jamesoff

So the answer was... the Hall sensor! Garage replaced that and it's running fine now, picked it up this morning \o/ However, following the rule that for every thing I fix on this car two more break, the passenger side window now won't open (relays click in response to switches, and you can feel the motor "twitch" (had the door card off) but it's not going anywhere) and the temp gauge is reading quite high, although that's the sensor I replaced the other week so it could be that it's not quite the right one. Engine doesn't "smell" hot, oil was about 106 while sprinting up the M1, and the fan is starting up at what the dash says is 110. Just glad to have it back and running for now anyway, thanks everyone for your help in the thread :)

Thanks Si. I'll maybe unbolt and clean up the engine-end connection of the earth strap to see if that helps, and I'll give the wiring loom a prod too. It's strange how when it was running (before I went away, and also when it worked for a day at the garage) it was running fine without missing a beat. I agree that suggests it's a dodgy connection somewhere that's killing the whole system rather than just say, one of the plugs. I did test the resistance of the leads not long ago when I was considering replacing them (mainly because they look old and I'd like smart new ones) and they were all fine then, but I'll see about retesting them. Don't think I'm getting spark on cyls 2 & 3 though as when it's turning over to start there's no coughing or change in the noise/speed of rotation to suggest some of the cylinders are firing. Making arrangements for Green Garage on the A5 to come get it this week some time, they look pretty competent from their website. May write up everything I've tried (and the fact it sprung to life for a day) as a note for them!

My Corrado suddenly decided to not start (and then briefly work for a day, and then break again) recently, and I've been unable to fix it even with the help of people here. I'm now at the point where I want to pay someone to make it all work again Anyone able to recommend any good garages for working on Corrados ideally in NW London? I'll also accept around London Bridge (work) and Aylesbury (parents, although recovery cost may be a killer?). Thanks in advance :)

Probably just a special effect, unfortunately.

Got this off someone here a while back when I was figuring out mine!

Well the Hall sensor seems OK - I jammed a couple of wires in the connector when I shut it, and then turned the engine over watching my multimeter. With the ignition off, it was showing about 0.4V (!). With the ignition on, battery voltage, and while the engine was turning over it was showing about 6V, which I take to be the average of 0 and 12 - i.e. what you'd see for a switch which is on 50% of the time and off 50% of the time. So I guess that's OK. At this point, my Dad and I were both stumped because we're definitely getting a spark off the king HT lead when you turn the ignition on, and nothing at all at any of the plugs. If anyone has any other ideas for things to try I'd appreciate it, but I think now I'm looking for a good independent VW specialist in the NW of London so if anyone has any recommendations I'd be grateful! :(

I'll see about either getting some wires jammed in the plug as I put it on so I can get the probes on them, or something else like you suggest. Failing that, my Dad's coming over this weekend (was supposed to be going to his so we could do CV boots etc which the MOT listed as advisories!) and he has enough competence to be removing the distributor and replacing it correctly. I have definitely had a spark from the king lead (held near the bolt for the earth strap at the engine block end), but not from either of two spark plugs (cyls 1 and 4) held with the thread/bolt against the same earth strap bolt. The latter test I've done a few times now, including last night after replacing the cap/rotor.

New cap and rotor (came off easily, no glue!) have had no effect unfortunately. Getting battery voltage across the live and earth on the Hall sensor's connector. However, I wasn't confident of removing (bits of?) the distributor to get it off the car so I could spin it to test - do I need to worry about alignment of bits when I do that, or are they keyed so I can't mess it up? Do I just undo the two bolts either side of the whole thing? The bracket looks like it can be adjusted (rotated) a bit by loosening those bolts, which adds to my fear of getting things misaligned! I am definitely heading out of my comfort zone now :) I did stick my multimeter on the earth/sensor pins of the Hall sender itself and have my housemate crank the engine, but it didn't budge off 0. It's just a basic one but I was hoping to see it change values continuously as it tracked the sensor's output. However, I'm not sure if it should have worked at all given that it had no power connected. I pulled the boot on the connector back but the wires aren't exposed under it so I couldn't measure it with it connected. Hope that makes sense! Someone come and fix my car :( Was watching the Youtube vids of the guy with the red VR6+turbo and wanted to go for a drive!

Good to know. Picked up a dizzy cap, rotor and a replacement temp sender at GSF this morning so I'll be attacking those this evening when I get home.

