oneohtwo

This is all good advice chaps, cheers. I will definitely look for a restoration place if I go ahead with it. Certainly the couple of paint shops or body repair places I have had the misfortune of using around London have been shocking. The paint I had done on the number paint plinth is already bubbling and lifting and that's just a small bit of plastic. Might just be London though, but there seem to be a large number of cowboys operating from whatever tiny premises they can find - makes me wary. The Taunton place that repaired the rear ender I had did a top job on the other hand. The place I got the quote from certainly do full bare metal ground up restorations - he showed me the work they had done on a bare metal E-type body shell, and you couldn't see any join at all on the panel they made for the rear haunch. They had all the old panel beating and bending machinery as well. Actually turned into a really good day out! Southern Classics if anyone has something a bit more high end than a Corrado around SW London area. The chap also advised having the underside looked over to make sure there's nothing nasty hiding there. I'd love to take it there, but I don't think it is justifiable at that price. Unfortunately my capacity for taking bits off and storing them is now vastly reduced so I'd have to let the shop do it and take the windows out, but also we're now planning a house extension so I may have to knock the idea on the head for now anyway. I think I'd rather spend the money on a respray...

Wow, that's quite a list! Just seems some very basic stuff. I know they don't care like we do, and are trying to get it done as quickly as, but even so. Anyway, I think that's some sound advice both. I did take it to someone to have a look at to get an idea of where I stand and they quoted £15-20k, which was a bit eye watering. In fairness they are a very good place, and the level of stuff they usually do is way above Corrado levels. When I went they were stacked with E-types, XK120s, Aston's (had a DB5) etc... so 15k on the value of one of those is loose change. it was partly why I picked them out, because it's so hard to tell with bodyshops - the few I have had cause to use in the past around London have left a lot to be desired and wouldn't trust them with a full respray - but I clearly overestimated! How much did you chaps pay for yours if you don't mind me asking? Longish story but when I had the car in my garage I was able to fit the fronts, but ran out of time before a house move to fit the rears. So the second pic up there is B12 fronts, stock rears, hence why the rear looks jacked up. I got a garage to fit the rear B12s the other day, but when I picked it up it looked lower at the rear than the front (1st pic). Since driving it a bit and parking again it seems to now be sitting correctly (last pic). Not really sure why it looked lower at the back initially. Optical illusion perhaps. I made sure I had the correct springs from Eibach last year, so there was no issue there.

You make a fair point.... that'd certainly wake one up at night in a cold sweat! I didn't really have any immediate plans for the running gear to be honest. It seems OK at present so wouldn't really know where to start, other than to just strip the axles and subframes off get them cleaned up to like new, but unfortunately I no longer have any garage space and the car is on the road so I am limited. I guess I could get a garage to replace bearings and bushes all around. Although having seen your respray I just want that now!

Wow the Dasis are running out as well? Have to just hope someone else picks up the baton I guess.

That is pretty good. Mine was about the same, but that's without the big engine mods. I need to look at my agreed valuation; think mine has just been left at 2.5k for a while now. Sounds like it needs a readjustment! That respray looks fantastic by the way. Didn't realise it was Aqua Blue - looks so deep and vibrant!

Definitely got the right springs. The wrong ones came in the kit initially, but got the correct ones sent out. Got the wrongs sat downstairs in a box! Took another picture and it definitely looks better: So might have just been bedding in. Although I thought it would settle downwards, not up! On another note I am getting fed up with garages damaging interior trim bits. Each of the last three has done something now, in the space of a few weeks. The MOT place just shoved the handbrake cover on instead of getting it on the clips, so it was sticking up all over the place and now one of the clips is broken. When I got it back from the second place doing the brakes the trim around the gearstick (where they'd been accessing the VCDS) wasn't laying flat, because one of those clips was broken, and now this latest one put the drivers side rear speaker trim and seatbelt cover on incorrectly. The tab for the speaker cover was stuck out in front of the leather trim, and so when the seat was pushed back that has snapped off. It's not like these bits are easy to come by. Guess I will just have to try and fix them up, but it's just more time and effort. Anyway, rant over. Next step might be to get the bodywork sorted now. There's various bits of accident damage that have accrued over the years. Some bigger bits on the passenger side and rear bumper (other people, and a disagreement with a concrete column), plus a variety of little dings and scrapes that seem to accrue over the years. One dent on the swage line has been there since before I bought the car. The paint itself isn't great either. It's had a poor respray at some point in it's life (before I bought it) so with all of that it's looking a bit shabby. I was going to leave it a year or two having just done the engine, but I think now is the time really. If I leave it it'll just get worse and in some places the paint is cracked so it'll just start rusting. May have to just bite the bullet. Gonna take it into a body shop next week.

