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ip

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Everything posted by ip

  1. ip
    A few weeks ago (when running stock suspension) I noticed a groaning noise when pulling away and a knocking sound when driving over cobbles. I had a look at the wishbones and arb links and noticed the bushes were very worn. So, I embarked on a marathon suspension rebuild which has included a full new set of shocks, springs (H&R 30mm lowering), wishbones, ball joints, arb links, top mounts and top mount bearings. It took a few weekends and a trip the garage to get it all fitted and it all looks great now. Unfortunately, the groaning noise is still there! It only happens when pulling away fo
  2. ip
    The £52 MAF price from GSF already includes the discount for sending them your old one. Basically, you actually pay £77.50 to them and then they refund £25 of this to you when they receive your old MAF (if it is repairable). ip
  3. ip
    Hi, I've got a barely used (just a couple of months in fact) MAF that I got from GSF (still in original box!). It's a fully reconditioned Bosch unit that I used to replace my original MAF. When I realised there was nothing wrong with the original (it was my HT leads at fault) I put the old MAF back on. Yours for £35 inc postage. PM me if interested. ip
  4. ip
    Mate, It's not that bad!!! I just spent three weekends fitting anew pair of wishbones to the front (culminated in having to take it to a garage to have part of the subframe cut out with an oxy torch). Now, that was a long and shitty job!!!! By contrast, when I fitted your shocks to my car I did it on my own in about 6 hours with no experience whatsoever in working on suspension. The only difficult parts were working out the correct fitting of the top mounts and spring plates on the front (which I already did for you) and getting the original lower bolts of the existing front struts. The rest w
  5. ip
    Wait a minute! It's you Jon! Since I actually sold you your coilovers I can say with reasonable confidence that you need to set your camber at exaclty 0 degrees when the car is jacked up and the wheels are off. When back on the ground (and after a day or two to settle) you should find that both sides settle to exactly -1 degree. This is how the guy at the garage taught me to do it when he set them up for me. his method only requires a spirit level since you only need to measure 0 degrees but does mean ensuring the car is perfectly level before measuring. Obviously no adjustment is needed on th
  6. ip
    Phat's guide was good. Once you are down there, it all becomes quite obvious. The only technically tricky bit is reassembling the top of the struts with all the components of the top mounts. Just make sure you take a careful note of how they came off and you should be fine. I'd buy a full set of new nuts and bolts though. The ones that came off my car were utterly ruined and took a huge amount of force to shift. You can get a good set of diagrams on www.vagcat.com that will give you the part numbers for all the required nuts and bolts. It'll cost you an extra £15 or so but is money well worth
  7. ip
    Sage advise Phat. I must stop trying to return the car to showroom condition and just enjoy driving it for a while! ip
  8. ip
    Does anyone have a spare passenger side front hub? When having the wishbone replaced on mine, the mechanic noticed that the drive shaft was seized into the hub and reckoned sourcing a spare hub and drive shaft might not be a bad plan. ip
  9. ip
    My mate just phoned. It took him and his workmate 1.5 days to cut the old bone out and get the new one fitted (they also did the arb links and splash shield on the brakes while they were down there). £240 labour!!!! in fairness that is only £20 per hour and there were two of them working on it so I can't really complain but holy sh*t this car is a money pit!!! I could have got a new subframe for about £100 and tried fitting it myself but since all the bolts down there are so rusted, who knows how long it would have taken to get the old one out. It does seem like a brutal job without ramps t
  10. ip
    Fair point craggsy! I was just thinking of a question that I was asked last time I renewed my insurance 'has the car been lowered by more than 30mm?' It might be that this particular insurer had a different policy to others. ip
  11. ip
    If you are running really low then you can get bad bump steer (which also pulls left). Basically, if the wishbnes are set up such that the balljoint sits above the height where the wishbones mount to the subframe you'll get bump steer when accelerating. As you accelerate hard, the front of the car lifts slightly, this briefly means that the ball joints are back below the wishbone mounting points and the steering set up will change dramatically. There's loads of good explanations (a lot better than mine) on line.