Cheers Si. Going to replace the distributor cap since the outer cover has a crack in it and they're only a tenner. It's the prime suspect (the distributor in general) at the moment based on seeing a spark from the king HT lead but not from a spark plug. I can do the rotor as well - not seen any cracks in it but if it's a couple of quid I might as well. The Haynes manual says you need to crush it and glue the new one on - is that correct? The flash shield doesn't stay clipped on when you take the cap off, but I have it and I put it back in place when I replace the cap. Is there an easy way to test the Hall sender? I think I read somewhere if it's acting up it stops the engine management (such as it is) working right?

Tried the repeatedly-priming trick and that hasn't made a difference. Should the lifter pump in the tank make any noise when it starts/runs? There's a very definite sound of the pump under the car starting and running when I turn the key, but nothing from the one in the tank. Checked with a mate listening there after I pulled the carpet and the round cover off, and also put my hand on it to see if I could detect any vibration of it running. Getting battery voltage (10V at the moment after all the attempts, going to have to go buy a charger soon) between the outermost two terminals on the connector so I assume that's power getting to it OK. --EDIT-- Answered my own question by pulling the hose off the lift pump and running one from it into a bottle. Result after a few seconds of ignition being on: a cm of fuel in the bottle. --EDIT-- Regarding the coolant sensors, good to know they're interchangable. Is the one which broke the one for the dash? If not, I'll swap it with one of the others while I sort out a replacement. See below :) Further edit: housemate came home so borrowed him and repeated the spark test. Earthing plug against bolt for earth strap = no spark. Holding HT lead from coil near same bolt when ignition is cycled = pretty serious spark. Inside of distributor is pretty clean, couldn't get a good shot of the points in the low light but they're not bad; I did clean them up a bit recently. There's a crack across the centre of the outer covering though. Also, the metal ring inside (behind the plastic cover, which is loose) looks warped. Will pop along to GSF on Wed and grab a new cap I guess.

Si: Yeah this one only had a single connection but it was a copper tab sticking out (now broken off), but I think I saw someone asking elsewhere on here/Internet about that and someone else said you could take the plastic part off the connector on the wire, and be left with something which will connect to that GSF sensor (the ...090 one). If that's the right one I'll get one ordered. (My car doesn't match your Coolant temp switch.jpg scan, I have three sensors separately. I'll grab a pic tomorrow so you can see what I mean.) David: Do you mean just to turn the ignition on/off a couple of times in a row to try to free up whatever's getting stuck? Thanks again both :) Edit: here's a thread I had open in another tab regarding the three being interchangable: http://www.golfgtiforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=139265.0

Cheers. Went and had a prod and the temperature sensor in the side of the block which is topmost and frontmost (top left if you're looking at the engine from that side). Could only get a reading of 600ish Ohms, and the Haynes manual says (for the KR engine) they should be 1000 at 20C and lower if they're warmer. It's definitely not warmer than that out there. However, while removing it to see if I could clean up the corroded connector a bit, it literally fell apart in my hands so I now have a bolt and a copper spade :) It looks like these are the things: http://www.gsfcarparts.com/parts/cooling-heating/cooling-system/coolant-temperature-sensor so if that's correct I'll get three ordered and replace all the sensors in one go. The other two are reading 950-1050 Ohms but are also in a bad state so I may as well do them all. Is the one which broke the one which drives the dash temperature display? If so, I don't care for now. However, if it's one that the fan or something else relies on, I'll swap the connectors around. Running out of light and it's trying to rain on me so I'm stopping now, although I'm tempted to go bounce on the boot sill a bit in case what fixed it before was the physical process of being moved on to the recovery truck (fuel and crap sloshing around in tank?) I'll retest the spark at the leads and plugs tomorrow when I can get my housemate to help with turning the key. The plugs I have in there were replaced last year, and they're single electrode Bosch. Bought them based on what the Haynes manual said for the KR engine and they looked identical to the outgoing ones except clean.

Cheers both for your input. I had the car booked in for having the tyres done on Saturday morning so Friday evening (having not had any luck getting it started still) the garage came and picked it up for me and said they'd have a look at it not starting too. However, it seems they have the magic touch as the second it was off the truck, they turned the key and it started, and it was fine Saturday too so I went to collect it. It's started several times fine since and is running just as it was. Glad it's ok again, but I really don't like not knowing what was wrong in the first place. Thanks for the giant list of things to try Si, that's going in my collection of Corrado info :) Just wanted to check a point about the pick-up sensor on HT lead 1/4 - I found some other threads talking about this so did some investigating and it looks like on the 16V I shouldn't have that, but instead I have the Hall sensor as part of the distributor? Either way, I don't have a sensor attached to any of my HT leads. I don't *think* I had a spark, but that's assuming I was earthing the spark plug when I was testing it correctly. I definitely didn't see one. I did check the fuses and they were all ok. Next time I'll try the test with the lead from the coil instead (or first). Does anyone know a competent garage, ideally in NW London (or Aylesbury) which knows their Corrados and could do a health check? That is, someone who knows these kind of gotchas and can see if it looks like I'm suffering them (or I'm about to). Fingers crossed it doesn't happen again, anyway :) ---------- Post added at 6:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 4:38 PM ---------- Spoke to soon - just went out to try it again, and it's not starting again. Arrgh.