Finally got the rear B12s fitted: Here's how it looked before: So looking a bit more planted now. Fronts the same in both photos as already had those fitted. Although it does look like the rears are slightly lower than the fronts, might be just me? Anecdotally it feels like the car is now a little less crashy over potholes, nothing significantly, but who knows how old the old shocks were, so could have been pretty knackered.

For the rear right (drivers side) it's really slim pickings unfortunately, as I found. It's Topran or... take you pick of Mapco, Metzger or Ruville. It's flip a coin really I think. I picked up the Ruville one in the end instead of Topran. Couldn't really find out much about any of them though. The gearbox mount has a slightly better selection, again are mostly unknowns, but Meyle and Febi do one which at least is a bit more of a known entity. Engine Mounting MEYLE 100 199 0027 ORIGINAL Quality, Left Rear, Rubber-Metal Mount — Buy now! (autodoc.co.uk) Engine Mounting FEBI BILSTEIN 01109 Left Rear, Hydro Bearing — Buy now! (autodoc.co.uk) Otherwise it's a who's who of no-mark brands again: JP, Ridex, Swag, Maxgear, AutoMega, Vaico, Metzger, Mapco, Stark

Yeah, that's what I understood as well. Not really sure what they've done then. They are a VAG specialist so you'd hope they know what they are doing! That's a bit annoying about the metal crack pipe, didn't see that mentioned... I have an OE one as well, but thought I'd splash out as they're not exactly cheap. Maybe it'll bed in over time or something.

Can't help with that one I'm afraid. I didn't get up to 70 in the times it wasn't working. Got the car back from the garage and the brake pedal is much, much better, I think like it should be, and the ABS light issue seems to have resolved itself along with that, which is good news. Although not sure what was the cause of it. Apparently the garage bled it all using the diagnostics tool/PC. They didn't find the bleed nipple on the brake cylinder either but suggested it wasn't needed because the PC had done it, although I didn't think the Corrado system used a PC to bleed? Slightly annoying as now I have in the back of my mind that it hasn't been done, and could it still be better?! Fine for now anyway. The next small niggle is that I seem to have a small coolant leak, which I think I have traced to the ECS alloy crack pipe - I think where it slots into the thermostat housing. Annoying in that there's not much I can do about that as there's nothing to tighten; it just slots in. I was hoping that after having done all the rebuild I wouldn't have to be checking and topping up fluids before every journey!

I have the E38 battery as well, and it is a solid unit. Got it after getting fed up of multiple Halfords batteries going flat, and then not charging. Didn't realise it was that much larger though!

Been for another spin and light was on from cold. After engine had warmed up I turned off and on again and light went off so sounds like actually it's the dry solder joints. I saw a bit about this in the wiki section so I guess that's the fix? It's in the garage now so not sure what they'll make of it.

Looks very sci-fi! Having just been wrestling with slimline fans myself, that's a neat solution. I had hoped to do similar to you and just reuse what was on the back of the fan, but on the original it's not nicely housed unfortunately. How did you mount the controller to the inner wing? Thinking that might be a decent location for the panel resistors I ended up using. This is all very impressive stuff, will be great to see it finished!

