fendervg

You might have a short somehwere. Pick the circuit with the biggest drain and trace the wiring back or unplug any components on that circuit. Radios and alarms will always draw a bit of power, I would have thought the window control module would not draw any when not in use. Did you check the wiring that goes from the door to the body at the hinge to make sure there's not a break or worn insulation there?

You can still get them new from a number of places - try German eBay and ARZ Tuning. You'll also need the two blue clips that hold it on if you've lost yours - available from the dealers or from VW Heritage.

I see some jokes coming....

Took the distributor off and found this. Will try a bit of super glue first. [ATTACH]82168[/ATTACH] Looks as if the hall sender plug connector has broken off due to age and brittleness. Tested voltage at the hall sender plug coming from the loom - I have a good earth, 5V in the centre pin and 12V on the outside pin, so that looks fine and rules out voltage and wiring going back to the ECU. Going to put the distributor back in after glueing the sender socket back on and will put a test LED across it. It should flicker. Removing the distributor on the VR6 and putting it back on turned out to be an easy job - there are red marks showing the correct alignment and it's held on by two 5mm allen bolts - you need to clear away some of the cabling to get good access and of course and remove the spark leads and distributor cap as well as the plastic engine cover on the right. It then simply pops off and back on. I'd advise not turning the engine over though with it off, just in case.

How bad is the front end damage? Does it drive at all? I'd get it fixed and then sell assuming there is nothing major wrong with the rest of it - you'll get a better price that way. Or you might just find the love again once it's back on the road...

Ah. That's a pity. I'm pretty sure mine were round hole, but unfortunately I don't have a picture of the car with them on as it normally ran G60 BBS wheels. When you say "D shaped" do you mean the ones on the classic parts site? http://shop.volkswagen-classic-parts.de/vwcp/scirocco-corrado/corrado/chassis/rims/steel-wheel-passat-corrado-357601025q.html EDIT - mine looked like this in the attached pic - you'd be surprised what's still in stock in the dealer network - there was a rage on the VAG scene here in Ireland where people banded these wheels. A good dealer will be able to check stock in the rest of the dealerships in the UK and Ireland and on the dealer network in Germany. They should all be linked up together, assuming they know how to use the system that is. Good luck hunting.

Doh! Your way makes more sense. Will do that in future. Yes, spark and fuel were present. I wonder is there anything that would stop the ECU firing the injectors? As I understand it - I could be wrong - the distributor is purely mechanical apart from the hall sensor, which sends a pulse back to the ECU with the number of camshaft rotations. This is then used for the injector timings. Hmmm

No, it did start on 5 after a while left to cool down.

https://ie.vwheritage.com/vw.cfm?act=thisApp.redirect&url=/pages/paraguay-find-vw-classic-parts/ No part numbers starting with 535 on the list though - so no Corrado parts by the look of it.

If it's the four bolt ones you're after they are dirt cheap from the stealers - I got a set for my MkII GTI a few years back. About €40-50 per rim, the trims will cost a bit extra.

@yandards - how does that work? Is that on G60s and 8v cars? I would have thought the 16v doesn't have a MAF as it's purely mechanical fuel injection (K-Jetronic).

Also - pulled a spark plug and checked for spark and got a nice shock off it so it looks like it's getting current! Then disconnected the central lead from the distributor and ran the starter and there was a good smell of petrol from the plug hole, so it seems to be getting fuel. Tested all the temp senders - fine - and even swapped the ECU coolant temp plug onto the other sender in the thermostat housing for the radiator fan - car started, but cut out again on idle after 5-10 minutes. To me this leaves: - dodgy Hall sender on the distributor ( a pain to test as access is not very good for getting a multimeter on it) - crank position sensor (although would have thought engine would not start at all if this was dead) - leaking injectors flooding the engine - Lambda probe (it only happens when the car is on the full fuelling cycle, i.e. Lambda signal on) Any ideas here? I have a new crank position sensor on the way (even though I have a spare, but it's second hand as well) and am looking into a distributor replacement - they can be got, but are pricey. The hall sender is built into the distributor casing itself and there doesn't seem to be a rebuild kit available.

Here's a picture of the no 1 plug:[ATTACH]82156[/ATTACH] Any comments on the condition - they've been in for about 5000 miles?

What's wrong with it?

Good to hear you sorted it.

VW had a manufacturing plant in Mexico so it may have been that they farmed out some of the panels to there. There have even been stashes of NLA parts found in Brazil and Paraguay in recent years. The original Beetle was made in Mexico long after production ended in Germany.

Stick it into Google and you might find something. The German is for the paint colour- satin silver.

Make sure everything has a proper return to earth via the loom wiring as far as the earth mounting points to the car body. IIRC there is an earth point on the left hand side behind the dash glove box, and another one near the fusebox on the right. These may have been disturbed during the dash out/dash in job. You'll probably need to get a multimeter out to check this kind of stuff. You can also get a current reader device (LED screen with a bit of wire and a fuse connector on the end) which plugs in instead of one of the fuses, which will let you check which circuit is drawing the current.

Thread resurrection as I'm doing this at the moment - I have an old blue temp sender here - it tests 2860 ohms across the two pins when cold. VAG have a temp vs resistance diagram here - so I presume it's within tolerances at room temperature. Threw it into a bowl with boiling water and it changes to 560 ohms, so that looks right. You can test vacuum by using a T piece in between one of the vac hoses and a pressure tester. I was measuring 1,.5 bar at idle I think.

Good point Dox - back to basics. I'll pull the no. 1 plug when it happens again during testing.

I've replaced relay 109 with a spare I had and will test more tomorrow. I was seeing 13.8-14.2 volts in VCDS at the ECU, with no large variations. One strange thing I saw was that the coolant temperature reading is -49C with the engine turned off? If this is not right it could be our old friend the blue ECU coolant temp sensor again. Will swap in another and work on it further over the weekend. Didn't stop it starting though - same overall symptoms - engine runs for about 10-20 mins and then cuts out and won't start for another 10 mins. The first image are the VCDS readings with the engine running and up to temp - the second one is with it off, but ignition on. One thing I'm not sure is the EGR temp at the bottom right - this always reads 217C. Still learning this stuff.

@greenrado - thanks for checking, so that's in line with what I'm seeing. Great.

Very hard to get second hand and not available new - the other side is. Hopefully someone on here has one for you.

http://www.bilstein.de/en-uk/products/high-performance-shock-absorbers/bilstein-b6/ B6's are "high Performance" - closer to OEM, but slightly better, B8 are sports dampers and come in the Bilstein spring and shock sets. I run the B6s to get better damping with -30mm H&R green springs and OEM bushes to get a slight drop, improved damping but nearly OEM type comfort. I think you'll find the B8's harsher for everyday use - but it's only my opinion and there are plenty on here with experience of a huge range of suspensions. Generally, you get what you pay for. You'll also be surprised what a difference replacing all the 20 year old bushes with new ones will make, without touching springs and shocks. If you don't do the lot, you'll only see partial benefits, but I know it's expensive. It's also possible to source something very close to how they came from the factory between VW dealers and some aftermarket parts.

I run Bilstein B6s - no problems so far. Are you just replacing springs and shocks? It depends on how far you want to go, but you should look at the suspension strut top mounts, bump stops, rear axle beam bushes, front wishbone bushes, ARB bushes, tie-rods and ball joints if you want to do a complete refresh.