RobinJI

Cool, yeah, they're an ideal little runaround. Oh, another common issue's carb icing, where the carbs freeze up on humid days from the rush of air cooling them. It's almost always caused by the warm air feed for the intake being out of place, or the vacuum operated flap thingy for it being buggered. Either way, although it can be a tad annoying it's simple, easy and cheap. (like everything else about them!) An E plate one will have hydraulic lifters and electronic ignition, which makes them a little more maintenance free. I'd say definitely go for it, but then I've always had a huge soft spot for them, they're very basic, but then I like that.

Dude, just as a quick note, it might not be a great idea to post these guys actual postal address online. Maybe scrub them out in the publicly view-able images and PM the relevant guys the original? As has been said, check with the post office, if they really have been lost in the post then it'll be a case of claiming your money back off the post office after 14 days and then refunding the buyer(s). Gutting, but that's the way it is.

Yeah, main issue with a mk1 breadvan's the lack of existing. Mk2 and mk2f (or mk3 if you want to call it that, it's confusing) are the only ones that came with the option of breadvan or coupe. They're pretty tough little cars really, as Jolfa says, rust's an issue, but unless they've got the plastic sill covers on then it's easily spotted. There's 2 different 5 speed boxes, close and long ratio, if you want to be comfy on the motorway the long one's quite a bonus (often refered to as a '4+e' box, as the first 4 gears are the same as the 4 speed but with a long 5th added, while the close one's 5's not much longer than 4th in the 4 speeds.) Mechanically they're tough, only real issue I can think of off the top of my head's the head gaskets leaking oil down the block, which is quite common, but a gasket change on them's really easy. Very easy cars to work on too, which is a bonus, as you can have pretty much anything sorted in an afternoon. Plus parts are dirt cheap. I did a cambelt on one in a tesco carpark during my college lunch break once, I was about 20 minutes late for my lecture, but considering my cambelt had just gone, I thought that was pretty good! (well, a polo 1.3 engine in a golf) The cambelt cost £8 and the water-pump that doubles up as a tensioner was £25. Oh, and bushes on the front ARB/lower arms make a big difference to how well they drive, but again, they're cheap and easy. PS, if you really do mean a mk1, then they're mechanically the same other than a few little changes to the engine, mechanical lifters and stuff. Still pretty simple cheap and tough, and all the mk2/2f stuff will drop straight in if things are rare or hard to get hold of.

Poly engine mounts will vary a lot depending on make and the mount design. I've been in a few mk4 golf platform cars with them and thought they were perfectly pleasant, but on my Scirocco they're bloody horrid! I fitted them because my old ones were shagged, and new OEM ones were a pain in the arse to get (main dealer said not a chance, online specialists said silly money/not in stock, GSF/ECP/other autofactors couldn't get all of them.) Plus I bought a poly-bush kit that had everything for the car, so I thought they'd be worth a shot. They really are evil, there's way more noise getting in from the mounts than anything else, the exhaust sounds quiet in comparison and the exhaust's not exactly subtle! (2.5" system with a single 'straight through' backbox.) Plus they haven't even killed all the engine movement, from the sound of them you'd think it'd be mounted completely solidly, but you still get some lash-back from them, I think their natural frequency is just wrong. If you do go with poly-mounts on engine mounts, I'd definitely go with decent name-brand ones that you know will have had research and testing put into them to avoid this! I'm picking up the 4th and final OEM quality/spec mount to replace them all with new rubber ones tomorrow, ended up with a mix of second hand but new and GSF 'Premium' ones. I'll be seeing how it drives with standard mounts (not exactly a standard engine) and if they're too soft I'll have to get creative, as decent brand poly ones don't seem to exist for mk1 Golf chassis stuff, maybe try filling the voids with polyurethane or I might just re-mount the engine in a better way. I repainted my badges yesterday, no photos yet though. They've not come out as well as I'd have liked, but they're still much better than before. They'd been painted black, and I'd then painted over the lettering with silver years ago, which was rubbing off and looked crap. I sanded them back a little then sprayed them with LOADS of white paint, then a light coat of black, and sanded through the black on the high-spots to bring the lettering out white. It seems to have worked well, but all the thickness of paint made some of the definition of the shape get lost, so it's not as crisp as I'd have liked. I'm glad I went with white though, it's much more in keeping with the cars current look than the original silver. Also, while hunting in the shed for white paint I found a can of Alpine white that I remembered being a really good colour match to my car, so yesterday I went around treating all the paint chips on the car with anti-rust stuff, then today I went around with a tiny paint-brush and touched them in with the right colour paint. They're still very much there if you're looking really close, but it's hugely tidied up the general look of the car! I know it's a far from ideal way of sorting it, but then it's better than nothing, and I really can't afford the cost or time without a car of doing it all properly. I'm at an event tomorrow where I know people will have posh cameras, so hopefully I'll have a few photos to show you guys over the next few days.

