tonedef

Disconnecting the battery does upset the ecu but only the optimisation settings, will still fire and run OK so probably not related to the cutting out issue. It's so frustrating when you give up and ask for a tow just to find that it fires into life and runs fine the next six months! Of course that's standard Corrado lulling you into a false sense of security territory!!!

But the original VW immobiliser does allow it to start for a second or so before cutting the ignition. Just because you've an aftermarket one fitted doesn't mean the original was removed, mine's certainly still got both.

My Mk2 TT spoiler comes up at 80mph and drops at 50mph, sure sign you've been speeding! A guy my wife works with has one and is so paranoid a passing copper might know this that on the motorway every time the spoiler pops up he pushes the switch to lower it, even knows that it will work 16 times before you have to turn off the ignition to reset the counter!!!

Mine used to start and cut out instantly on odd occasions, normally when it was hot but also when cold so no obvious pattern. I suspected the immobiliser as the cause and swapping the key reader coil made it go away, either the coil was the fault or maybe just the contact wasn't too good and swapping in fixed it. It's an easy try just to mess with the connector a bit, unplug and plug back in a few times to clean and reseat the pins?

I whacked mine with a hammer..........they did come out!

How can there be cars that are free to tax but I have to pay seventy quid to tax my bike? None of it makes any sense. £450 for my TT......that hurts!!!

My VR6 tax disk ran out in june 2008 so the car's been off the road since before that. There's not a deal of fuel left in the tank but it'll fire up and run with no problems even now!!!

We lost a very close family friend last year on the M5 when a truck travelling northbound came through the barriers onto the southbound lane. She was the passenger in the Merc: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2007848/Traffic-jams-Ever-wondered-youre-stuck-theres-jam.html The clip of the Navara makes you realise how quick these things happen.

Are there any plans afoot for a 25th anniversary trip? That might be the deadline I need to force me to get a move on with my rebuild!!!! I was working in Saudi in 2008 and couldn't schedule the time off site :(

I think the paranoia set in the first time around....."That's tight enough"....."Maybe it's not, just one side more on the nut".........kind of paranoia! When I worked for a rally team I had a set of Goodridge aluminium pipe spanners that were perfect as they were only about 4" long so you didn't swing on them quite so much........shame I wasn't using one of those yesterday! I didn't start from a full car so it's difficult to say how long it would take, certainly within a day but then lots depends on splitting ball joints and track rods etc, it's easy to lose an hour on one nut sometimes isn't it! That's before even considering the steering column pinch bolt.......when we used to do a gearbox swap on an Evo in a 20 minute service one guy was tasked to just do the rack pinch bolt, his job had more pressure than anyone else on the team!

Fortunately it wasn't too much money......didn't stop me feeling pretty dumb at the time though!

100% my fault........lifted the refurbished front crossmember in, all powder coated, new bushes throughout, replacement (eBay) steering rack. Tightening power steering pipes, went for that one last make sure it doesn't leak move of the spanner and cracked the casting of the rack around the pipe fitting! Snap On flank drive: 1 Steering rack: 0 Checking out eBay for another rack!

Thanks for the p/n Kev, might see if I can order one of those the next time I'm in the dealers. Rebuild my leaking one for a spare!

The Golf one I bought is webbed alloy rather than steel.

I've no idea how it is......not driven it yet, not really planning to drive it this year if truth be told!!! However, it feels smooth enough left to right, and unlike my old one the gaiters aren't full of fluid and dribbling on the garage floor, so I guess it's a start. I had a price from VW, that was never going to happen!

Sorry Imran but I didn't get the part number, just went along with his anything off a MkIII GTI, 16V or 2.0 statement and bought one! Think the one I got was from a 96 car but that's a guess....it's already fitted so difficult to see any markings. Look at item 330683549030 or 260752189703 on ebay, they're just like the one I bought if that helps.

I just bought one last week from ebay. After looking around for a while I asked the parts guy in my local dealers and he checked the parts numbers to find that the rack on a VR is the same part as fitted to a MkIII Golf GTI. There's loads more of those on the road so more to chose from.......£34 delivered from a breakers.

I'm not sure there is a build thread as such, I seem to have written loads about it over the years since I did mine (2006) but it was probably all in various PMs. I'll try to get some photos and put something together in a thread, maybe others can contribute too. In answer to your question about the controller, mine looks just like the dash in your photo, except of course that it's RHD, the original heater controls are replaced by an automatic controller. It is a VR we're looking at isn't it? Cheers

Use the search first, Tony and myself have both posted a fair bit about what we've done so there should be a fair bit of info already on the forum. And we're not the only ones to have installed climate control. It's not as scary as it first seems though!

I'm sure that once you swap the brown sensor for a yellow one you should see a difference. Pins 1 & 4 are currently a normally closed switch which opens when the temp is high whereas I seem to remember that pins 1 & 4 in a yellow sensor are normally open but closed when temp is high. When you switch off the engine the fan controller is currently seeing the wrong signal from the sensor i.e. that the temp is high and therefore needs aux pump and fan run on engaging.

Why do threads still show unread content even after I've read them? Is it something I'm doing?

I've got Passat climate control in mine, it's not that difficult an install although there are a lot of new pieces to squeeze in there. I'm sure that Mk3 Golf kit would go in just the same, they're all built around the same platform, no reason for VW to redesign the wheel every time just because the body's a different shape? I'm currently looking at options for a new condenser in mine as I had to carve lumps out of my slam panel to fit the Passat one and I've never been happy with it......when I find the ideal one I'll maybe do a build thread but it'll probably be a lot later this year before I get to that stage!

Sorry to have confused the issue, I think the point I'm trying to make is that you shouldn't have a brown sensor unless you've retrofitted climate control! I have the following: Blue sensor, 2 pin, same function as yours. Yellow sensor, 4 pin, again the same function as yours. Brown sensor, 4 pin which replaced the original black 2 pin sensor. Pins 2 & 3 are the original pins for the aux pump/fan run on and pins 1 & 4 are an additional signal to climatronic. It is a p/n 357 919 369 E which I bought in November 2006 for £8.06 +VAT. I hope some of this might help, if I had a spare yellow I'd send it you to see if it fixed the problem.

I have a brown sensor in the thermostat housing but it's for the climate control and has two contacts in it. Pins 1 & 4 are a normally closed contact which cut off climate control if temp is too high, pins 2 & 3 are a normally open contact to start fan speed 3 on high temp (must have replaced the black sensor when I originally installed cc, hard to remember!). From Kev's description in post #3 the configuration doesn't sound anything like right for aux pump run on and dash gauge though. As Kev suggests, put a meter across pins 2 & 3 in your brown sensor, it should be an open contact unless you can get the water hot enough at which point it will go directly closed whereas Kev should measure a changing resistance as the temp changes. I also run the standard yellow and blue sensors in the other two fittings for normal Corrado functions.

Paypal payment sent to yourself Jay and a PM with postage address sent to aide. No big rush as I need a steering rack before I can get the front end put back in.......and I'm having trouble finding one at the moment. Cheers Tony