  12. ip
    I just bought a set of boge turbogas shocks (you can get them form eurocarparts) and a set of H&R srpings. When I changed over I was amazed at how bad the old shocks had become (very little damping). Changed them over and I still have a reasonably comfortable practical car that sits 30mm lower (looks good without being slammed) and handles better. I'm not sure if the better handling is due to lowering springs or the new shocks to be honest. But it is much better. However, a friend has subsequently told me (and he's experimented a lot with his corrado) that the best handling can be achieve
  13. ip
    Cheers for the wise counsel Phat VR6. For the time being, I have entrusted the car to my mate's garage and his skilled use of the oxy torch. His theory is that the bolt is seized in the metal sleeve of the wishbone bush and so plans to cut the wishbone out to get access to the bush and then the bolt. Could be a few hours work but stillcheaper than a new subframe and another weekend of my time. Fingers crossed. Failing that, you're right, I should look into a new subframe. There are a couple going on ebay for about £100 inc postage. Still looks like a dog od a job mind. The ones I'm seeing for
  14. ip
    Tried to do second wishbone today. Got ball joint separated no bother and rear wishbone bolt was a doddle. Then disaster. Tried to take the front bolt off (huge 18mm affair) and somehow twisted the head right off the bolt (wasn't even trying that hard). So, now I've got a bolt with no head still running through the wishbone bush (so I can't get to the shaft of the bolt either) and seized into an internal nut which is inside the front subframe. As a result, I can't get the wishbone off but the car is not safe to drive. I have a friend who's a mechanic and he's going to try to cut the wishbone o
  15. ip
    I'm renewing the splash shields on the front brakes (their totally rusted away). To do this I think I need to get the calipers off (to get the disks off). While I'm there, I figured I'd renew all the bolts that hold the calipers on. However, which bolts are these? From the diagrams on vagcat.com it shows a bolt (part no N90708502) but there are also some guide pins and bushes. Is it possible to remove the caliper without undoing these guide pins and bushes? Basic questions I know but I want to order the parts today and don't have the car with me to investigate myself. Cheers, ip
  16. ip
    I have a working MAF which another guy on the forum has expressed an interest in. If he doesn't bite then it is yours for £30 plus postage? It's very clean and only saw three months use. It's a bosch reconditioned unit that I bought to fix a missfire. Turned out there was nothing wrong with the original so I put it back on.
  17. ip
    Man! 10 hours on Sunday with three (competent) guys and only got one wishbone done! Not helped by factors sending me the wrong bloody arb links but even then! Basically took 4 hours to get the ball joint out. Ball joint could not be removed from the wishbone as all bolts had rusted into place and heads sheared off when turned. Not enough space to get a drill in but even if I had, I reckon it was rusted into the w'bone anyway. So, tried to get the ball joint nut off but it was just rust and rounded off even with my decent snapon spanners. So, had to get a nut splitter on it. To get nut splitte
  18. ip
    Doesn't sound like an ignition problem to me. Wouldn't account for overfueling. Much more likely to be MAF or Lambda sensor. When I removed my MAF (to debug something else) mine wouldn't tiockover and behaved much like you describe. I take it you don't have a vag-com set up?
  19. ip
    The upper chain runs along one guide and one tensioner. To replace the tensioner, you need to remove the lower chain cover and to do this, you must remove the gearbox (quite tricky). Fortunately, the upper guide (the most common part to fail) can be replaced without removing the lower chain cover. Still not a picnic though. I'm planning to do this myself next weekend and, as far as I can tell the procedure is as follows: 1. Remove plastic covers ht leads etc from engine 2. Remove inlet manifold (might need new gasket after this) 3. remove rocker cover (might need new gasket after this) 4. Rem
  20. ip
    Cheers guys, good advice. I'm going to do top chain guide while I'm in there but I don't think you can do more than that without removing the G'box and that is a bridge too far for me this weekend. BTW, will I need a new gasket for the inlet manifold?
  21. ip
    If the throttle valve pot and air mass meter are gone then the idle speed regulation will probably show up as a fault (since engine can't maintain revs). This happened on my old polo when the throttle pot failed. Not sure about the first issue but I have found in the past that by cleaning up the obvious faults, the others also get solved in the process. Check the wiring on your air mass meter connection before you replace it just to see if the problem is not in the loom. Should you need a new air mass meter I have one (bosch reconditioned) that I only ran on the car for 3 months. Works perfect
  22. ip
    So I'm planning to whip the top off the engine this weekend (just the cam cover) so I can have a quick look at the top chains and guides. While I'm in there I might have a quick look at the lifters on cylinder one (which seem a little rattly). If I were to need to replace a lifter or two how hard is this? Obviously you need to remove the cams and put them back in without changing the timing but, assuming I can mange this, how easy is it to get the lifters themselves in and out of the head? Any special tools required? Cheers, ip
  23. ip
    Do you mean this type of splitter? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Draper-19Mm-Capacity-Ball-Joint-Separator_W0QQitemZ160286429117QQihZ006QQcategoryZ30917QQcmdZViewItem Looks like a fairly useful bit of kit to have at your disposal when working on a rusted Scottish car. I tell you, my last car (Polo) came from London before I owned it and the bottom was clean as a whistle. Scottish cars get absolutely pounded by the salt on the roads at winter. Cheers, ip
  24. ip
    I'm not sure the 13mm bolts are ever coming out (the heads are near rusted away). Either way, I suspect the ball joints are worn out too so I think I would need to separate them from the hub knuckle anyway. What's the issue with removing the ball joint from the hub knuckle BTW? I figured I'd just need to remove the top bolt and then hopefully it would just need a few taps with the hammer to get it out? Any tips? Cheers, ip
  25. ip
    Anyone changed their wishbones recently? What's involved? Any major pitfalls? I'll do the ball joints and arb links while I'm down there so, as far as I can tell, it's a case of removing the front and rear mounting bolts (renew), getting the top nut off the ball joint where it passes through the hub, and removing the old arb link. I figure reassembly should be okay since I won't be dealing with seized parts. I've heard that I have to jack the engine up to get at one of the wishbone bolts. Does anyone know which one this is? Cheers, ip
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