Thread: Engine Head Gasket?

Odd couple?
Nah - it's Bionic man time (we can rebuild, better than before, more powerful...)

Michael

Originally Posted by Michael G

more powerful...)

Do that and you'll take someones finger off!
Lets slow it down a little lol

Originally Posted by Machtool

You can guess the rest. Jammed half in / half out, daughter in tears. She hasn't fallen far from the block, friend black-banned.

Spray with WD40 ... it's a beautiful scent ...
If it still doesn't work, it was never meant to.
Explain the term "act of God", find correct-handed blanking plate.

Good luck,
Paul

I'm shocked! My caddy doesn't have anything like that. Just as well i guess i'd imagine Arthur would make short work of it.....
The Caddy makes up for the lack of style with quantity, there are 8 cup holders for a 2 seater vehicle.

Ew

Phill that's pretty rough luck. Private sale so no warranty presumably, and just thinking aloud here, but is there a chance that the LHD version is identical mechanically, but just with a mirror image facia. If so it may be a cheap source of parts to refurb the old one.
Second option: get/ make the blanking plate and make a good strong but ugly holder and screw it to the blanking plate. A sort of permanent reminder of the consequences of fiddling with stuff for no good reason. In the meantime suss out the cheapest replacement reasonably available and for her birthday or Christmas offer her the money or the repair, - her choice.
Third option: Find her a cane picnic basket, a table cloth, thermos and if feeling really generous a knitted twinset (for you young blokes, that's a matching jumper and cardigan together with the picnic set, all cool stuff in the 1950s and 60s.) Possibly best keep out of her range till after she's back in Canberra if you take up any of those suggestions
It reminds me of a situation we had in England in 2008. We were there for 14 weeks so found a VW Passat station waggon on Gumtree for 600 quid, needed some more MOT (tax) but otherwise seemed ok. The owner said that the electric sunroof didn't work, didn't worry us at the time, so we bought it. 3 days later when looking for the switches for the front cabin lights, I pressed a switch by the lamp housing, and the sunroof opened. That's interesting I thought, thats not supposed to work. When I tried to close it though, it only went down on the rh side, with the LH side not moving at all, and the glass panel with a scary twist happening. Nothing I tried worked, and the next day we passed a bodyworks, so we called in and asked if they had any clues as to the easiest way to repair it. They were unable to assist ,but told me where to get some gaffer tape. That fixed it and luckily I had it taped up before the Mrs got a wet behind, and I got the cold shoulder. We didn't have that much wet weather that trip, but we did have a few days when it poured down, and we were very glad of that gaffers tape. That car was bloody fantastic, it had 200,000 Miles on it when we got it, and we put another 10,600 or so more miles on it, it would go for hours between 80 and 100 MPH on the motorways, or trickle along at walking pace along the narrow roads in Cornwall, with the stinging nettles on either side of the road rubbing along the bodywork, and didn't miss a beat. It used 1 litre of engine oil in all that time, it was economical, (a diesel) and in the end when we had sold it to a friend of our son, with 3 month new MOT on it, it had cost us 1350 AU dollars for the 13 weeks we had it including the fuel. Much cheaper than hiring one, and we went all over England, Scotland, Ireland and skirted around Wales too.
Just on the Laser. We have one of those too, our is 1997, KJ 4 door sedan, 1800cc. It has been a great car too, but several years ago, broke the fan belt. I was close to home and usually would fit a fan belt, but when I looked at it I thought how the hell am I going to get a hand in there to adjust the alternator to get the tension right. I got the RACT to take it to the dealers, and even on the hoist, they had to remove the rhs half shaft, and undo the rhs front suspension bottom link to fit the new belt. They advised that considering the cars kmage, it would be advisable to get the alternator overhauled before it went back as if it stuffed up, all this work would need to be done again, and ditto for the power steering belt too. Unfortunately with many modern cars previously simple jobs are no longer simple, and the days of the home handyman doing simple servicing are pretty well over.
Anyway better luck to come your way I hope, but you must stop dancing your way around Chinese Cemeteries
Rob

Hi Phil,

been reading this thread with much interest. All my (lack of) knowledge and experience with such matters was trumped in the first few posts so I felt little need to add anything!

WRT the cup holder, It's her first car and will be the first of many many malfunctions I'm guessing. Me thinks you are making a massive rod for your back by going to the extent of replacing a simple cup holder at such expense and effort!

