After a few weeks of ownership I took the car to a local specialist to give it a mechanical once over. He suggested a timing belt change and while he was carrying that out identified that the sump was knackered and was leaking oil. Someone had tried to cover up some holes with sealant and they were weeping. I told him to go ahead and fit a new sump as well, and the next day I collected the car. On collecting the car it felt good, but by the time I got home it was knocking really bad. I pulled out the dip stick and the oil level was way above the maximum (and didn't look brand new either). I then looked under the car and the sump was not the OE spec one that came on the 8V GTI. It was the earlier model with a smaller capacity that came on the 1.3 and 1.6 carb cars. I called up the mechanic and he explained that the car had the specified volume of oil in it, and that the earlier model sump would work perfectly fine... I left it at that and got straight on the internet and purchased the correct part number. I am no mechanic by any means, but I can only assume that the smaller sump was pushing more oil up in the sump, causing the dip stick to overread. I have no idea if that could cause damage or not, but the car was knocking and I wanted it done right. Two days later the correct sump arrived, and I was about to change one myself for the first time... It was only after I got under the car and pulled the new (wrong) sump off that I realised what a PITA fitting the correct one would be. Two of the bolts that secure the sump to the block are inside the gearbox bell housing, making it almost impossible to get to them with traditional tools. Part of me suspects that the mechanic used the smaller sump as it is much easier to fit, and the slanted angle on it means those bolts are easier to reach. In order to get the proper sump on I decided to swap the two bolts behind the bell housing for allen bolts, and then I used an old Ikea allen key to cut a length of hex. I then used a dremmel to turn one end into a "ball" so that I could drive the allen bolts in through the tight space. I put the allen "stork" as I call it into a socket extension and it worked a treat. The new sump fitted up great and after torquing it all up I also fitted a fresh oil filer and treated it to fresh 10W 40 oil. Perhaps the mechanic was right and the smaller sump would have been fine, but at the end of the day I'm glad I paid the extra and just did it the proper way myself. I'm not knocking the mechanic as he is a really good guy, and he definitely knows more than I do. I just can't live with stuff that isn't as Wolfburg intended, especially when a car runs worse after working on it instead of better. The knock vanished with the new sump and oil as well... Next up, sorting out the bouncing revs at idle...
That's simply not on, that he fitted the wrong sump, at least without checking with you. I'd have thought it easier if anything to source a big block sump!
Sadly they don't give out that information anymore, since the change to the data protection laws a couple of years ago - I always used to send a V888 in for all my cars and got back some great info over the years but they last one I did got sent back to me and that was the last one I did.
Apparently they send redacted versions now. So you can get copies, but the prior owners info is blocked out. You can still see company names like original dealer, or any third party dealership info, just not private individuals. That’s what I have been told, however if it is true or not remains to be seen. Will update you if / when I get anything back.
I was pretty disappointed to be honest. Like I said though, he is a sound guy and he must have felt it was a credible option. He has done other work for me that he’s been great. It would have been ideal if he discussed it with me first, but it didn’t work out that way. I just like things to be as they were which is why I pulled it off and fitted the other one.
I'd be exactly the same myself and I agree with Tristan that it's not on - the mechanic may have had good intentions but we all know what the road to hell is paved with. As (relatively) straightforward as Mk2's are, they may still be just a PITA to some mechanics and without OBD/Canbus and the necessity for a laptop when working on them, some places just switch off. I'm lucky with my cousin back in Ireland as he worked as a VW mechanic in the 80's & 90's and he's a big fan of old VW's. He has a Mk1 GTI, an old Caddy pick-up, a Mk2 16V (my abandoned project) and he's trying to get his hands on a Rallye - whatever I'm stuck on, he helps me with.
the earlier pre-88 type sump is still perfectly fine to use, you just dont put as much oil in. surely its a basic requirement that you check the oil level before sending a car out of your workshop...
