aclwalker

OK, here's a couple of photos, but they're not great. See the gouge on the right hand side of the tyre? The rusted bit to the left of the brake hose is where I suspect it's rubbing. I did notice that on full lock, it appeared to be very close indeed to the anti-roll bar, but I'm not sure if that's just cos I've currently got the car jacked up for my crack pipe repair. What's the chances of my steering rack not being centred? Maybe somebody has removed both tie-rods at some point and got the steering out of the centre such that full lock to the right is much greater than full lock to the left? How can you centre the steering rack if you suspect that the tie-rods have been adjusted to compensate for poor centreing?

Diesel is a pretty nasty smelling fuel which makes a right mess when spilled, and is a hazard for motorcyclists in particular, because it doesn't evaporate off the road surface like petrol does. On the other hand it's not a fire hazard like petrol in that it doesn't have flammable fumes. E85 is interesting, although I'm not up on its technical benefits, but it has the problem that it is resulting in competition for land between food and fuel. Of course the real solution is to reduce world population to a 'sustainable' level (whatever that would be). Then energy, food and many other world problems would be solved. We should be working towards firstly stabilising population at 0% growth, then slowly working to reduce it in a controlled fashion, but back in the real world it will likely take war, famine, natural disaster or all, to reduce the population and solve our problems for us. Of course for population, and hence economy, shrinkage we'd need to ditch the capitalist model, and probably most of the world's religions. Pretty heavy I know, but it's raining now and my Corrado is still in lots of bits due to this crack pipe replacement!

I did this last year and started doing a write-up with pictures, but unfortunately never finished writing it. :( I'll try and find what I did and the photos and see if I can post up what I've got in the knowledge base, if you want?

Yeah, I get where you're coming from, but do diesels not have all those innovations too (possibly with the exception of the super charger)? I'm really comparing diesel with petrol and am finding that diesels can't compete unless they have a turbo. I'm comparing petrol with diesel, not petrol 8v with petrol 16v. I know the general public don't know or care about this finer point, but when I get non-petrolhead (or non-dieselhead!) friends and colleagues rubbishing petrol cars and bragging about the performance of their new diesel etc, I find it amusing that they don't realise that it's turboed up to get that performance. And consequently they're probably not even getting the fuel economy they think they are, which is another thing they go on about. If they'd tried the turboed petrol version then they probably would not bother getting the diesel. People also talk about how diesel has greater fuel economy, and this may be true litre for litre, but I think it needs to be seen in the context of the supply of that fuel. For example, people say how uranium is incredibly energy dense, but the amount of uranium around the world, in pure mass terms, is minuscule compared to the amount of coal. So is it not possible to argue that, compared to the SUPPLY of uranium, our use of it in generating electricity is inefficient because it won't last very long? Some people are talking about peak uranium! Whereas if you simply compared uranium with coal, without considering the supply of each, you'd conclude that burning coal to produce electricity was incredibly inefficient. As an aside, huge amounts of energy are expended in mining uranium which is never factored in to its cost, but that's another matter. I don't know the breakdown of a barrel of oil, but I suspect that the balance has been shifting towards diesel due to the heavier oils now being extracted and that's what's driving the push to diesel. This is probably adding to the 'argument' that petrol is inefficient next to diesel, but if you could convert 95% of a barrel to petrol and only get 5% of it as diesel then I'm sure we'd be getting it rammed down our throats how burning diesel in cars is inefficient and polluting and a bad thing to do, because industry and transport would need it for the torque it provides and anything would be said and done to prevent us from using it.

