zak

standard all the way

i have plenty of experience with working on cars but mainly on the mk1 golf chassis :wink: ive boght R32 bushes to replace the rear CA bushes. When they arrive i'll see if they need a sleeve or not as im not sure if their fitment is the same as standard. GINGER69, the three bolts you refer too... do you mean the 3 lower ball joint bolts?

ive just had a search of the forum, doesnt sound too difficult if all everything comes apart easily enough. don't know if that will be the case given that everything else ive worked on has been difficult to undo. By the time ive finshed with this car most of the fixings will be new so no problems for whover works on the car next.

did you need to press them in?

corrados have a nose down stance... much better than the reverse rake that golfs have

looks sick, whats the spec on the wheels? who did the bodywork?

oh yes, i was forced to change the oe exhaust which i liked as the middle box started leaking and a like for like replacement wasn't viable with vw. I now have a magnex which i thought i'd hate expecting it to be too loud but its perfect, quiet on tickover and very slightly louder while driving. No boominess when on the motorway... highly recomended to corrado owners. also the best fitting exhaust ive had experience of fitting. Youngdub also kindly makita'd the bonnet and wings to get out the final mopping marks from the c's trip to the bodyshop last month so the painwork is looking as fresh as the car feels. I'll get some pics up of the car soon, as its looking a little different to the previous pics ive had up also took the car for a quick spin at lunch, the car drives so diffently on the roads that im familiar with and now i can drive on the inside lane and not swerve drain covers :lol:

thanks i only changed the rear beam bushes, as apart from the bushes at the top of the strut thats all there is at the rear end. I purchased the bushes direct from vw as i wanted to stay oem so as not to comprimise the ride in anyway. Each bush was £29.96+vat so two are needed one for each side. There is no kit as such just the bush but i purchased new nuts and bolts to make the job more complete. In a few weeks Im going to be changing the wishbone bushes with a combination of r32/oem bushes and replace the top mounts with new oem item,replace the sump gasket and rocker cover gasket and that should be my maintenence for winter done.

also found this pic on my photobucket, runs a similar theme to how my c looked

I don't usually write up my maiteneance work on the corrado but made an exception this time since rear beam bushes is a hot topic at the moment and thought the pictures might be usefull to someone. So... i had some spare time last weekend so i decided to replace my rear beam bushes. It was on my list of things to do for some time, initially because the back end was loose compared to my last c and more recently because the rear beam bushes had deteriorated to a stage where the ride had become affected. Im running around on speedies with the kw's raised to a modest drop now the zw1's are gone and the ride was crashy over the smallest of bumps. This had become irratating to the point where i did not feel like driving the car any more and felt like selling up. Anyway i decided that was not the solution but that i should change the rear beam bushes instead :lol: So to begin with i had already ordered new oem bushes from vw along with new fixings that i would require for the job. Getting the beam off was not an issue as the bolt on the nearside holding the beam to the chassis had already been removed at some point in the past and it had been inserted from the outside in, so i did not need to remove the load biasing valve which usually gets in the way.. Once the beam was off the car removing the bushes was not much of an issue, the inner rubber part came away easily as they had deteriorated so badly. The outer metal shell was carefully drifted out with a hammer and chissel ensuring not to cause any damage to the beam. Since the replacement bushes were oem they had to be pressed in, as i was doing this diy stylee without a press this was the main issue for me. It is not possible to hammer the bushes in as they will be damaged. As per the advise of the forum i decided to use a m12 threaded rod with two nuts either end to use to insert the bushes but this brought up some further issues. Namely that you cannot apply the force to the bush in from the centre because this will distort and then damage the rubber part of the bush. The bush has to be pushed wih the force applied to the outer metal shell. This is difficult in itself as the face of the bush is not flat. I overcame this by using a carefully placed door peg i found lying around this just happened to be the perfect shape as it matched the contour of the outer shell. So when placed against the bush casing it compenstaed for the differences in the profile of the upper and lower parts of the metal casing. The other issue was that the bush has to protrude by a set distance on the inner side of the beam so if you are using something to hold the threaded rod on the inner side of the beam this won't allow that to happen as the bush will only go so far as being flush with the lip of the beam on the inner side. I worked round this by using some old mk1 golf spring top caps to hold the threaded rod against the beam that were the right size and allowed the bush to come through by the right amount (see below pics of my homemade tool). Once my tool was up and running it was a simple case of winding the nut on the end of the threaded rod and the bush went in easily enough. I was carefull to allign the bushes rotationally with the beam as per the factory position. When refitting the ream beam i replaced a few of the brake pipes that had become rusty, Once everything was back together i had to bleeed the brakes, when doing the front, one of the calipers bleed nipple was seized i wasnt able to bleed the system fully so i left the car for the week as i was away. This week i replaced the front brakes for 288mm items and changed the front metal brake lines at the same time. Today i managed to fully bleed the brakes and was able to take the car for a test drive, the bushes have made such a difference to the ride. All the crashiness has gone and im no longer swerving drain covers!. I havent been able to push the car yet as the brakes are bedding in so cant comment too much on the handling yet. all in all im rather pleased. Below are a few pics The tool i put together along with the old deteriorated bushes pics of my bushes installed in the beam

