tony_ack

Don't think you need the hubs and ball joints for the brake conversion, so save yourself some hassle! I found the Topran crack pipe/hosuing kit okay, but like you I got a genuine thermostat. Also, I found the rubber seals to be a little suspect. My only worry now is that you have changed almost all of your cooling system, so don't be surprised to see a leak develop in one of the bits you haven't replaced! I had to change the rad after doing mine, as a fully pressurised system showed up a pin hole leak.

I wouldn't say it all needs re-wiring, but there is clearly something in the lighting circuit (either dash lights or vehicle lights) that is contacting something else that it shouldn't. I'm trying to think of something in common between the lighting, engine running, speedo and fuel gauge... all I can think of is the clocks themselves? Does the ECU use a speed reading or engine speed reading from a speed sensor in the clocks? To be honest, it is guesswork at the moment - this looks unfortunately like it may be a job for a VAG-friendly electrician that knows a bit about CE2. ---------- Post added at 05:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:50 PM ---------- Just noticed you've also got a 1.8 16v, which is the same engine as the Golf I was having trouble with. It's a long shot, but it may be worth checking the green wire from the ISV controller isn't plugged into a spare plug coming out of D12 of the fusebox (assuming that the Corrado setup on that plug is the same as a 90 spec Golf). I've even got a pic (it's the green wire in the centre on top of the fusebox, plugged into the grey/blue wire - they should NOT be connected) :-) Not saying it's definitely that, but may be worth a look. If someone disconnected the ISV controller to get the matrix out (ISV controller is behind the centre console), then when they put it back in, they probably saw a loose wire from the fusebox, and a loose wire from the ISV controller, and though 'Ah, that must go in there!'

Hmmm... not sure about Technicar now! Either way, a new alarm will have to wait a couple of months due to lack of funds

Costs to consider are: -Dry car storage while you break (you can break in about 2 weeks if you put some decent part-time hours in to it). If you break outside, then factor in losses from water damage to parts. -Inside storage of parts - you'll probably need a large-size room on top of your car storage space to move parts into while you break. If you don't have enough room, factor in losses due to damage to parts while in storage. -Hire of equipment (e.g. engine lifts) -Losses due to dishonest buyers or heavy handed/careless mail companies (refunds) The biggest thing you'll lose is time - not time breaking the car as this is *relatively* simple, but time trying to sell the parts, and maintaining ads on here, ebay and other forums. All the 'good' stuff will sell itself in a couple of months, but you'll be left with loads of parts at the end that no-one wants. Your perception of what a part is worth, especially if you have high standards, is usually a lot less than someone is willing to pay. You're also relying on the fact that there is someone out there looking for the parts you are trying to sell, which with quite a rare car, isn't always the case. You may have to wait 1-2 years to shift some parts.

I would suspect it's the dash lighting that's contacting something it shouldn't, especially if the work was to the interior. On my MK2 16v someone had connected a spare plug on the ISV controller behind the dash to a spare accessory lighting plug on the back of the fusebox - the result was that every time I turned the lights on, the car ran really rough at idle and hunted like crazy. Obviously your problem is more widespread than that, but it could be something similar.

Went to the National Golf MK2 OC meet last weekend. The Corrado got a lot of love and won the 'Best other VAG' category in the show and shine. Was not too impressed though when one of the guys organising the show and shine called it a Scirocco though..

I changed the steering rack boot today - what a PITA that was! I didn't have too much trouble removing the track rod end, though it was pretty stiff to say it had only been adjusted about a month ago. The old boot had split into two, and both parts came off relatively easily. But then fitting the new one was a nightmare, especially since I was doing it on the floor, with the car on an axle stand. Space in there is very limited, as the subframe is in the way. You have to get the boot to hook onto a little 'nipple' before pushing it home, which, when the boot is a tight fit, and the rubber is new and firm, is pretty tricky. After scratching my hands to pieces trying to get access, I managed to finally coax it on with a bit of grease. I also tightened the rear wheel bearings too, so it should be all set for the retest now.

Seriously thought about it, but ferry costs are £350 for two of us (one car) so a little prohibitive unfortunately.

Where has my tread gone?!? I got a full set of Premium Contact 2s about 7 weeks ago, and the fronts are already half worn! the front wear is even too, so it's not an alignment issue as far as I can tell. I've only done about 2000 miles on them, and I don't exactly rag it everywhere. Rears are still almost at full tread.

