New VR6 owner here. A few easy questions!

[MattVR6 10]

Hi all,

 

Only had my Corrado a few days and have been delving into my engine bay today (inbetween showers of rain) just to familiarise myself with bits and bobs.

 

1. Silly question buuuuut, where is the clutch fluid reservoir? In the manual it shows it being on the left of the engine bay and the brake reservoir next to the coolant tank. In my engine bay the brake is on the left and the clutch is nowhere to be seen. I instantly assumed it would then be a cable clutch, but have found no definitive info to back this up!

 

2. Again in the manual it shows the brake fluid reservoir sitting atop the brake servo. Again nowhere to be seen? Is this something to do with having ABS?

 

3. Engine plastic cover is cracked, are these easily sourced? If so how much?

 

4. There seem to be a lot of bare wires in the bay, even right next to the engine block! By bear I mean not wrapped in tape or in a loom of some sort. Just loose coloured wire. Is this normal or something I need to address. I wouldn't have thought the heat would have been good for them?

 

5. There are quite a few electrical connectors held in place by cable ties. Are the plastic connectors prone to breaking/becoming brittle? Or is this due to neglection?

 

If anything is unclear I can attack pictures if need be.

 

Thanks for any help, Matt

[seanl82 23]

Hi Matt, I'll try to answer some of your questions, but may be worth putting a couple of photos up of your engine bay and the wiring, so we can advise if its normal mate.

 

First thing, clutch is hydraulic. Its fed off of the same reservoir as the brakes and should be located on the drivers side bulkhead attached to the servo. Your manual may show diagrams from a left hand drive car so may account for a few inaccuracies.

 

There are a few bare wires around the bay to be honest. Most are single wires that go to oil and water temperature and pressure sensors. Wrapping them in loom tape will help, as the original stuff will have likely just lost its stickiness and begun to unravel. Connectors - they're also probably 20 odd years old now, so its likely that some may have become brittle especially on a higher mileage engine like yours, where it has gone through quite a few heat cycles! It shouldn't be too difficult to source replacements though so I wouldn't be too concerned, and doesn't automatically point to neglect.

[VEEDUBBED 0]

Follow the clutch cyilinder's feed line from the gearbox bell housing.

Engine covers pop up on ebay from time to time, if not, plenty of folk on here have bits, try chris-lillfuzzer.

Quite normal for spare wires to be found, even inside the actual loom itself! unless something is missing or has been detached..

Most of the plastic on these cars is getting quite brittle now, bonnet cable clips snap as soon as you look at the buggers, don't touch the headlamp adjuster's 3 pronged attachment that screws into the headlight.. foam under bonnet disintegrates, as does the foam present on the internal heater box flaps, the little foam cushions present on the interior wiring looms, door handles snapping, Aux. water pumps packing up,water pipes breaking..

[MattVR6 10]

Ok chaps, thanks for the input.

 

I will get some more detailed pics of the engine bay and suspect wiring and post tonight. Can you attack pics directly to the thread or do you have to link a photobucket/flickr account or something?

[seanl82 23]

Its a bit funny with sizing etc, so photobucket/flickr as you say would be the best option Matt.

[MattVR6 10]

Ok so here is a picture of the suspect wiring that caught my attention. Sitting on the right side of the block. You can see the distributor top right of the picture:

 

http://s1349.photobucket.com/user/Jawa411/media/Corrado/IMAG0574_zpswuccgbv2.jpg.html?sort=3&o=3

 

This is where the wires come from. As you can see, even this loomed portion is looking rather tatty:

 

http://s1349.photobucket.com/user/Jawa411/media/Corrado/IMAG0576_zpsbm5co5gv.jpg.html?sort=3&o=1

 

Most of the wires go to the injectors/fuel rail it looks like, the others look like they earth on the exhaust manifold and go to various sensors in the front of the engine.

 

Hope these help! Matt

[VEEDUBBED 0]

Right, I can see that the fan motor's plug has either melted or been damaged in some other way, looks bloody awful. I might have a spare one on my vr loom.

The photo showing the damaged harness boot is gonna be a sod to repair, you'd have to practically remove every terminal and fit a new boot..

The last photo shows the actual wiring harness hanging down sans it's looming tape that probably disintegrated yonks ago, no loss really as the tape was total crap anyway..

Which reminds me.. I still have an entire engine loom of a low milage vr engine..the tapes as soft as it was 20+ years ago when it was new.

[MattVR6 10]

Yeah the previous owner did tell me about the fan connection. Tape and cable ties all round haha.

 

So to answer the question, are the wires safe as they are next to the block? I'm just worried about the head in that location. In the mean time can I just inspect the wires more closely for damage and wrap them in a loom equivalent? I don't particularly want to tape them as if I ever need to extract a wire, its gonna be a bitch.

 

Looks like in the long run, a new loom it is. Assuming the engine doesn't blow up in the next year (due to funds) I expect to keep my Corrado for many many years. The list of jobs grows......

 

But to answer your question, if you have a spare fan plug then I would be happy to purchase said item. Although let me check first as it may not be the loom connector that is damaged, rather the fan connector itself. What would postage from Italy be cost-wise??

[VEEDUBBED 0]

If you bought the loom, you'd get it free..sorry, couldn't resist..

I've actually never posted off something so small to the Uk before, no idea mate.

Let me see if I still have one attached to the loom and I'll get back to you.

When you tape up the wires use proper non sticky looming tape, preferably made by Tesa.

[MattVR6 10]

So you have a whole spare VR loom? ;) or just the fan plug?

 

Ah yes, I have some self amalgamating tape, that should do the trick for now

[VEEDUBBED 0]

I checked on the loom, it's been cut up..and there's no fan connector either..god knows what I did with both looms. Ask Chris (lilfuzzer), he's always got plenty of vr bits.

[lilfuzzer 1]

i will have one yeah will check the plug box

[MattVR6 10]

Lovely cheers guys!