My Corrado has been feeling a bit slower and rougher than usual recently and running a bit hotter. I bought myself a cheap timing gun from ebay and went about fixing it.
The crows foot socket is a good tool to have if you’ve grown attached to the skin on your knuckles because it’s kind of hard to get at the bolt holding the distributor tight and pulling the throttle open with a shoelace to keep revs at about 2000-2500 is my finest piece of caveman engineering.
Now that the timing is set properly it feels so much smoother and responsive.
The simplest ideas are always the best …and cheapest. I needed to lock the flywheel in place to undo the bolts and this was the best option I could come up with. It worked really well.
I have decided instead of having black lips on my Borbet A’s that I found on ebay a while back, to polish them up instead. This is going to take a while.
I’ve just picked up these leather seats to go in my Corrado. They were on ebay for a good price and only a few miles away so it would have been rude not to.
Corrado g60 brake upgrade mk4 golf caliper conversion
After a brake line corroding and pissing out a load of brake fluid everywhere I think it’s time for a bit of a brake upgrade. I’ve got some mk4 golf calipers that I have just refurbed a bit and painted along with some Goodridge braided brake lines and some new cupro-nickel brake pipes.
When we were fitting the coilovers we noticed that the tyre was a bit close to the spring. I checked it a few days later and realised it was a bit too close on the rear, you can see where it has been rubbing.
Luckily a mate donated me a pair of 9.5mm spacers which I put on the rear to bring the wheel out a bit. With longer wheel bolts of course, I don’t fancy the rear wheels ripping bolts that are too short out.
The wood and bricks are what I have to drive onto to get the trolley jack under the car. I should have invested in a low profile one, ah well.
I managed to get this sorted before the MOT which the car flew through. All I had to do was tighten a rear wheel bearing and replace a brake light bulb for it to get a fresh new MOT certificate.
Swapping the 90mm splitter for a 50mm and fitting coilovers to get it sitting a bit lower…It was freezing cold but we got it done (thanks Miles, he ain't as grumpy as he looks in this pic)
I was out driving the other day and the engine was playing up a bit, it’s done it before and I thought it may be the fuel pump because it only seemed to happen when I had 1/4 fuel tank or less. When accelerating it would struggle at 3k rpm and not want to increase revs any more unless you accelerated slowly.
I accelerated off a round about and was having a bit of problem getting up to speed, but it soon got to about 80 then the engine just cut out so I put the clutch in and managed to get to the side of the dual carriageway. I had a look under the bonnet and didn’t notice the loose belt, still assuming it was a fuel pump problem. Tried starting it and nothing.
So I got it recovered and had a look the next day to notice a loose belt and the crank pulley hanging off. Great!
I have taken it off for inspection and now have the fun job of fixing it. I have to get the snapped bolt out of the crank and insert some pins when I refit it because the key is so damaged. Hopefully it hasn’t damaged the engine, will not know for a while though.
I finally bought myself a VW Corrado G60 at the end of July, after a lot of searching the internet for suitable examples worth visiting. I have liked Corrado’s since I was a kid and after looking for a new car a while back I decided I had to get me a Corrado, specifically a G60.
I had to take the trip from Newport to Bournemouth with a friend (thanks Miles) who woke the whole neighbourhood up with the exhaust on his mk2 Golf.
Took it for a test drive and all was good so I parted with my cash and took the long drive home trying not to get any speeding tickets because of my excited right foot and the addictive sound of the G-Ladder. The 2hours or so drive went well and was a good test of the car, with it coping fine with no problems.
Below are some pictures of my new baby and I’ll keep this blog of anything I do to it so maybe it will help some people out.
It has the usual problems and the more I drive it the more I find, but I guess that the down side of owning an old car with “character”.