That is great news if it's true! With my Anni having had several owners, there would be plenty info on file - i'll probably send one in myself now, nice one
They've completely changed the form since I last did this and it's lost me, when requesting any and all information, it used to be £5.00 and very simple - to get the car's info, did you pay anything? Also has a tick box (section 2) for 'requesting your own information' did you tick that? I know who I am, I want the car's info lol!
I could not make heads or tails of it either. I sent them £15, filled out the first page (info on a vehicle I own), and then wrote a cover letter explaining I had purchased a classic vehicle and needed the history for a valuation. Has been a week so I’m guessing I should hear back by the end of the month.
Glad it wasn't just me then! Talk about how to make something simple really hard, i'll send the £5.00 I used to then and hopefully one of us will be right at least!
Next on the to do list was to sort out the suspension. The car had a very strange suspension setup on it. The front was about an inch higher than the rear, and the car wallowed all over the road when driving in a spirited fashion. Tall front suspension: I decided to go with coilovers, not because I wanted to lower the car but simply because I wanted the ability to fine tune the rake front to rear. I cant stand cars that are slammed (giving away my age here), but I really like them to be set up for spirited driving and go around corners on rails. A few days later this had arrived. I went with the H&R stainless steel setup as I heard they were made by Koni and I have had a good with Koni on my old MK1 Caddy. I was also interested to see how the stainless steel held up over time as all my previous coilovers have been galvanized or painted versions. I fitted them with MK3 top mounts and was really impressed with the amount of adjustability. As you can see from the below, there was loads of thread left on them after I had them set where I wanted. So much so I can't imagine anyone would ever wind them all the way down. Front: Rear: So far I have been really impressed with the coilovers. The ride has been surprisingly comfortable given how firm they are. Will put some more miles on them before giving my final verdict but up to this point I am really pleased. How the car currently sits on the H&R's:
One thing that the car had suffered from since I bought it was bouncing revs on idle until that was constant until the engine was warm. After doing some research online I decided to start with the 8V setup guide that @rubjonny posted up on this forum (excellent guide for anyone looking to get their digi GTI running great). I followed that step by step, and while the car ran significantly better the bouncing revs persisted. I won't run through a blow for blow of all the checks involved as the @rubjonny guide tells it way better than I could, however, I will show you guys a few tricks I learnt along the way. And I while I think fixing the issue was a combination of a number of things, I will call out the ones that I feel remedied the issue in my case. FIrstly, when renewing all of the vac lines I noticed mine were in terrible shape. Further to this, a previous owner had bypassed two blanks on the throttle body using a single tube (blue one in the pic). On some cars (USA models I believe) they had a charcoal filter fitted that would have been in the middle of this blue line. Technically, this bypass should be fine and as a fix it probably wasn't contributing to the problem. That said, it was unnecessary, and looked messy. I could have used a piece of rubber vac line with a screw in it to blank both sides, but stumbled across some high temp silicone caps online. These are normally used to cap the ends of screws or bolts to cover the exposed thread. They were perfect to cap off the lines on the throttle body so I heated them up with a heat gun and pushed them on. They were ideal and because they were so short they didn't stick out or get in the way either. I fitted these along with fresh lines throughout, and while it didn't completely fix the bounce it did improve the situation noticeably. Next up was servicing the air flow meter. There is a pretty good video on youtube that shows you how to service the BMW version which is almost identical so I followed that. One thing you often hear people tell you is that you should bend the arm so that it runs on a fresh section of track. I actually found that bending the arm was a bit tricky, and left the arm either pressing down much harder on the track or too lightly. I found the easiest way to get it to run cleanly on new track was to slack off the three screws that hold the track board in place, and simply slide the board towards the arm approx 1mm. This way you don't have to touch the arm (that is quite delicate) and you get a nice set of fresh track to run on. Once again this improved things but didn't completely solve them. The final thing I did that actually did stop the bouncing revs completely was clean the small butterfly in the throttle body. This is something you don't often hear people reference as a fix for this issue, but it worked wonders for me. In my case, the breather on the rocker cover has been blowing oil into the throttle body for years, if not the cars whole life. When I looked into the throttle body the small butterfly was completely black and the area caked in old dry oil. I used some throttle body cleaner and blasted the whole area before wiping it all down with a rag. After doing that the car has been idling perfectly with a nice steady idle before dropping down once warm. (The pic below is not my filthy throttle body it's just a spare I have in the garage. I forgot to take a pic before I cleaned it but the pic below shows the area you need to clean out). So after a long hunt for the issue, and changing out everything from vac lines, to temp sensors, to ISV's, and everything in between the car was finally running as it should. The engine bay, while still showing all of its age, was also looking slightly tidier. The bay was absolutely filthy and neglected. I used the steam cleaner I bought to clean the door cards to give the bay a quick blast and replaced the easy to access clips that were crusty. I will do a proper engine restoration over the winter but wanted to get it looking as tidy as possible. Once again, a big thanks to @rubjonny for his fantastic Digi 8V tuning guide! It was my go to thread for working through this issue and the car is now running brilliantly as a result.