Haven't managed to scan as my VCDS cable is buried in a moving box somewhere! I think the light came on straight after I had been holding the brakes on for a few minutes waiting at a junction. I didn't see it come on exactly, but it was pretty soon after the junction I saw it, and it definitely wasn't on when I set off. It didn't go off after the engine had warmed up so I guess that suggests the former? It only went off (or rather didn't come on) after I switched the engine off and back on again.

Hmm, I went for a short drive yesterday and the ABS light came on mid drive. When I stopped and and started the engine again it stayed off. Something definitely not quite right... Well it's going into the garage Thursday anyway.

No problem! The biggest issue is working out where to fit the resistors, so take a bit of time on that one. You should also get some heat transfer compound to go under the resistors when you mount them. It's a bit of a pain that I'll have to redo mine so you can get the battery out, but I should be able to do it at my leisure now, rather than rushing against the clock.

I have a couple of parts that I salvaged from my car when I replaced going spare. I thought I'd hold onto them in case someone could make use of them. All of the parts are or were working when I took off the car but are in poor condition and would need refurbing most likely, hence I am offering them for just the cost of postage (or free to collect). They are all (as far as I am aware) the original parts so a good 25 years old. I have: - Pair of front 280mm callipers. (Passenger side is missing the carrier and slide bolts as I mistakenly binned them I will put pics up if anyone wants, but as they are so poor there's not much to see! If no takers I will just take down the tip. Edit: Calipers were sold, but other bits have been up here long enough so I will assume no takers and get rid.

Yeah, I always remember the brake pedal had a relatively long travel before, and the only cars I have really been driving since are new hire cars where the brakes are only ever on or off! Have to say I don't fully understand why they are so sensitive in new cars - I get it makes emergency stopping a bit easier, but a little bit of pedal travel wouldn't go amiss surely? Would make for smoother driving in traffic. Electric parking brakes are another innovation are don't entirely see the benefit of. Anyway, I do know the master cylinder hasn't been bled and Vince says that needs to be done, so I will get that done. At least then I will know everything that could be done has been, and I can live with whatever the brakes are like after that. Hopefully will improve with time a bit as well.

