Jarred's Mk 2 GTI & silly questions.

[NeuSpeedGTI]

I have the problem of noisy lifters too and would like to get the head looked at(possibly a mild reco), and being that I am unable to the work myself, and I am looking at a 268 or 270 cam plus some springs.. who would you recommend in VIC to do this sorta work for me, and what kinda labour charges are you looking at assuming I supplied most of the parts??

Velly saw you used a guy Chris???

[Jarred]

Cheers Gav, injectors just pull/wiggle out.

Heads at R G Baker engineering in Box hill atm, just getting a surface grind to removed the small mark where the gasket failed. should be nice and cheap, pick it up this afternoon hopefully, and don't need to do a full reco.

I honestly don't know what it'd cost to get a head done, soz!

[velly_16v_cab]

I have the problem of noisy lifters too and would like to get the head looked at(possibly a mild reco), and being that I am unable to the work myself, and I am looking at a 268 or 270 cam plus some springs.. who would you recommend in VIC to do this sorta work for me, and what kinda labour charges are you looking at assuming I supplied most of the parts??

Velly saw you used a guy Chris???

PM sent

[Jarred]

Productive day today.

Firstly big thanks to Pete Jones, for helping me to the valve stem seals (well showing me how to do them, then letting my borrow the tools to do the rest!)

Head is now back on, as are the manifolds etc, almost ready, just have the timing belt & tensior (nearly) off, waiting to remove the pulley's and replace them tommorrow, then fill the rad, and then change the oil and filter (less than 1 week old! )

Also put the mk 3 GL down pipe on. this one is a bit longer than the original, and the cat sits (well must sit) further back in the mk 3. I also discovered that the rest of the exhaust (cat back) is only about 1 3/4" dia, where as I was under the impression it was 2". So I'll take it off, and go get a cat from the wreckers (either a mk 3 2L one or something that's 2" inlet and outlet) and then take it to an exhaust shop and get them to fab up a MS 2" BP system, I'll use my old straight through exhaust from my mk 1, to save on some costs for now.

Should have taken a photo of the head after it got done. but I didn't. oopsy. Speaking off. Rob baker (R G Baker engineering) did a great job on the head. Wash and surface grind for $70, not complaining at all. same day service too which was great. Rob said the head dind't need any welds or anything, cause it wasn't cracked, rather it was just a score mark from where the HG had failed. He said he'd take about 2 thou off, so should have negligble effect on the CR.

hopefully tomorrow we'll have some noise!

[Water Boy]

Rob is a good bloke.

He is also an engineering lecturer at Uni.

He has done many a head job...

[Jarred]

Just a thought I've had the other day. Is there anyway of tuning our ECU's? Can we put a chip on that allows us to tune them (ie with a laptop and wideband) or can we only do generic chip upgrades?

[h100vw]

Jarred, There's nothing easily available that you can do that with. I had my G60 tuned by a guy in the UK. He read my existing chip and then hooked his laptop to the ECU with a cable that plugged into the socket the chip came out of. He tuned the ECU in real time using the emulator. When he was finished, he burnt it to a chip and I went home.
TBH it would be far simpler to buy a generic chip. A great deal cheaper too.
snstuning.com do chips for the G60 which is where I got my first G60 chip from.
Gavin

[jayjay]

i've been looking into this myself jarred. yes you can but it's expensive. and you need someone with the know how/hardware/software.

if you have all that available it's quite simple really, just like flashing a new car without having to bypass anything...

real time tuning is difficult (read more expensive) because it requires an emulator and software.

[Jarred]

bother. oh well.

oh and ITS ALIVE! kinda loud without and exhaust though

[Peter Jones]

Cool, glad to hear it's up and running again. Just have to figure out that exhaust now and you're done.

There's a bunch of Seats at Centre Rd wreckers at the moment you might find a cat to suit there.

Pete

[Jarred]

Yea, James gave me the heads up today on some cats up at centre road, so I'll probably grab one of them, whack it on, and then take it down to the exhaust shop and get them to complete the system

I didn't end up installing the new timing belt, just cause I dont have any locking tools, and couldn't be bothered fiddling around with makeshift tools. The belt isn't excessivly worn or cracked, so it'll do for a while, I'll just have to do it later on. Also new to flush the oil tomorrow.

[Jarred]

All was running well with the mk 2. still plenty of things that need fixing, but I'm slowly getting around to doing them.

Tonight I had a more urgent problem though. I had the water light come up on the dash, just after starting, odd I thought. I chucked a little bit of water that I had in the car into it, and went of my way, light didn't come back on.

kept my eye on the temp gauge, and notice that it crept upto about half way. Normally it would only ever get this high sitting in traffic on a hot day. Checked the oil temp, and it was slowly creeping up to about 104/106. This was whilst crusing at 80kph, ambient temp is 10degress or less, not thrashing it at all.

Checked the hoses when I got home, all of them were cooking, except for the hose that goes from the lower radiator outlet to the waterpump, it was cold even, and the very short hose that goes from the water pump to the metal waterpipe that goes to the heater pipes. all the others were very warm. (20+mins driving) I believe alot of the water has boiled and come out of the overflow on the expansion bottle, I'm suspecting it'll take a atleast a litre or two tomorrow morning.

Any ideas?? I'm thinking stuck thermostat maybe?

I also topped up the oil and retimed it the otherday (with a gun finally) and noticed there was some oil leaking from the oil pressure (or temp?) sender on the side of the head?? Is the switch busted or what? This was before I filled up with oil, and just today, I've noticed that I have some noticeable oil leaks appearing under the car. a good 5cm puddle after a few hours. I havn't had a chance to go looking under the car yet.

Thanks in advance!

[sports racer]

Sounds like your thermostat isn't opening correctly. Take it out and put it in a pot of warm water on the stove. Bring the water to the boil and you should see the thermostat opening before it gets to boiling point.

You can't run the car without a thermostat because even when fully open they restrict the waterflow to the correct rate.

Oil leak may be as simple as taking out the oil pressure sender, cleaning the thread and applying a sealant before screwing it back in.

Hope this helps.

Paul

[benough]

Man your experience with your MK2 is reading almost identical to mine!

The oil temp sensor on the side of the head did the same. I just got it replaced. Same with the two sensors on the top of the coolant flange.

Yeah my pipes were like that when the thermostat was dead. Easy to replace it you gotta disconnect the power steering belt to get to it.

[Jarred]

Cheers guys, I figured it would be the thermostat. I have a feeling it's been iffy for a while, and probably lead to the demise of or atleast contributed to the leaking headgasket.

I'll have to check the sender again, because it is actually a new one.