Save your time and strength for when it needs an engine rebuild, new tranny etc. etc. Go with the backing plate!

Simon

Originally Posted by simonl

Me thinks you are making a massive rod for your back by going to the extent of replacing a simple cup holder at such expense and effort!

G'day Simon. I'm starting to believe that. But seriously, that's nothing an engine mounted air compressor, a few small THK rails and a cylinder wont fix.

This one finished on Ebay U,K last night. http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/VW-Polo-M.../171245317590?
28 bids from at least 8 different buyers. I'm thinking about a class action. Any body got the number for Slater & Gordon?

Second hand, it went for 32 quid, that close to $60 bucks, and it was another $25 in postage. It can stay busted for that sort of money.

I'm still waiting on the keys to get the radio head out. Once I get them, I can get it out. These things break so often, the VW forums are full of guys fixing them, there's a pin that gets bent.

The keys cost a massive $2.17 and $1.06 in postage. http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/180963672698? These are the things the local VW place played all dumb about. That one seller has sold 66 sets of them, that tells me a lot of Polo radios get pulled out for some reason, and I think its that stupid cup holder.

Regards

Originally Posted by Machtool

The friggen cup holder, its actually quite impressive when it works. Last week end. 18 year old daughter, out with 18 year old friend. Apparantly becuase its "so cool", it got exercised about a dozen times in a minute.

You can guess the rest. Jammed half in / half out, daughter in tears. She hasn't fallen far from the block, friend black-banned.

$203 dollars for a replacement from VW Epping here in town. Google is littered with faulty reports of failed Polo cup holders. To the point where you can just buy a blanking plate to put over the dash hole. One second hand one I'm watching in the U.K, has has 20 bids. I spent an hour on it, I cant get it out until I pull the radio. It has to be the most over engineered device I've ever seen. I count atleast 6 springs, a rack and pinion (in plastic), thats before you get it out.

Sounds like typical German engineering to me. Friend has a VW diesel van, I'd never buy one. I'll stick with my basic Isuzu diesel thanks.

My daughters got a Hyundai. They got a vote - they could have a car someone else was paying for, they could buy their own, or they could keep right on using public transport.

Spare money is for machine tools.

PDW

Cars are getting to the stage where they are almost impossible to maintain, I've got a repair job at the moment, I don't usually do repair type work, unless it's my own stuff, but this one is a favour to a customer... It's an Engine Control Module (ECM) from a nissan turbo diesel, trying to find a replacement. It seems every model has a different version, and within a model run, they change ECM types... burnt out components that can't be reliably identified...

So I'm with PDW for long term maintainability, give me simplicity any day... So I'd go with a stainless steel blanking plate and a stainless steel ring type cup holder tig welded onto the blanking plate... job done.

Ray

Originally Posted by PDW

Sounds like typical German engineering to me. Friend has a VW diesel van, I'd never buy one. I'll stick with my basic Isuzu diesel thanks.

PDW

I was reading a discussion on a Renault owners forum recently.

A member wanted to replace some of the lights behind the instruments/dash on his late model Renault as they didn't work.

I can't remember the model, but the consensus was that you had to pull the dash out to get to the lights.

To get the dash out, you had to pull the windscreen out - LOL

Can you believe they build em like that these days ?

Rob

Originally Posted by nearnexus

Can you believe they build em like that these days ?
Rob

Unfortunately - yes.

PDW

Originally Posted by nearnexus

I can't remember the model, but the consensus was that you had to pull the dash out to get to the lights.

The brides Honda Accord, isn't that bad, but you do have to take the front wheels off, and remove the lining in the wheel wells to get to the front light bulbs.

For every ones possible amusement. I put that cup holder on a site called "findapart" yesterday. It spits it out to numerous wreakers around the country. I had one bloke get back to me this morning. So I call him up. Quote "Sorry mate, I just checked it and its broken".

Regards Phil.

Originally Posted by nearnexus

Can you believe they build em like that these days ?

Rob

Apparently the new falcadoores these days, the radio is tied into the entire cars computer system.. You can not just replace it with whatever..

Just while we are generally discussing modern car maintenance, I can across a usefull device yesterday...

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ODB2-OBD-...f1ca134&_uhb=1

Works with all model cars that have the standard interface.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q9FRM9zeKY

I don't have one, but intend giving it a try.

Ray