Okay where were we...? I've made a start on restoring the interior. I've cleaned, conditioned and re-dyed all the door cards, and the rear seats, and they've come up great. Just the front seats to go now - they've been cleaned and conditioned, but I need a couple of days spare to do the dyeing. I suspect the fronts have been re-dyed/painted before, as not only are they a darker shade than the rest, but quite a lot of the paint/dye came off when I was cleaning them, revealing the original colour underneath. I'll put some pics up when it's finished :-) While doing the front door cards, I installed some sound insulation, and swapped the front speakers for some Pyles... not the greatest make, but they were leftovers from my old MK2 and rated for 300w (apparently). It's made a bit of a difference to the sound, but I still think I need an amp now to rid me of the distortion. I also spent some time treating the rust on the driver's sill. It was surface rust, but getting worse, and was caused by rust on the inside of the driver's door dripping down when wet onto the sill. I wire brushed and ground out all the rust (I hope!). I was going to use filler to bring the repair back level with the surrounding metal, but the weather was not on my side - plus the repair was only really to stop it getting worse rather than getting it perfect. I sanded, masked and sprayed (using etch primer, colour coat and lacquer), and it's come out pretty well. I also discovered G3 rubbing compound for the first time (where have you been all my life??) so the finish, although not perfectly smooth because of the underlying metal, is shiny at least! I spent a day a couple of weeks ago giving the outside of the car a damn good clean. I attacked some of the light scuffs and scratches with my DA, and most of them have now gone! Looking pretty tidy outside now, I'll get some pic up when the weather improves. Last weekend we went to the Golf MK2 owners club national meet in the Corrado and the missus' MK2 and the Corrado won best other VAG in the show and shine! The first award, though I feel I cheated a little by having a Corrado. I wasn't too impressed though when one guy called it a Scirocco.... he really should have known better?!? ---------- Post added at 07:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:43 PM ---------- Then, today was MOT day... I put it straight in with no prep and it... FAILED. But not on much... It failed on a split rubber boot on the steering rack (i.e. the one butchered by the wheel alignment 'specialists'). The MOT place could have done it for £80, but I decided at that price, and since I already had the part, I'd try it myself (so guess what I'm doing this weekend). There were also advisories for play in the rear wheel bearings - I changed these a few months back, so they probably just need adjusting. I've also booked a day off work on Monday for a 'road trip' to Southam, Warwickshire... watch this space :-)

Not sure exactly tbh though there is a guy on the GolfGTIforum on the IOW who has done at least one ABF conversion into a MK2 if that helps? For Digi 3 on the ABF, I would have thought you'd also at least need the airbox, MAF, injectors, fuel rail, FPR, re-route fuel pipes, etc? You'd also need to think about the ECU sensors would get their info from - you'd have to splice in the 6a temp sender, add a lambda (I assume the 6a doesn't have one) and I'm not sure what the ABF uses in the way of throttle position sensors (throttle body/inlet manifold required?) or cam/crank position sensors? The good news is that both the Corrado and MK3 ran CE2. I've never had experience with Digi 1, all I know is that it's the grown up version of Digi 2 used on the 8v MK2s.

Does this help? You'll need a login for Vagcat http://www.vagcat.com/epc/cat/vw/COR/1995/76/56/848348/ To be honest, it seemed pretty straight forward to me how it fitted together when I did it, but it was just very fiddly! I would take the plastic part off the latch, connect the rods, then re-attach the plastic part to the latch. Taking the door lock mech off the door (or loosening it at least) helps with access. The rods and plastic lugs are both still available from VW for pennies.

My current alarm is a Laserline 996 that came with the car, and I've also got the factory immobiliser fitted. There are quite a few problems with it, so I was wondering if they can be fixed, or do I just ditch it and get a new alarm? I'd rather not buy a new one if the old one can be fixed, as they're not cheap! Problem 1... The siren is very very quiet. There is a key switch on the siren, but it seems to be the same volume on both positions. However, when I disconnected the battery to do some work, the siren went off, and was very loud... Why won't it be loud all the time? Problem 2... every so often the alarm will fail to respond to the remote fob. I don't think it's a battery issue as the fob is only 6 months old, and it only happens about once a week. To get round it, I usually unlock the doors on the key so the alarm goes off (luckily very quietly - see above!) and then keep pressing the fob until it finally responds Problem 3... full-closure is a little temperamental. Sometimes it works properly when I lock on the fob, but sometimes it will start to close the sunroof/windows for about a second, then just stop. If I put the key in and hold it, full closure works fine. Any ideas of how to fix all this, or should I just look at getting a new Cat 1 alarm?