camber is adjusted by loosening the two bolts at the bottom of the susension strut and adjusting the struts relative position to the hub. most places should have the factory specs if not they are posted on here somewhere.

ive had my mk1 for 5 years so i know its handling characteristics and capability quite well so i quite confident when i say that a stock corrado will out handle a mk1 anyday of the week. I think problems occur when cars age and components wear so the drive does not become a true representation of what the car is capable of. I only know how well a corado can handle as my last 16v was a good one. As standard it was fun to drive and made me understand why the corrado was praised as the best fwd handling car of its time. My current vr by comparison does not have the same feel but this is largely down to component wear eg worn rear beam bushes. I have subsequenty replaced the rear beam bushes this week in the hope of restoring the feel i used to have my last corrado. I havent taken it for a test drive as i need to do a final bleed of the brakes but hopefuly i will have the sharpness back. i say say you should not lose faith in the corrado as it can be a fun car to drive, the mk1 is great but not a practical daily anymore.

car looks great, when you have such a good base it makes for an excellent platfrm to mod from...you can then adjust the wheel style to tweak the look. looks very oem at the moment... i think bbs rc's in the oem ball burnished finish would suit it a treat. 5 digit plate makes all the difference too.

at this rate i will be breaking mine rather than selling it complete when its time to move on, as it seem the prices for parts has remained unchanged.

car looks great on the rc's! is the drive any different compared to when you were running the rx2's?

looking good Charlie, just need to tweak the rideheight 8)

guys my cars im the body shop this coming week, i'll be looking at doing it in about 3 - 4 weeks time. I'll let you guys know closer to the time if you want to come round. I had a look at my rear beam bushes today while i had the rear jacked up whilst i was changing my wheel bearings and they are totally shot. The bush has disintegrated... explains the crashiness from the back! btw the picture of the tool is exatly what i had in my head 8)

fla i'd diagnose worn rear axle bushes too, when the c is on point handling is amazing i know this from my old 16v which was totally stock when i got it. My vr has the same issue as you, when taking high speed bends the back feels really unpredictable. I had a look under the car and the rear bushes are totally degraded. Its on my to do list to sort out, people fit powerflex bushes as they are easy to fit as they don't need to be pressed in... down side is a crashier ride from the rear. Im going to fit genuine vag bushes but these need to be pressed in which make things complicated. I'm going to try and do this my self with a home made puller but if not then i'll just take my axle to someone with a press. its worthwhile doing as if you get the handling sorted on the c as it was how it came out the factory then its a really fun car to drive.

the rh's were 8x17 et35 running 205/40/17 toyos, when the car was at the height in the pics on page 1 it never caught. In the pics on page 3 the car is a touch lower and would catch once in a while. The tyre plays a big part too, although toyos are quite good for clearance Bally has falkens on his and they give loads of clearance. Anyhow, wheels are gone now, im riding around with the car at standard height with the speedies on

The back arches are completely standard, The fronts were standard up untill recently when i lowered the front a bit more. If you choose the wheel size/offset/tyre size carefully you don't need to touch the arches.

corrado looked sick at e38, the wrd's look much better than the rs's... centre caps will finish it off!

ive just done a search didnt know the topic was covered, looks like i can use the mk4 setup just need mk3 288mm disks as they have the correct offeset

do the 288mm brakes of a mk4 gti fit a corrado? i know with the 312's there is an issue with the offeset of the disc and such you have to use a 6mm spacer to allign te caliper, is there any such issues when using 288's?

I'm still :D from getting a ten of the best trophy at e38, heres a few more pics from the weekend

thanks for the comments again, i'll be at e38 on both days 8)