I can't help note the irony that if they've managed to leave a parcel in your 'secure front porch', it's probably not what I'd call secure. What a crock of shit, I'd be phoning up to complain even if you're not arsed about actually claiming, that's not them being unfortunate, that's them being lazy, incompetent and stupid. Greetings, Ignore me then! I thought you'd said something about 911's. Basically, do what adam's said!

I don't know for sure on the mk4 platform, but be careful of rear seats from saloon/estate variations. Often estates will have wider rear seats, and saloons won't have structural back-rests, guessing TT's will be a no-go too, due to tiny rear seats and much lower fronts. But yeah, otherwise any of the Mk4 platform stuff. Greetings, as Adam says, which side's which on that picture above? If the left's the inside edge (as this comment suggests: "Would increasing pressures not make the inside wear a bit more? Because I must avoid that based on the pic below.") then you want more pressure and less camber. Camber values from the car the tyres came off might not necessarily be able to be followed, as different suspension designs and weights/distributions will give different characteristics. If they're off a 911 originally then at a guess I'd expect you to want similar front camber to them, but less out back. (An e36 has more aggressive camber increase through bump travel than a 911).

They are ace, very useful, should really help you dial in the geometry. If you're comparing tyre temperatures to those you read elseware, beware that race-teams will usually measure the temperature about 1mm under the surface with a probe, rather than a surface temperature, so expect yours to be a bit lower as the surface will have cooled a touch by the time you've pulled up and measured them. As the others have said, and you seem well aware, the tyres were likely just duds. Although the ARB won't have helped. The car does look like it lacks compliance a bit, going a bit softer even on a smooth surface probably wouldn't hurt and should make it less skittish.

Yeah, Halfords ones have always done the trick for me. Even come with a little 'surface prep' wipe thing to make sure everything's clean and grease free. (Meant to say, they're what ripped the plastic off on my MX-5.)

Any decent auto-factor will sell 'trim tape' which is supper sticky double sided foam tape. It's what you use to attach bump strips, badges etc. A small bit of it should do the trick. Or the little pads for attaching numberplates seem to be decent, when someone ripped the rear plate of my MX-5 it took a fair chunk of the plastic it was stuck too off with it!

I'd go with a Makita personally. My work kill grinders stupidly quickly, and Mikitas have always out lasted other brands, as well as being nice and rebuild-able. Boschs aren't at all bad and they're warranty department have been good to me in the past, but the Mikitas definitely seem better built. Just been to get some 'proper' photos of the new wheels. I say 'proper' in inverted comas, because I went down fully intending to get some really nice shots, took the camera out, and was faced with 'No CF card detected' on the screen. Oh cock. So here's a few shots taken with a far from great phone camera, but at least they're in a pretty location: So yeah, loving how it looks at the moment. Seems to turn a few heads and raise a few smiles now, which is nice, as the green ones only ever seemed to get scowls!