I don't think it's necessary in theory to remove the caliper to replace a brake line, but in practice, with the age our cars are, then it's possible that they had to replace the flexible hoses too due to corrosion or age, so it is entirely possible that they would remove the caliper. You need to watch with the caliper bolts. They have a locking compound on them when new (a kind of blue rubbery material) and are probably single use. You get new bolts with new pads anyway, so most people end up with lots of spares for these bolts. But it could have come out if not torqued up correctly. The other thing you need to watch out for is that the bit the caliper bolts go in to rotates freely as they are slider pins that allow the caliper to move with the wear of the pads. If this has not been held properly with a spanner while the caliper bolt has been tightened, then this could result in it not being tight enough. You need to watch out that the rubber bellows for these caliper pins aren't perished (which they surely are on a lot of Corrados, given the age). If these are perished then the grease on the pin quickly dries out leading to a seized caliper (NOT piston in the caliper). This will eventually result in the inner brake pad only giving contact to the disc and you will end up with normal (or accelerated) disc wear on the inside and rust on the outside. Likewise the inner pad will continue to wear but the outer won't as the caliper won't be able to move to take up the wear. This happened to me on my rear caliper. It was very difficult to get the slider pin out. I had to hammer it quite hard to get it out. Unfortunately you cannot buy replacement pins. You have to buy a new caliper frame, which is quite expensive. You can buy a repair kit though, which includes new rubber seals and new grease for the pin, but it is also quite expensive at around £12 per caliper. These are available from the dealer. I've just thought that your problem may have been a missing caliper frame bolt, although these are actually very tough bolts and I would be surprised if they come out themselves, unless it's sheared. I would advise anyone doing brake overhauls to inspect the caliper slider pin seal integrity, as the hassle of a seized caliper slider frame is quite substantial.

Apologies for not actually updating people on this one. The weird thing was that the water was very slimy, almost like it contained oil. Shortly after this problem I discovered that my heater matrix was leaking, so I'm assuming the sliminess was coolant. I have since replaced my heater matrix and there seems to be no repeat of it. The strange things are these though: 1 The front was bone dry, so I don't know how the water managed to leak from the matrix at the front and end up in the back well, without making the front wet. I can only imagine that parking facing upwards on the hill made the water leak backwards and maybe get trapped in the back. Maybe there's some kind of step that means the water can't make it back to the front. 2 The water in the rear took an absolute age to evaporate out, presumably due to the coolant content. It is in fact still slightly damp a year and a half later, but much less noticeable than before. I guess the high coolant content is making it difficult to evaporate away, or else it's getting topped up with water from the sunroof every so often. I've had other more pressing problems to sort with the car though, so I've not investigated further!

I believe that worn engine mounts can put serious stress on inner CV joints if bad enough. I reckon a lot of VR6 owners are going to have this problem soon as the off-side inner CV joint is very very close to the exhaust, with no protection from the heat.

Is it possibly something to do with power steering? Perhaps you could get somebody to slowly steer the car while stationary and listen around the car to locate the problem?

I'll try to take some pictures when I go back over to my parents after shaking off this bug (and allowing the dealer time to source my bolts. This wear has probably occurred since I refurbed the driveshaft on that side. I replaced the ball joint too and it's maybe moved a bit. I reckon the tracking is off a bit too though as it doesn't look right even by eye. On my old Golf I was able to realign it myself by eye such that the garage didn't need to do any adjustment, so if it looks off to me then it probably is. However, the ball joint replacement looks to have made it worse, as the tie rods were untouched, not even loosened.

Look around mate! You don't see many high performance petrol cars that don't have turbos! A few: it's mostly Honda VTECs which get roundly criticised for having no torque, or it's large V6/V8 engines with truly epic fuel consumption. And a 180bhp turbo diesel produces 50% more torque and uses 50% less fuel than a turbo petrol engine that's putting out the same amount of power.. Of course it's true to say that a non-turbo diesel versus a non-turbo petrol engine is not really a contest, but the diesel will use a tiny fraction of the fuel of the petrol engine, and it will do 90% of the same job, it just won't produce anything like the *power*. Torque outputs will be similar though. I am looking around, and the only petrol engines with turbos are performance cars, whereas almost any diesel has got at least a light pressure turbo, which in my opinion is to mask their woeful performance in order to fool the general public into buying them, because the ratio of light to heavy crude is becoming more biased towards the heavy end.

