'90 Mk2 VR6 Golf Smooth Bay Never Ending Project

[JoeMallett]

So I have all the parts



Cleaned everything up.



Put the gasket on.

Put the head on.

Put the bolts in.

Bolts are the wrong size...

I've already had to send back a head gasket because it was mangled. Does my head in.

[JoeMallett]

Know that engine bay shave feel dude.

You make it look so easy haha, great progress the bay came up pretty good. Its a shame that you got the vr6 in only to find the heads needs to come off. Keep going!

Photos certainly don't tell the whole story... Sleepless nights stressing about issues and what to do next -.-

you no Tom Bowen? Thats his old mk3 in the pic? This thread is really interesting. I'll keep watching!
Btw you heard of Adam King? He breaks loads of cars and sell's bits on. But recently he appeard in court..

Haha yeah Tom is one of my best friends! In fact, I'm being his best man Yeah I've had run ins with Adam King before, luckily no money trouble though, just never sorting out parts. IU know people who've lost a lot of money because of him though... not cool.

[Matt IoW]

you no Tom Bowen? Thats his old mk3 in the pic? This thread is really interesting. I'll keep watching!
Btw you heard of Adam King? He breaks loads of cars and sell's bits on. But recently he appeard in court..

Know that engine bay shave feel dude.

You make it look so easy haha, great progress the bay came up pretty good. Its a shame that you got the vr6 in only to find the heads needs to come off. Keep going!

[JoeMallett]

Getting parts through bit by bit. Sorted out the head gasket getting other gaskets that will need replacing through on Thursday hopefully. Then what I'll probably do is get it back together in the car, then take it out as one ready to reroute the brake lines and maybe get a few parts powder coated etc.

I don't suppose anyone knows of a UK place that would be able to make me a braided hydro clutch line?

[JoeMallett]

cant wait for the finished project, great work so far.

Sick Build! Love a nice shaved bay

Cheers guys, hopefully I will make some progress worth looking at soon. Have some big plans coming soon hopefully:

Hidden brake lines
braided clutch hose
Better coolant hose set up
Parts blasting and powder coating/polishing
More smoothing and so on.

Found a few bubbles in the paint, that look like bad prep and it's doing my head in. Theres a few other bits I'm not happy with either, so will probably end up doing the whole bay again.
Don't know whether to take it further and just remove the scuttle or not. If I do I will have to rethink the looms as well, because a lot of the loom runs through there.
Need to sort out my laptop so I can get some photos up (my camera software is out of date and won't let me upload any photos).

[Gryzlee]

Sick Build! Love a nice shaved bay

[kittenpuncher]

cant wait for the finished project, great work so far.

[JoeMallett]

Ordered parts. Received parts. Head gasket's bent. On the other hand, found ways to make the bay look a lot tidier in the mean time.

[JoeMallett]

So I got the head off, looks like it definitely was the head gasket...




As you can see, cylinder 4 is a lot cleaner than the rest of the cylinders. There were also some relatively noticeable water marks on the gasket heading for the cylinder so it makes sense.


I cleaned everything up and there's no corrosion on the block or head luckily. Tested whether the head was warped and it isn't which is a nice surprise. Lets just hope it isn't internally cracked or something!
I think it was on its way out and where it was lying around that this has happened.



Also found a nice surprise with the timing chain tensioner... The spare 2.9 I have has got the same one with no wear on it though so that should not be a problem. Took the sump off and found bit of it in there, need to double check it's not floating about anywhere else.



I'm not sure whether I should port it whilst it's off or just get it together for now and buy another head to gas flow etc, ready to turbo/supercharge it at some point?

[JoeMallett]

Getting more and more likely that it's head gasket.
This looks like emulsified oil/water to me...





Do I just quickly sort out the head gasket, or take it out, reroute to brake lines, get a nice aluminium fluid reservoir, tidy up the driveshafts. Maybe look and port/polishing the head etc... new cams. I don't know.

The overall plan is to hopefully supercharge it. I don't whether I might aswell try and start that now or not?

[JoeMallett]

Got the radiator on and filled it with coolant. The car starts and runs perfectly but, there is a huge amount of white smoke coming from the exhaust and a strong smell of petrol. I'm hoping that it might be an injector problem or it just needs running to clean it out etc. But pretty worried that it is going to be a head gasket. I might try and get a video up later.
If it does turn out to be a head gasket, I'm not too sure what to do, if I do decide to repair it, I would like to do it properly and that could get expensive. Or should I just buy a different engine, maybe another VR or something different. But then that could also have problems.

[JoeMallett]

It started!! I don't have any video unfortunately. Had to connect a live feed to part of the fusebox because the loom seems to be missing a cable. So the fuel pump was running the whole time the ignition was on. So now have to find a way to solve that. Possibly by running it to a power cable on switched on the ignition, unless I can find out how to do it properly. There seems to be another problem related to this with the low oil pressure switch, which works, and has continuity to the fusebox, but doesn't flash on the clocks. I think this is supposed to go out to allow the fuel pump and other parts in the same section on the fusebox to power up. Theres also a dodgy connection somewhere because with the ignition on I can jiggle to fusebox and relays with switch and the fuel pump primes, haven't been able to find what is doing this yet though.
So I still have A LOT to do before its running properly and get the rad connected at and sort it all out. But a MASSIVE step and so much relief. So happy that I've got this far!

[JoeMallett]

Had a big set back today, went to plug in the looms to the back of the fusebox. I was using the a2resources diagrams to match up the plugs. The clear/white engine management plugs don't match up, so I'm stuck. I think where they've been modded to fit into a mk2 before they've just been messed about with too much. Running out of time rapidly...

[enes_ca]

looks great , keep up the good work