Nice! carbon's usually got a 2k lacquer on it, so just clean it up as you would any exterior paint. Cheers Tom, I'm swaying towards just painting them the same colour code as the car, they could do with paint anyway. Skoze, cheers. The Capri's looking awesome. I take it you decided to hold back on the X-pack for now then?

Finally got the new wheels fitted. Very pleased with how they look, although they'll have to get some less silly small tyres put on them sooner or later, and will probably end up painted a less white white, as they're making the car look very yellow by comparison at the moment! (They need paint anyway, looks like a previous owner used to park by feel rather than sight.)

Glad to hear it's all going well. How far out are the marks on the flywheel? Things always get confusing between markings for camshaft timing and ignition timing. If I remember right on my Scirocco's original engine the crank pully was marked for true TDC for the cam timing (but the mark was covered when the aux-pully was in place). For the ignition timing the flywheel was marked, with the marks on the flywheel being the correct amount before TDC for the ignition timing. So you'd set the timing light to 0 deg, and time it so the flywheel marks are lined up, and you'd actually get 16deg BTDC (or whatever the correct advance was). So if you lined the engine up to TDC the flywheel ones were out by the ignition advance. Hope that makes sense.

Didn't it just go through an MOT? Pretty amazing if the emissions wen't through 3 teeth out. Most flywheels don't have evenly spaced bolts, so as to make sure they can't be put on in the wrong place. I'd just pull a plug and try and get it to what you think's TDC, then if the timing marks are anywhere near on the flywheel, the flywheel's probably in the right place and you can safely work off it's markings. Doing that rather than actually trying to time it by your guess at TDC means you only need to find TDC to the nearest 1/6th turn (if it's a 6 bolt flywheel), which should be pretty damn easy! As you say, it's non-interfierance anyway, so a great engine to have a play with and learn on. I'm always crapping my self working on the 20v's cambelt, all that potential for mangled metal! I'm really loving the Scirocco at the moment, other than the crappy engine mounts (which I've got replacements for, just need to get around to fitting them!) it's running really smoothly and pulling well. There's plenty of stuff I'd love to do in the future, that I know would improve it, but at the moment it's at one of those stages where it just feels like a well rounded car, everything works and interacts nicely and it all feels well balanced, I'm really enjoying it. Even Nick seemed impressed by it at the weekend, which I was happy about!

Luke, welding to them wouldn't be ideal if they really are cast, if they're forged then it'll more than likely be alright though. (Easiest way to tell's the 'seam' down the side, on cast parts it'll be very thin, just a little line like on plastic moulded stuff that's not been cleaned up. On forged stuff it'll be a fairly thick scruffy stripe rather than a neat line, I've got an old one of Nicks I'll check if I can dig it out.) Jardo, I'm guessing you're sorted for LCR lower arms? In a previous post you mentioned wanting to fit 'caster increasing/correcting (can't remember which word you used) hubs'. When it's the lower arms that give the caster. The hubs help by improving the roll center position as well as helping with bump steer, while the lower arms give the caster. (It was probably a typo, just making sure it's all clear in case it wasn't). Finally got around to sorting my rear light wiring out earlier. A previous owner had butchered it with chocolate blocks to add a 3rd brake light, as well as for some reason re-routing the fogs wiring for no apparent reason and removing the wiring from the left one. (From the factory the left ones blanked off, but the bulb holder and wiring's there, there's just a blanking plate in the back of the reflector.) I soldered it all up and heat shrinked it so now my right brake light doesn't occasionally decided not to work, and my right sidelight doesn't flash while indicating! Plus while I was there I removed the blank and added a second fog lamp bulb, yay, symmetry! Just need to chase why my reversing lights aren't working now, but that turned out not to be an issue at the back, so I'll have to chase the feed to it and check the switch. JD, if you've only removed the threads and not too much metal around them then you could always helicoil the hole, should cost sod all from any decent engineering place if you explain the situation.