Indeed. All I'm saying is that almost all diesels have a turbo, whereas only performance petrols have turbos. Then people erroneously think that diesels have come along a lot recently because they are comparing the performance of diesels (possibly with a light pressure turbo) with a normal bog standard petrol. It's not comparing like with like, and if petrols had light pressure turbos then nobody would buy diesels! The pollution from diesels is horrendous and we are constantly lied to by the government about this. Diesels produce massive amounts of lung-clogging particulates. There are moves afoot to mandate diesel cats (like petrol cats from 1992 onwards) but these particulates are a technical problem. How do you stop the particulates clogging the cat? In my opinion, the reason that diesel is being pushed is because of the realisation that light sweet crude is running out and more and more of the oil is heavy and that is often sour (high sulphur content) which requires expensive refining. It's probably far easier to make diesel from this heavier oil than petrol, given that diesel is a heavier fuel.

True, but diesels almost all have turbos now do they not? Would petrol engines not be far in advance once more if they all had turbos? I get the impression that diesel is only starting to rival petrol in performance because they've accepted that they can't compete unless there's a turbo present. Maybe I'm wrong.

When dismantling everything for my crack pipe replacement, I noticed a strange gouge on the inside edge of my driver's side tyre. On closer inspection, there is evidence that it's rubbing off the back of the wheel well. The wheel well appears to be properly attached, the car is totally standard with the original Speedlines and I can't actually see how it touches even when I put it on full lock myself. Any suggestions? The only things I can think off are that the tracking looks slightly out (toeing out, which would make it nearer to the bodywork at the back where it is rubbing) or that my dodgy CV joint was causing it to rub some time back before I fixed it. I'm not so sure of the last point as I'm sure I would have noticed this at the time as I always check the tyres after removing the wheels. I just wonder if I've not quite lined up the ball joint properly when reassembling the car after the CV joint repair.

This might be too late, but here's some tips from me: http://www.the-corrado.net/.archive/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=69189#p803672

Yeah if you want a job doing properly, do it yourself :D The incident with my brakes and a few other issues are why I will never take a car to a garage to get work done, a couple of weeks ago after taking my company van in for some work to be done i noticed it didn't feel right in the corners and after a couple of miles got quite a lot worse, when I got home I was going to jack the van up and check what was causing it, but when I went to slacken the wheel bolts off a bit before jacking it up I realised they where allready loose and only in by a couple of threads each, and they are supposedly a reputable garage. Yep, that's the lesson that's sadly come my way the few times I've got a garage to do anything.

Do you get a "dunk, dunk, dunk" sound as it goes round? If so, then it's probably the bearing in the top mount strut. Mine did that, was replaced by a "VW expert" and is doing it again after a short while. That was one of the few times I got a garage to do work for me, and probably one of the last.

I wasn't aware of this. Is there a source for this info?

Lazy lambda sensor? In my experience it can be quite slow (the sensor) but still not throw an error code. However, my new one is throwing a code all the time now due to my wiring difficulties, but that's another story...

Agree with the maintenance comment. My temps (water AND oil) have been slowly increasing over the last few months and it's obviously been due to my coolant leak. My car used to keep the water at 90ish (unless in traffic where it would go no more than 105ish) and the oil at 100, at 70 mph on the motorway, or very slightly higher if driving with gusto. However, recently this has raised to 95ish on the water (110 when in traffic) and more like 108ish on the oil but even up to as much as 118 on the oil (only at motorway speeds too, not ragging it), which was very concerning. Shortly after this though, I smelt coolant through the heater vents (not my heater matrix this time as I had that last year and replaced it all! :norty: ) and then it dumped all the coolant a few days ago. My "crack pipe burst" thread has the full details if anyone is interested. Cheesewire is dead right, and if something does change then something is up. I knew something was up but had been checking the coolant level for a while with no obvious change, however, I believe the level can change between hot and cold, so I should have checked more when it was cold I guess. Incidentally, the VR6 is a known oil drinker, and my temps definitely increase (oil especially) if I'm a bit low on oil. The difference can be as much as 8-10C, so check your oil level regularly and keep it topped up.

Sorry, I know it's probably bad form to bump your own posts, but I thought maybe others would be interested in a potential replacement space saver tyre (see my first post) and maybe missed this thread the first time round. Perhaps the info could go in the tyre part of the knowledge base if it turns out to be correct (I've not confirmed it myself)?

