compression - i took the lead off with it running and it made bugger all difference - so all the fuel would have been shot down the exhaust - think (hope :?) thats the reason it got so bad... so i don't think it was actually overfuelling - the exhaust fumes absolutely stank of fuel when i started it up cold in the morning cheers again for the steer :thumb right:

thanks very much for the offer - am hopefully getting a manifold off steve on here, if not then i will be knocking on your door, so cheers cheers for the pointer about the caps - can't understand why the numbers are upside down though when you look at them on the car and i'm sure Kev said in one of his previous posts that they are supposed to point at the transmission... cheers again anyway

and some more...

hey all who were interested in this at the time - while i was uploading pics i thought i would finally put up the last ones of my refurb... i can't be arsed to write a description about each one - if you just look at each picture you'll soon figure out what's been done/replaced... also if anyone has any questions for me - i'm more than happy to answer them

Sorry for any discrepancy - i have tried to put the attachments in order... Unfortunately i had to drive/limp the car about 15-20 miles to the place where i took the head off and owing to the petrol that was being thrown down the exhaust due to no. 6 cylinder not working, my exhaust got VERY hot due to the petrol igniting inside and not only made the tail pipe white with the heat, but the heat went through the heatshield to the extent that it heated up the grease on my gear shifter and smoked me out of the car! once it got there all was going well until i had to undo the crapy little 5mm allen-key head bolt that holds the dipstick onto the inlet manifold - it was v tight so i leaned on it some more and - crack - off came a nice cast chunk of my inlet manifold! - if you look closey at the photos you can see where someone has tried very badly to port the manifold in a couple of areas, making it very thin right next to the bolt in question - upset doesn't quite cover it! :mad: anyway i pressed on and got my leaky rocker cover off, exposing my cams/chains and they look to have lasted pretty well wear wise which is good although, as the horrific porting might have indicated, someone has had the top off before as the caps that hold the cams in were on the wrong way round - cue more swearing! (can't people figure out which way they go even when they have numbers and arrows on?!) i pressed on again and marked up the sprockets/cams with good old tippex, got those of, then there was a bit of a snag.... came to undoing to head bolts all going well until one sheared off - cue lots more swearing :bad-words: (needless to say the picture was taken after i got the head off - thank god i managed to get the bolt out in the end :? finally managed to get the bloody thing off (after 4 out of 6 exhaust bolts sheared - probably due to the ridiculous heat earlier) and you can see on the crowns of no's 1 and especially 6 where the water has just started to get in :( hopefully getting the head very lightly skimmed just after xmas, so in the meantime if anyone has a spare lower half of the inlet manifold (the bit that holds the injectors) and would like to sell it - i would be very pleased to hear from them... (07888701877) also just thought i include a photo of my head and my cams and caps laid out just like kev advised :thumb right: (even if i will have to put the caps back on the wrong way round :bad-words:)

cheers again for the advice :thumb right:

don't want to hi-jack this thread, but cheers for the above guide kev i (hopefully) wouldn't have had problems anyway - but you really can't go wrong with a guide like that! - Ta v much :thumb right: (will let you know how i get on with changing my own head gasket shortly)

hey zerocool - i've finally (now out of necessity!) got round to sorting you out with the cash and getting it in the post! - should be in the post to you tomorrow - hopefully with you a day or two after... cheers again

after all the "should i, shouldn't i" and after speaking to a friend who knows lots about vw's and who has heard my car - i'm probably just going to replace my own head gasket and not bother with an engine swap after all. yes my engine's done 145k without new chain/tensioners but... i've got bugger all corrosion in my waterways (odd i know as the gasket's gone!) and my engine actually runs sweet as a nut when its going and even when its starting with very little tapping/noise anywhere. and there are cars out there with nearly 200k on the clock with original chains etc. so i recon that's what i'll do - after all as i said it's only got to last about a year then i'll be looking at replacing it. anyone else's opinion on the matter would be good to hear. sorry to mess anyone around if i have - (like a woman) keep changing my mind :oops:

sorry kev and everyone else for slating forced induction by the way :lol:

to be honest as my engine has done nearly 150k and not had the chains/tensioners done and looses oil from just about every gasket! - i'm probably just going to get hold of a replacement engine and whack that in as it will hopefully only have to last for a year or so. i've been umming and arring over what to do with regards to an engine upgrade next year and i'm leaning more and more towards an r32 conversion now - its financially more sound (when you have to pay things like £1200 for the schrick VGI and the 24v engines already come with them) and i can get the sort of power/economy/longevity/reliability etc that i want with the least cash compared to other ways that i've looked at so far - also seeing that R32 badge when you open the bonnet is 8) as you like! (and even after owning an impreza WR1 - i'm not a fan of turbo's anymore - more is definitely more!) in the mean time does anyone have any little hints/tips for an engine swap - i have a hoist so was thinking of taking the bonnet off, leaving the box in-situ(ish) and hoisting the exisiting engine out over the top (and the reverse for refitment) that way i won't have to go ripping bumpers etc off. anyone got any other suggestions?....

just got back from borrowing a plug lead removal tool and sure enough - the gasket has gone........... bollards! :bad-words: water is getting into number 6 cylinder and possibly just beginning to get into number 1 - strange though that i'm not getting any other symptoms as yet - but it has definitely gone (probably as a result of the coolant flush i did the other day) - you can run the engine and disconnect cylinder 6 with little to no difference i had suspected the heater matrix for a while, but there has been no sign of moisture in or around that area after several previous checks. thanks again all though for your input - it's well appreciated if nothing comes of an engine thats closer to hereford, i will probably get one off bigpantsbaby who very kindly made me a good offer last night cheers again

no - the weird thing is that my oil/coolant temps are as normal - as is oil pressure... i went out to double check it wasn't just me being a mong with the leads earlier, but no - same problem unless the coil or one of the plugs has failed, which i will test soon, i really can't think of anything else that it could be... will have a look for the block tester kit though, cheers