Thanks, will do. Pull a spark plug out, reattach to the lead and earth it on something like the manifold? Guessing it's a two-man job (one to do that and one to turn the key)? If that IS the issue, is there a common fault for it?

Was going to take the car for a drive to make sure it was OK after I got back from being away for a couple of weeks. Last time I drove the car was just over a fortnight ago and it's been parked on the road outside my house all that time. Never had a problem starting it before, it usually starts in a second or so. Didn't notice any issues with it when I drove it last (West London to Bracknell and back). The night before that I used some spray-on engine cleaner and a bottle of water with a spray to clean it off, but it started fine immediately after that (and then did the Bracknell trip the next day). Today it just turns over but doesn't catch. Doesn't sound like it's struggling (although I'm not sure how long until the battery starts complaining), just turns and turns. No sign of it coughing but failing to get going or anything like that. Pulled the plugs and they seem fine (dry, but it took me a little while to sort out things I needed to remove them). Pulled an injector and put it in a tumbler while I turned the engine over and there was some fuel in there afterwards. Also cracked the banjo bolt on the cold-start (I think) injector and there's definitely fuel around. Some smell of fuel after starting attempts too. Took the dizzy apart and cleaned it/tidied up the terminals. Checked all the HT cables are seated properly at both ends. Tried Easy Start spray. No change :( All the cables/connectors around the coil and various things that end of the engine look fine. Popped the plug for the hall sender on the dizzy and there was some oily residue in there. Gave both sides a clean and a wipe out but that hasn't helped either. Help? :) (Would be less annoyed if I hadn't just booked in for Saturday morning to have the front tyres done, may have to cancel that tomorrow now.)

Apologies for the slight thread hijack, but I have a Clifford Virtual Key 2 fitted to mine - it's a dongle thing I have on the keyring which is read by a sensor by the ignition. Until it's read, it's like I haven't turned the key to position II yet (no dash lights, no fuel pump etc). While it's currently working fine, I'm acutely aware that I only have one of the dongles so if I lose my car keys I'm screwed. Does anyone have an unwanted dongle for this system or any idea where I could get one? eBay, Google and the dealer who originally fitted it – in 2001 according to the paperwork – have all failed me. Failing that, at some point I'd like to get it removed and replaced with a newer one which may help my insurance (?) but also means I have spare widgets for it... but that means saving some pennies up I suspect.

Saw a red G60 L600 *** on the A404 (briefly) near Paddington while I was cycling home last night.

Loom arrived at the start of the week, just installed it in about 20 mins and it works a treat :) Cheers

Spotted a blue L-reg VR6 parked on the road not far from Reading station this afternoon.

Until the second sentence, this could have been me :)

Thanks, I'll give it a test and swap it if it fails, else it can wait for now. (Trying to ration myself to one purchase a month so I don't get too carried away and broke ;) )

Cheers guys. Worth doing the coil too? If so, what do I need for that?

I'll move them nearer the top of the list then. Worth doing the coil as well as the leads? Recommendations welcome - a quick Google around suggests a set of leads can be had for 30-40 quid, are they likely to be reasonable? I don't really care to spend 200 on ULTIMATE POWER CABLES tbh :)

Since getting my Corrado I've been slowly working though a laundry list (which I'm making up as I go along) of fixing things which looked old and tired - reasonably simple things since I'm not in a position to do major work on the car generally - things like battery cables which were falling apart and the like have been replaced. I had a look at the HT leads and the coil today, which looks very old and quite tired, and waved my multimeter at them. The HT leads all came in at about 5.5k - 6.3k ohm, the primary coil was 1 ohm or so, and the secondary about 10k. From a bit of reading around online these seem reasonable? (It's the 1.8 16v KR engine.) The car runs pretty well with no major complaints (and heading for 119k miles), so I'm not itching to replace them - but given their age and the fact that the connectors on all involved look like they could be shinier, and the HT leads look like the outer is perishing, would it be worth getting replacements at some point?