Former VWDieselParts.com Forum

There may be a tiny bit of play in the alternator bracket. You may drip a little coolant doing it, but if you remove the alternator and loosen all of the bracket mounting bolts (including the little bracket that connects the alternator and injection pump brackets together), you may be able to tap th...

The long belt is way beefier then the alt belt and I wonder if the pulley on the alt is too small for it. Is there a minimum pulley size for belts? You have some play in V-belt sizes. For example, I'm running a belt that's 13mm instead of the stock 11mm belt on my A/C-delete-car. I bet a bigger bel...

The brake fluid can leak into the vacuum booster. This may also cause your brake pedal to stick down.

Hey. Just got a 91 Jetta (gas, I know.. im a traitor) The clutch wont disengage. The lever is moving fully when the clutch pedal is depressed, but its not disengaging. Happened to me. A slow trans oil leak turned clutch dust into a lovely glue and stuck the clutch friction disc to the flywheel and ...

If I'm parking, it's the parking brake.

If I'm doing donuts in the snow, it's the handbrake.

If my hydraulic brakes fail, it's my emergency brake.

I wonder what would happen if you started it up. That should get it spinning loose from the crank sprocket. That's how I freed a wheel stuck to a rotor. Installed the lug bolts a tiny bit looser than finger-tight, then drove forward and back a few feet until it popped. Stupid and dangerous? Perhaps...

Modern luxury cars have expensive and complicated dual-zone climate controls for when the missus and you disagree on the perfect temp. But our humble Rabbits had it first! ...in the winter, at least. Anyway, I duct taped my side vent outlets closed -- my shutoff louvers were broken so I had to endur...

For the intermediate shaft, just remove the seal carrier with two bolts and then put it on the workbench and pry or punch the seal out with anything handy. When I had to do my rear crank seal I did the same thing, remove the seal carrier (don't forget the bolts on the oil pan). It means buying an ex...

The alternator on my Rabbit is no longer able to run my lights, heater fan, and rear defrost all at once (ok for summer... not so good for December). I've been looking around for an alt but everyone wants to know if I need Motorola or Bosch. Why should it matter? The Bentley describes both but it lo...

I dunno about that particular year, but you may be missing a rubber isolator on the trans end of the clutch cable.

Your '86 is a Mk2 which means it has a glow plug "afterglow" system to help the engine warm up faster (and to reduce emissions). When you blip the throttle to excite the alternator, the glow plugs immediately put a 50A load on it as they continue to glow for the next few minutes. Bigger al...

Quantum-man wrote:Good questions... Do VW's steering locks come on without taking key out?

Hey good point. I just tested and to my surprise, I can still turn the wheel of my Rabbit even with the key all the way off. See, my Fox ignition has been broken for so long I forgot how it was really supposed to work.

Well assuming you have a clear path in front of you, yeah, keep it in gear, clutch out, and just jam on the brakes. I don't think there's a car in the world that it's engine can win a fight with the brakes. Turning the key off isn't going to help much and if you accidentally go too far and lock the ...

There are three primary concerns for winter starting, and those are compression, cranking speed, and glow plugs. If you have access to a diesel compression tester that will really help you diagnose what condition your engine is in. If you don't and don't want to spring for one, then you can play the...

smely91 wrote:I looked briefly, and only saw one on each side of the manifold, but they weren't allen, and looked to be holding on the exhaust manifold.

It may help to put a mirror and a flashlight back there.