Right, it all works! You were right about this, I was going way overboard with 6mm wire, which wouldn't have fitted in all the connectors. i guess the original fan motor ran a much higher current. When I looked the actual ratings I found 1mm wire would be sufficient for fan speed 1. Anyway, this is what the finished wiring looked like: Which is to this wiring diagram: Essentially the same as the one at the top of the page but I have updated the wire thicknesses. Also I couldn't find Red/Green wire in 4mm so just used Red. I used this wire: Thin Wall Cable (autoelectricsupplies.co.uk) And these connectors to splice the wires: 108961-000 Raychem - Te Connectivity, Butt Splice, Yellow, DuraSeal Series | Farnell Which are Duraseal Yellow crimp butt connectors with heatshrink. These are nice because the heatshrink material gives a good seal around the wires at the connection. You need yellow (10-12AWG) for all connections I found. The Blue connectors (14-16 AWG) is just too small, even for the 1 and 2mm wire join, which approximately makes 13 AWG. You have to double over the end of the 2.0mm wire where it is on its own, but this is no big issue. The resistors I used are: HSC100R47J | TE Connectivity HSC100 Series Aluminium Housed Solder Lug Wire Wound Panel Mount Resistor, 470mΩ ±5% 100W | RS Components (rs-online.com) For the fan speed 1 circuit. This is a 0.47 Ohm resistor as I couldn't find a 0.4 Ohm. Makes little difference though. Don't know if this is the best brand, but it seemed to have a better temperature stability. And: HSA50R10J | TE Connectivity HSA50 Series Aluminium Housed Solder Lug Wire Wound Panel Mount Resistor, 100mΩ ±5% 50W | RS Components (rs-online.com) For fan speed 2. At the end the resistances were about 0.7 Ohm for fan speed 1, 0.2 Ohm for fan speed 2 and 0.1 Ohm for fan speed 3. Little bit higher accounting for the extra resistances for the other circuit components, and possibly rounding due to my multimeter only going to 1 decimal place accuracy, but within the right original range. You can also get the female connectors for the Comex slimline fans here: 2 Pin Plug Connector for Comex Fans from Merlin Motorsport For straight plug and play. These (and the spade connectors on the Passat plug) are open barrel types so you will need the correct crimper tool. To get the existing wires out of the Passat spade connectors is a pain but doable. For the 2 larger connectors (Speed 3 and Ground) I found it was possible to hammer a small screwdriver (jewellery/watch type) down the back of the wire to open it up. Make sure the spade is held securely in a vice to stop it bending, and use pliers to hold the neck of the connector as well. For the smaller two it should be possible to pull the wires out with a pair of pliers, starting with one or two threads in the middle of the bunch. With the wires out you can just about open the metal enough to get the new wire in. Because you are reusing these I would solder as well as re-crimping them. I re-crimped and the seemed to be holding OK, but soldered as well as a back up. I then knocked up a bracket to mount the resistors on. Here is the finished setup: Not my best wrapping! Thought I had ran out of the usual tape, and used the slightly furry stuff which doesn't look as neat, and then found the plain roll again. The panel for the resistors tucks around the side of the rad between the battery in the void behind the headlights, as my original plan of mounting the panel straight out clashed with the battery. This is it in the car: The big downside with this is that you can't get the battery out without removing the fans as the plug is in the way... Unfortunately I had no time to prototype this so I had to live with it for the time being. I think it theoretically should be possible to slide the whole shroud out in one go to get the battery out but it's a pain, and I will need to try and remedy this longer term. In hindsight I should have kept the panel coming out perpendicularly but flipped so that the resistors are mounted in the fan slipstream; I may try and do this, although will have to try and find another Passat plug! Anyway, I tested the three fan speeds with the battery prior to fitting and the all come on fine, and at different speeds (no reason why they shouldn't!) Since being on the car they do come on alright, although I can't really tell if all 3 speeds have been used yet. Not sure what temp speeds 2 and 3 come on and it's a bit hard to tell over the engine noise. Don't know if it was worth the hassle and expense yet, but the fans seem a bit quieter and on the initial slow (20-30mph), albeit, short driving runs the temp seems to have stayed about 90-100 degrees.

Ah, interesting... I might give this a try. Also noticed the techy managed to spill a bit of brake fluid on the top of the strut housing and it's nicely eaten all the paintwork away. Only repainted that area last year.

The headline news is that it has passed the MOT.... just. The garage went around and bled everything again including the ABS pump which improved it but was still failing, but only just. So they essentially just kept retesting it until it passed, but they said the pedal was still quite soft. I spoke to Vince at Stealth and he said there's also the master cylinder which needs bleeding, which everyone misses and the garage confirmed they hadn't found that one, which explains the soft pedal still. So I am going to pick up the car today, and then either have a look at bleeding everything again or drop it off at a VW specialist. I'm parked on the road now unfortunately so will be difficult to do myself so will probably take into a garage. Need to get them to fit the rear B12s as well anyway. Stealth are mega busy at present sadly, as it would have been nice to get it up their for them to give it the once over. But we are pretty well there, it has an MOT so I can at least get it back and park it whilst I sort the next bit!

I'm guessing this was my post - yeah you are correct it was the union to the old cylinder, was completely seized. Had to take the whole clutch line out just to get the new Sachs cylinder in, but got a new braided clutch line from Hel which is a really nice quality part.

Ah thanks! I used U-pol acid 8 etch primer I think, and then VHT silver. It has seemed fairly robust so far, time will tell I guess.

Hard to see, but from this picture I don't think it does: You can just make out 261. Unfortunately I have thrown it away with moving house so cannot double check. I think sometimes VW update the part number with A, B for their records but the part is exactly the same so the manufacturer doesn't add the letter? On Autodoc the part numbers go: OEN 357 721 261 — VW OEN 357 721 261 A — VW OEN 357 721 261 B — VW And they must all be the same part.

Ah, found one, and yes it does have the VW stamp, so FTE is the OEM manufacturer then I guess: