seanl82

I know all this mate, don't worry. You don't need to wash after buffing though, so by soaking the pads, all you will be doing is flicking polish all over the place, which is an absolute pita to remove once its dried. Use of a dedicated product to remove polishing oils is a good idea though. (I use Carpro Eraser). Like I said I'm no pro, but do have a fair amount of experience detailing mine, friends, and families cars for the last few years. I started slowly though, and read and re-read the guides on Detailing World. I'd advise anyone who is unsure to give that a thorough lookover. It will also help explain my reasoning behind all of the above.

I prime it using a couple of pumps of the spray bottle, yes.

Stage 4 are recommended at 30k iirc

Agreed, water is a good thing to reduce the polish drying out, and cool the area being polished, and I also use water is a spray bottle whilst polishing for this. What I don't agree with though, is not drying. The water will dry naturally, bearing in mind it takes a good couple of hours to mop a whole car, therefore the chemicals/limescale will harden before you get to it if its dried out. Even spraying water on afterwards will not break down the limescale after, so this is just rubbed around whilst polishing. You sound like you know what your talking about, and don't get me wrong I'm no pro, but I just disagree with some of what you are saying. Hell, maybe you are even right! But I'd rather take that extra precaution, knowing I've removed every possible contaminant before spreading it around with a polishing mop. Every pro I know uses the same procedure I'm talking about though tbf.

Sorry but thats bollox! I would not rotary polish a car without claying or using some sort of tar or tfr product. All that u would be doing is moving contaminents around and creating as many swirls as you'd be removing, and contaminating and destroying your pads. Its all well and good for a body shop to do, but they would be working on fresh paint, not 15+ year old paint in most cases. Drying is also very important as areas with hard water will cause just as much damage.

Just drove from Portsmouth to Plymouth, its almost all a roads (bar about 10 miles of m27) and I had quite a few hairy moments! Its mostly new bmw's and merc with xenons, and even when they are 200 yards behind you, it blinds you from the rear view mirror! Totally agree with every other point too about accidents before it gets better unfortunately.......

Thats the ticket!

Has it been on Vagcom? If so, whats it pointing to? If you remove the outer cover of the old ecu you took out, you will see if it had been exposed to water and causing your problems from the start, but if you've replaced it with a known good one and the problem still persists, its more likely the fault lyes somewhere else obviously. Sensors are the most common problem, even if they've not been exposed to salt. Here is a link for when I did my golf, not entirely the same system, but basic rules still apply with regard to testing the sensors. http://www.golfgtiforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=204972.0

Theres no K-Jet either though!

Tensioner is too tight would be my guess. I know its a chain so I can't talk from experience but when I did the belt on my Golf3, and over tightened the belt/tensioner, it sounded like a supercharger from the mad max films! Get your head under the bonnet to try and narrow it down slightly more where its coming from mate.

Crank sensor possibly???

Id second the above. I did my own last time, and as said the hub bolt only needs to be nipped up. I did mine too tight, and as soon as the bearing got hot (pretty quickly with alot of friction due to being too tight) the bearing expanded due to the heat, had nowhere to go outwards, so pretty much imploded and disintigrated the bearing! Arse end started wobbling all over the place! Needed a new stub axle in the end too as it had scored it so much. Take it back and demand they do it again free of charge, whilst also pointing out that its a tapred bearing therefore not to be done too tight!

Chains, tensioner and guides. Not cheap though! A good inspection of chain at least, tensioner and mk4 guide upgrade almost certainly as they all have to come off anyway, so seems silly not to change em whilst your at it. Or you could do it all yourself for not much more than you would pay a garage to change the HG alone anyway.........

Blue caps are the updated version. The old black one were renowned for not venting, or venting too early. Worth upgrading to the blue if you dont already have that one as its a common cause of failure

If its the one further down, It bolts on to the front engine mount/start motor

Runs up the chassis leg, then the bracket I think your talking about bolts to the underside of the slam panel I think

Looks like its been put there by someone previously mate. Cap has a seal further in than the thread iirc. It seals over the top of the hole on the tank, rather than the threaded part iirc

No MAF on 1.8 Valvers. Clean out the ISV, but Id say cold start injector possibly as well. Start with the cheap stuff though like the temp sensor, and cleaning out tb and isv. Probably wont help with fuel consumption, but may help with lumpy idle and isolate the problem a bit more. Fuel additives wont make much difference to clean the injectors though. It either replace, or send em off to be ultrasonically cleaned. If u go for a cleaner though, BG44k is the best of the lot imo.

There is a how to in the wiki section. You can manage it without removing the dash, but its a ******* of a job all the same. Good luck with it!

Hes quite a prolific poster on there, and is a member on here also although doesnt frequent this forum very often. He too is converting a Corrado with the abf, but I thinkhe has hit some hurdles too. He has a massive barn with a four post lift so he could be very useful. He knows his way around a car too so thats a bonus. Just dont upset him as he can have an acid tongue at times! lol

If the ISV is out of tolerence, no amount of cleaning will help tbh. If you can get your hands on a known good one from someone local (all engine types use the same iirc), swap it out and see if it cures it. As far as the water temps go, does it get to temperature when stationary, then go down when in motion, or is it constantly low? If its constantly low, then thats more likely to be a sensor problem. Otherwise its more likely to be the stat. Might be worth changing the stat anyway if you have no history of it being done, as they are pretty common problems.

As above mate, Cheap fix and eash to do.

Its held onto the oil pump pickup by 3 or 4 clips. If you drop the sump, you cant miss it. Its just a flat piece of plastic running forward to back inside the sump, but connected to the pickup. It stops the oil sloshing around the sump and starving the pump when cornering. The clips become very brittle with age and easily break loose.

Yeah the black is an updated version of the old brown. I think its set at a slightly higher pressure too. (from 1.2 to 1.3 bar iirc). May be worth checking the baffle then mate.

Back to the pads and polishes, I use 3M and rate them very highly as well. The fact they are colour coded is great for a simplton like me too! The Green Fast Cut Plus polish is very harsh though. It dries out very quickly too, so you need to use a very small amount, and keep it lubed up. Start off with a small panel (front wing), and figure out what best gives you the required cut. Start with a finishing polish with finishing pad (3M ultrafina with blue pad). Then work up the pad to a yellow if required. If you still require more cutting, go for the extra fine compound (yellow top) and blue pad. Then yellow pad if required, etc etc, you get the picture. Once swirls are out and if you have gone to a more aggressive cut (remember to be very very careful with how much paint you are taking off!), you may need to refine it anyway by going for a second pass using a finishing polish and pad.