Well, I started the job today and have hit a few problems. There's quite a lot of corrosion around and unfortunately, one of my 4 17mm hex bumper bolts sheared off. Also, one of the bolts for the radiator hanger things sheared off too, but that's an easier problem; just a new bolt and spacer piece. I managed to get the bumper out by pushing hard underneath on the remaining piece of bolt with a screw driver, while pulling the bumper out. I then used lots of penetrating oil and Irwin bolt grips (quite literally the best set of tools ever invented, buy them now, BEFORE you need them!), but the bolt sheared off AGAIN, so I have a little stump of hardened steel bolt remaining, which I've managed to flatten with a Dremel and dent with a hole punch, with a view to drilling tomorrow. Anyone got any general tips on drilling out bolts? I suppose that if the worst comes to the worst, I can always buy a replacement bumper bracket. I'm guessing it would be a bad idea to simply ignore the problem and only use one bolt on that side for the bumper, given that it seems to provide support for the engine front mount, via the cross member thing? Anyone got any other suggestions? As for what was causing the leak in the first place; it was the rubber hose from the engine block to the oil cooler and not the crack pipe itself. There was a 2-3mm tear in the back of it, which has probably been leaking a bit for a while, judging from the corrosion on the front of the block. The crack pipe crumbled at both ends when I removed it. It is stamped "93" and my car is a "94" so is this a record for a crack pipe? 14 years and 201,000 miles and it still didn't burst! If I'd been able to leave it in, who knows how long it would have lasted! My thermostat housing pieces seem to be stamped with "01" as the manufacturing date. I bought the car in 2002, so this car must have had a new thermostat and housing not long before I got it. And I'm doing it again, roughly the same time after it was done the first time (but far less mileage. 1st 7/8 years was 170,000 miles. I've done 30,000 in 6 years.). The housing is actually in very good condition, with no cracks or damage. The bolts were obviously corroded to hell (Irwin bolt grips to the rescue), but all plastic and seals (except for the crack pipe as already mentioned) are in good condition. I had bought a whole new set of pieces anyway, so I'm fitting my new ones. Might keep the old bits as spares, or sell them on to recover some of this cost! Not got a job at the moment! So, I'm at the point now where I have the car in 1 million bits with no cooling system installed and a bumper with a bolt to be drilled out. The corrosion on the block needs to be cleaned off where the crack pipe goes and I need to clean off the mating surface for the thermostat housing (which looks very clean and smooth, I'm pleased to see). I have developed a cold over the last 30 minutes, have forgotten my digital camera to take more photos of my car in lots of bits to freak out my pals and have left both drills at my house, 15 miles away from my parents where I'm currently staying the night. And I need to go to the stealer tomorrow to order replacement bolts and things. If I feel like shit tomorrow then I might just go to Verve, order the bits and go to bed in my house, then wake up three days later, collect the parts, remember the drills and camera and re-assemble. All good fun though. I must be mellowing out in my old age though, as even though this bolt situation is a total PITA, I'm actually surprisingly not bothered about it, even though I don't see me solving the problem right now! Maybe the post-redundancy lack of stress is good for me. Anyway, enough of a ramble. Any tips, encouragement or whatever welcome. It's certainly an 'interesting' car to own!

Mine started like that, but after a few years (!) it got to the stage where it was doing it (the clunk) on any acceleration, sometimes at steady speed and even on engine braking.

Well, I bought the Clarke tow bar (with damping spring) from Machine Mart and got towed over on Sunday, in the rain. It was well worth the £23.48. It was quite tricky to get the ends of the bar into the towing eyes, but I managed it eventually. The only slight problem is that most of the paint on the towing eye has come off now, even though I tried to wrap a cloth round it to protect it.

I thought that's what you'd say. I don't think the hill will be a problem, as there's two ways round it (it's a no through road on a loop and one way round has no junctions to worry about). Thanks again.

Thanks for the advice and the extremely quick response. I'm a bit worried now though as my dad's car is a 2002 1.6 Golf (16V). I wonder if it'll cope with it. The only tricky bit will be the hill where my parents live, but if we get a run at it it'll hopefully be alright. Having said that, we managed to tow my old 1.3 MkII Golf with a 1.3 Polo and the old Golf was a heavy beast.