All done, timing was fine, adjusted the idle and all that and now it's running sweet. Feels like I have a gti again! I also went to GSF and got a gear linkage repair kit so thats to do soon. The only issue is I was in a traffic jam on the M60 and the oil light kept flickering. Not much but every few minutes. The temp gauge went over half so I put the heaters on full blast, but the air wasn't as warm as usual. I then got past the queue and set off as normal and everything went back to normal. Is it anything to worry about?
the air should have been red hot,so check the warm feed flap is moving when you move the control left to right (cold to hot) and make sure the heater matrix isnt blocked by feeling the pipes where they go into the bulk head if oil light was flickering check your oil level, if thats ok you need to check oil pressure and pressure senders
