[TIMING BELT & VAG TOOLS]

Hi,

Am looking to change my timing belt very soon.

where is the cheapest place folk have found to get their belts from?

I see german and swedish offering kits at about £30 for the AHW engine,l but this sems too cheap - most of the kits are around £70.

Any ideas?

Are the genuine kits much dearer?

Can i also confirm that the crankshaft pulley bolt is a 19mm double hex - and not a special sbolt?

cheers

[Valve stem oil seals...]

Hmm, mine burns around half a litre every 1000-1200 miles but theres no smoke what so ever and never any real suttyness on my exhaust.

I think its just because I thrash my car an awful lot.

ideally shouldnt be any blue smoke but have you looked in you handbook to see the spec for oil consumption? i used to work for btoyota and their spec was 1 litre every 600 miles, dont know what vw is. valve stem oil seals can be done without the head removed but you generally need a special tool that isnt cheap. one way of possibly telling if there is a ring or bore issue is a compression test if its low then squirt some oil in the bores and retest, should improve if its a ring/bore issue. also if you go the route of replacing rings the heads off so stem seals wont be that big a job anyway. hope that helps a little.

cheers.

Handbook says around half liter every 1000 miles i think - or was it a litre - regardless it suprised me. Ive never had a car that manufacturers quotes as expecting to use so much oil - hope the Cat can handle it.

Definatley smoking. will borrow a compression test kit and give the cylinders a squeeze - seems to make sense to do this before getting too intrusive.

Has anyone got any feedback on the bottom ends of these engines - what they are prone too.

- or a link to a thread?

[Valve stem oil seals...]

How much oil does yours burn exactly?

I am putting in just over half a litre every 500 miles. However, back off the throttle so that the engine is on overrun, then pull away without any harsh throttle and a furking great plume of blue smoke will come out! it is definatley burning excissive oil.

Hmmm.. Sounds like what mine is doing? Took it to a garage who was certain it was valve stem seals, says they did a pressure test and wanted £400 for new seals.. Then took it 2a VW specialist for a 2nd opinion who was certain it would be piston rings just by the amount of soot on the back of my car.. Carried out a borescope (sp) turns out a ring has badly scored the bore. And when doing a strip down and rebuild he mentioned something to do with removing the crank in these engines due to it being ally??

The car is black, so difficult to see any soot residue.....

whats the easiest way of geting the engine code for my car? can you get it from the chassis no?

[Weird door problem]

where are the best places to get new door straps from. Both my passenger and driver doors sound as if their about to drop off their hinges....!

[Tappet noise]

Tappets are pretty standard over the 1.4 and 1.6 16v range, there al the same part and are about £4.50 each iirc.

They do over time coke up and loose there adjustment as they seize up. Could be the issue for you?

Sports do suffer from piston slap too iirc.

How common is the piston slap? our engine sounds horrid when cold but better once you pick the revs up a little or when it is warm.

Cant make up my mind on whether is is poiston slap or the lifters....I havent had a VW since the MK1 gold and i thought the modern VW engine would be nice and quite....appears not to be the case!

[Valve stem oil seals...]

Hi,

Am thinking of changing the valve stem oile seals on my 1.4 16v S Lupo. Wondered if anyone had done them, if they can be done without taking the head off....and if anyone had any tipd for when doing them.

I am trying to cure excessive oil consumption, and was gonna try this first.

Oil useage looke like valve stems passing....

Only other thing i was gonna ask was is changing the piston rings on these easy enough and where is a good place to buy engione spares from.... I have rebuilt plenty of engines before, but dont really want to do a full strip and re-build on this car unless i have to - its simpy the wofes run around....but the plume of oils smoke the car emits is really doing my head in!

Any advise much appreciated!

Cheers

[PCV change help....]

Hi,

Not long has a Lupo 1.4, 16V S and am checkng it over.

Ive noticed that he PCV hose is gunked full of sludge and part collapsed and no doubt needs a change, but without pulling all sorts apart, i cant see how to release the hose from its fixing off the main engine block.

It looks to connect to a plastic body, and assume the hose is bonded to this body?

Any ideas or drawings available on how to get this hose / and assembly off, so i can clean the gunk out, as an interim measure?

Cheers for any help on this.....

Rob