So one of our neighbours seems to have left a car on the shared parking area out the front for a good 8 weeks now, without touching it, at first I figured it had probably just broken and they were waiting to sort it, but now it's taking the piss. This is annoying because the parking's very limited. The trouble is, this shared parking's technically public road-side parking, and to complicate things a little, this seemingly abandoned car's Polish, so it's not like I can dob it in for having no road tax, despite the fact they're not paying the relevant tax to keep it on a public road. Is there any law about how long you can park on a public road for without moving? Any advice on what could be done to politely/legally persuade this car to go away and never come back?

They can stick this up their own arses so hard their official cause of death's nuclear fusion. I've no problem with the discipline side of it, and I think a bit of basic training would do most people good, probably myself included, but it WILL lead to an increase in the number of people on the front line who are deliberately missing and degrading our services ability. I'd definitely be one of them, it'd take a lot more than a suited twat deciding it's a good idea to get me to shoot someone. I'm confused by the "need" for military personnel, technology's already capable of hugely cutting down the number of troops needed if we so wish, it just needs investment in the right areas, and there's been no real threat of invasion for nearly 70 years.

Looks great Paul. I think black around the plate will really suit it, that's how Sciroccos are and I'd never even think of changing it. You're rather inspiring me to actually think about doing some bodywork on mine for once. I don't know why I seem to be so scared of it recently. Must pull my finger out. Also, a 924 won the 'Best Car' award at Retro Rides Gathering. The very low beige one in the link in my post.

Afraid I took zero pictures of cars over the weekend, several pictures of drunk people, but none of cars I'll have a hunt through friends facebooks though, there's hundreds appearing in my news feed. Edit, here's a very nice set to get you drooling. Also, I picked up my new wheels fine, but sadly they're higher offset than I expected, so need spacers to stop them looking awful and handling weirdly, and I probably can't afford any for a week or two, so they'll have to wait a little while. On the other hand, dear god this weekend was awesome! Retro rides really is an amazing community. Just as a little example to explain why it's awesome: 3 members of the forum had a unit together, and have all been working on fantastic projects for years, one guy had a Talbot Sunbeam which he'd nearly restored to a very impressive standard, having started with a completely shagged grasstrack car. welded shut doors, mesh welded inplace of a windscreen etc, a real shed that anyone else would have scrapped. Another had a Mach 2 mustang that was simply stunning, and the 3rd had a bay window VW camper and an immaculate mk1 Golf. Now I'm using the past tense because a couple of weeks ago an adjacent unit to theirs caught fire. The fire spread, it completely wiped out their workshop. EVERYTHING was lost, the roof came in on the cars because the fire was so hot the girders went floppy! Every tool they owned, all their cars, and all that other random crap that you end up leaving in workshops. All of it. Gone. It was seriously heart breaking reading their amazingly calm reactions to it. Apologizing for the poor quality of their photos of the destruction, with the reason being that their nice camera had been left next to the pillar drill you could see half melted in one of the blurry phone photos. A couple of days before the Gathering, one of the guys off the forum had an idea that people could bring old tat they didn't really want or need anymore to the show, and we could hold an auction to sell it, and give the proceeds to the poor guys who lost everything. This was all thought of and discussed over facebook to keep it as a bit of a surprise. Everyone was on board, and we thought 'awesome, we might make what £150?' A great little gesture to the guys to show our support. Well Saturday night, a pile of old car crap was made, and a very drunk welsh man shouted lots from on-top of a pile of weller wheels, in what must have been the funniest auction I've ever seen. I can't describe it, but there was people literally falling over with laughter. The auctioneer (a member called Kev From Wales, and a generally amazing and amusing man) kept refusing the use of a megaphone on the grounds that if he kept his voice lubricated with cider he'd be fine. There was some genuinely good stuff there, and pretty much everyone got involved. The rest of the campsite became a ghost town, and the crowd around the welshman must have been 50 feet deep. Mostly things went for sensible money rather than pennies, as there was enough people there that even rare stuff still had one or 2 people who it would be of use to. Plus most people were hugely drunk, and bidding on things just because it was bloody funny! In a lot of cases they ended up knowingly paying over the odds for things because it was for a good cause. We all woke up feeling pretty saw and eventually recovered from the alcohol enough to realize that we now had an old cake tin with a few quid short of £700 in it! Later in the day we had a chat with the event organizers, they were in full support, and agreed to announce the success while they were doing the prizes for the show, as well as agreeing to chuck in a Retro Rides Gathering tee-shirt as a final auction item. Everyone really felt for these guys; The Talbot Sunbeam had been awarded the 'Most anticipated project' award 3 years running, and everyone was shocked and saddened to hear about the fire. The T-shirt that had been donated was auctioned at the awards ceremony and they started the bidding at £10, after mentioning that its retail price was £10. The auction slowly got going, heading up to about £40 before the guys who organised the show announced that they'd match whatever it when for in cash as a donation. It kept going up quickly, everyone completely in the spirit of it, leading to it eventually selling for £100. A cheap t-shirt, that they'd just admitted retailed for £10, sold for £100.... Insane, but brilliant. So yeah, basically, the result of a quick facebook suggestion about 3 days before the show raised £900 for the guys. We'd been hopeful of getting £150 at the start, just a token of our support, but ended up with a real gesture that will hopefully make a noticeable dent in their losses. The moral being: Retro Rides is bloody brilliant, and if you've got a workshop full of cool shit, for gods sake make sure it's insured well!