Hadn't thought of moving the Air Flow Meter resistance board. I'll try that if I ever need to fix it again. You're right, it is a bit tricky to adjust the slider arm to a different part of the track while also maintaining a suitable pressure.
After getting the car running well, I wanted to focus on getting all the electricals working inside the car. By now I had owned the car for a few months and the list of things that were temperamental or not working at all was stacking up. I wanted to make sure everything worked as it did when it left the factory, and the list of things to tackle was: Rear screen heater not working. Boot light switch not working. Glove box light not working. Handbreak light not working. Main light switch bulb not working. Green indicator LED in clocks not working. Blue High beam light in clocks not working. Green lights in clocks were very dim. Blub in fog switch not working. After investigating most of the issues it became clear that it was just worn out bulbs that needed sorting. After searching online, I decided to fully convert all dashboard lights to LED. I wanted to keep all the lighting OEM green but didn't want to have to go to the mission of replacing bulbs again, so chose OEM green LED's to install across the whole setup so that I had consistency in colour and luminosity. A few days later these arrived. Fitting the LED's was a much more manual process than I expected. All of them needed resistors soldering to them, and almost all of them needed to be soldered into the switches as well. The heater controls also needed to be modified to accept the new bulb. In short, nothing was plug and play so I bought a cheap soldering iron from screwfix and gave it a go. Luckily Crazy LED's provided really thorough instructions, so after a bit of trial and error, I got all of the LED's in and fitted. It was at that point things took an unexpected turn. The LED lights for the clocks were twist in blubls, and getting them in was pretty easy. However, on putting the clocks back into the dash, I shorted the back of the clocks against the metal bracket that holds them in place. That smell of burning electrics is never a good smell... (Always disconnect the batter when working on electrics you say haha). The MFA and rev counter were dead as a result, and I was scratching my head trying to source a new set. Fortunately, someone on Facebook suggested I contact Biltechnik, and get them to repair them. Nathan repairs these clocks (I think he might be a forum member), and the work he did was amazing. I posted the clocks off to him and within 48 hours they were on their way back to me. He repaired the damaged ribbons at the back, and while the clocks were there he also replaced the indicator LED and replaced the blown blue bulb with an OE size blue LED. He also cleaned the clocks and gave them a good once over. I honestly can't say what a lifesaver this was as sourcing a new set of clocks would have been costly and painful do... While I was waiting for the clocks I also took the time to repair the damaged rear screen wires, and replace the boot light switch that was faulty. When they arrived back I covered the dash bracket with cloth tape to prevent a similar thing from happening again and refitted the clocks, switches, and the rest of the dash panels. With that done every bulb and electrical switch was now working as it should be. The green of the LEDs was also nice and bright, but not too bright to look anything other than OEM.
I love these detailed posts, explaining how issues were resolved. Thanks for taking the time to post such in depth information. You'll have the car good as new soon.
I think the main VW dealers in Huddersfax were Hayselden and Lightcliffe Motors. Not sure if they are still trading.
+1. This is a fantastic thread. Love the practical and detailed info, with pics. There's a few things here I'd like to do to my Oct 1990 8v.