I wish I had the money to match my inspiration! I did some restoration on the door cards last week. While they were out, I fitted some Dynamat-style stuff to the insides of the doors, and fitted the Pyle speakers. The Pyles are good for 300W apparently... It's better, but still not great. I also did some fettling with the head unit and got some better sound out of it. I think an amp may be in order... but the question is where do I put it?

On the one hand it's good to keep buyers informed if you can (and sometimes due to unforeseen circumstances it's not possible), BUT... Two days is completely unreasonable to give up on someone though

Blue (Aqua?) VR6, N-reg spotted tonight parked up on the side of the road in Whiston, Rotherham

Maybe you need to take off your boxing gloves before handling delicate trim items! Part of the problem with Corrados is that they seem to have worked well for a long time, and have now got to the point where a lot of the original parts which you wouldn't expect to replace very often are reaching the end of their life. Some of these parts would go on quite happily for a few more years under normal use, but are worn enough to succumb when removed to replace to something else. Coming from MK2 Golfs, the Golfs seem to be much easier to work on, have a lot less to go wrong, and to be honest don't seem to go wrong quite as much, despite being older. They also seem to have stronger interior plastics too. If this is progress, it will be interesting to see what the MK6 Golf is like when (if) it gets to 20 years old!

As he probably didn't know what valves were, I didn't see the point in trying to explain he couldn't have had 2.666666666666666666666666666666666666666666... valves per cylinder!

I would have thought that 24v would run hotter than 12v due to more moving parts? The same was definitely true about the 1.8/2.0 4 cylinder engines - from experience 16v ran about 10-15 degrees hotter oil than the 8v.

I was washing the car today... Bloke: Nice Corrado Me: Cheers -Is it a V6 -Yeah -I've always wanted one of those. It's the same engine as in the new V6 isn't it? -(not too sure which 'new V6'...) Ummm, no, it's the original VR6, the later V6s were modified versions evolving on the original design. This one's only got 12 valves for example -Really? I thought it would have been 16 valve? -(facepalm)

The first half of my plate is M511 so I can sometimes just about get away with pretending it's a new car!

Did this on my old Golf too! On the last MK2 Golf, I spent ages trying to find a replacement wing in the same colour to replace the rusted pattern wing that was fitted. Once I found one, I spent an afternoon swapping it over. I started to drive the Golf into the lockup and forgot I put the old wing against the wall. Result: massive scratch down the new wing caused by the one I had just taken off.

08/11/2010: 535 837 184 A - o/s door door pin lever (the rod from the catch to the pin) 7.19 4A0 919 040 C - dash bulb 1.58 17/12/2010: 536 819 831 - heater controls flap bowden cable 10.23 357 837 084 - o/s door inner lock lever (the plastic bit that the c/locking rod attaches to) 0.48 31/12/2010: N0 199 123 - rear carrier bolt 2.07 535 955 121 - front wiper crank 2.99 536 955 325 - front wiper link rod 11.24 20/01/2011: 1H0 422 804 A - Track rod (right) 65.52 191 407 181 D - Rear front wishbone mount 10.33 07/04/2011: 6K0 919 243 - bulbholder 4.12 (already down, new price) 357 919 243 - Late heater controls bulb/holder/ashtray bulb holder 4.12 (already down, new price) 7L6 947 175 A01C - cigarette lighter torch (not a Corrado part strictly speaking!) 18.38 31.05.2011: 535 868 523 01C - rear lower seat belt guide, black (the ones in the rear door cards) 5.77 each BACK ORDERED 253 260 130 7UK - 'Clip' - trim fasteners for centre tunnel lower cover (x4) and rear door cards (2 per door card) in beige 1.42 each Prices are before discount and VAT

Do you still have the front plastic roof interior trim that sits between the windscreen and headlining? Looks beige to me in the pics - if it is and you still have it, how much do you want for it?

Yep, that's the one, I'll have it, if that's okay? Could you PM me your details? Thanks