Yep! Painted. With spray paint. From an aerosol. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than disgustingly stained white! I don't think it'd put up with being sat on much, but luckily only crippled midgets fit in the back of Sciroccos anyway. Hopefully yeah, if the tester's being picky they might dispute it, but it doesn't actually say it has to light up at all, just that if it's indicating a fault it's a fail.

hm.. I'm not too sure I'm right anymore. When they first changed the rules there was a specific memo saying that the light not coming on wasn't a failure, but now out of 2 sites supposedly listing the MOT manual, one says: "A Supplementary Restraint System (SRS) malfunction indicator lamp: . inoperative . indicating a system malfunction." And the other just says: "A Supplementary Restraint System (SRS) malfunction indicator lamp indicating a system malfunction." So that's one saying it would fail, and one not mentioning either way. The second one's the official government one though, so more likely to be correct, meaning you may well be ok.

Perfectly ok to take the instrument cluster out and put some tape over the bulb. Unlike the ABS light they don't have to check it comes on for a bit then goes out. If it's not (visibly) on then it's not on, they can't fail it. You can't take the bulb out on your clocks, but a bit of tape over it will stop any light getting out. (I've got the same/similar clocks in the Scirocco, obviously half the warning lights aren't relevant in it so that's exactly how I got rid of them.) I think I might be a pikey, I just spray-painted my back seats black. They were seriously disgusting before, 25 year old white cloth isn't a good look, so I figured it was worth a try, and it's actually come out OK(ish). At least I'll look cheap rather than unclean.

So take one of these: Apply a soldering iron and a Stanley knife for a while and you get: A cover thingy for your silly internally mounted shifter. Please excuse the rest of the interior, tomorrow evenings plan's to chuck some satin black paint on this cover and cleaning the interior between coats. Should really tidy up the interior hopefully. I might add a phone holder to this thing sometime too. Any ideas for grommet type things to fill the hole where the stick comes through?

I've never heard a bad word about Uniroyal Rainsport 2's, which are wet weather tyres, but also apparently very good in the dry. They're what'll be going on my car when the current tyres wear out.

Photos! Sunstrip (still not sure about it, but it is quite in keeping, and it was only a quid, and it's the 'self cling' sort, so can be removed/refitted in seconds): Engine bay before (after cleaning, before painting the pipes): Engine bay after (forgot my camera didn't have a memory card in it, hence the crap phone picture!):