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I bought this Corrado for $700 bucks off craigslist.
Andy (yupp) told me about this car and how he has picked up a trans from this guy in Spring Lake that wanted to get rid of this car. Fellow was asking I think $1200. He proceeded to replace the transmission from it putting a hole through the trans case, in doing so the engine and trans was tried to be removed together with the radiator support, supercharger, and many wires still connected as it was tried to be "pulled" out of the engine bay. Damaging the firewall, about 14 wires broken and the radiator support like a crushed aluminum beer can making the hood not to be able to close/ or open correctly. The body is REAL rough, wont be a garage queen. Has bondo cracked on the side skirt, on the A-piller, below the drivers tailight. Has a repainted yellow hood, drivers fender, and a red drivers door making me think it was in a good accident. This is what I noticed within 1 minute of looking at it. Interior was pretty clean, kinda musty smellin' but I asked if there was a key, he replies, "Its not in the igntion?" Nope. We looked for a good 5 minutes, can't find one (-$). At this point I was not wanting this at all for how much work it will need considering he installed a supposed 90K motor and trans, without running it. He simply gave up for it being to much work and admitted he didnt really know what he was doing. So I asked how well did it run before? It ran great about 1.5 years ago, and 6 months later it had a slight power loss.......(hmmm....bad charger -$) So I looked into the charger outlet, Apex strips all in the black box. I just flat out told him I cant give 1200 for whats going on with it. What can you offer? he asks. I should of gone a little lower, bash me for not but I gave 700 and he jumped right on it.
I picked this up this spring of 2010. I got it home in Holland to my buddies barn and started to rip and tear to see what was really going on. At this point I wanted to atleast see if the motor ran without the charger, and to check the condition of the tranmission. So first thing was first, I had to install the cv axles, in doing so I broke 6 total lugnuts, EFF. Got them out and installed the joints.
I checked some more stuff out on it and noticed it had a push button start, and a manual switch for the fuel pump
. I figured the igntion switch was shot. So since i didnt have a key anyways I removed the ignition housing prolly the improper way, but I got it. Took off the door handles and brought the ignition housing, door handles to my local key maker that has always made my keys and hooked me up for like $30 bucks. The one key only works in one of the handles (pass. side, OG door) he said but i didnt really care. With a new ignition switch, got all that put together, removed the aftermarket junk switches, and then started repairing all 14 of the broken wires under the hood.
The wiring was mostly seemed to only be damaged from the motor getting removed. There was 3-4 grounds. 2 wires to the positive terminal. 3 wires from the ABS unit. O2 wires 3. And the throttle switch connector. This so far was about 3 days after buying the Corrado. Some wires were not plugged in either. Also looking before start up, NONE of the motor mounts were bolted IN! My goodness. :tear: Found bolts from the bolt drawer and put those in. Got a battery for dirt cheap at Autozone for like $35 bucks, they called it "old" so they can keep it on the fresh shelf. Found the battery clamp was missin, back to the bolt drawer. Got It all in battery connected. Before turning the key I made sure the fuel lines were conneted and tight, good thing I did cause they weren't. I changed the oil and filter for safe keeping, got a couple of 90w quarts for the Trans too.With the charger disconnected, I attempted to turn the key to on, fuel pumps buzzed, lights on in dash, cycled 2 more times, turned over, buh buh buh BANG!!! EFF. Double checked the plug wires, cyl. 2 shouldnt fire on cyl. 4. Switched them over, started right up thank fully:beer:. Upon it running I put the clutch in and tried to put into 1st... went into reverse..realigned the cables. Works good. Tried 1st again.. griiiiiiiiiiiiiind.. Noticed the pedal was kinda low for the clutch. Tried to bleed it, the master bled no problem, not the slave. Got a slave cyl, installed and Voila! Goes into all gears while running, sweet. With all this fixed a major concern came up, the brakes were hard as a rock. ABS light stays on while running also. Tried a thread awhile ago on how to check for ABS codes and didnt have any luck. So I had a full Passat brake booster/ bracket and master cyl. for a buddy of mine that never picked it up for his car, and well used it and installed it and uberslow2.0 helped out bleedin the brakes, thanks Trav.
This is how it ended up lookin, granted like crap, but functional.
The charger on the corrado was definetly bad from the get go, so I proceeded to take it apart and what I found was that the housings were both chernobilized from the displacer blowing a bearing. Off of vwvortex I bought 2 chargers that had 1 good displacer and 1 good housing. That costed about $100 bucks. Still needed the outlet housing. Hondanutb16 PMed me saying he had his for sale w/ just rebuilding it a month prior before his went "BAD". For $125 I got his charger, and RSR outlet (believe thats what its called) Intercooler and some tubing for the intercooler. Upon having his charger I took his apart and found that he had a cut up licence plate to cover the boost return of the charger causing dirt to enter the charger. All the apex strips were perfect, but the bearing in the pulley side housing was bad. So 2.5 chargers later I have all the parts to make 1 work. I cleaned all the housings and oiled all the bearings and housings and reinstalled together and now boosts. I had the intercooler bypassed for awhile to just test the charger to make sure I didnt how you say, screw it up? After I got the brakes all figured out and bled I proceeded to install the other intercooler hondanutb16 gave me w/hoses. After looking for this one tube for a half hour or so I figured out that I was missing an intercooler tube. noftINC, Steve-O thanks for the tube! That helped having the right tube.
Running it with a correct charger the car was just pouring black smoke uncontrollably! Found that the black signal wire was broken right off from the O2 sensor. Replaced that and seemed to help but still black smoke. Found that this 1 vacuum hose goes bad. From the ECU to the throttle body, guess its for the MAP sensor inside of the ECU that has to be 1 meter long exactly. I replaced that. Still had the same issue. Did some research and found that hose has to be connected to the passenger side port of the throttle body. Switched it and, runs like a top. Kinda amazed. Though I am in need of a Bentley Manual for it. So far so good. Hope you all enjoy! Sorry about this essay.
As of yesterday this is how she sits:
Andy (yupp) told me about this car and how he has picked up a trans from this guy in Spring Lake that wanted to get rid of this car. Fellow was asking I think $1200. He proceeded to replace the transmission from it putting a hole through the trans case, in doing so the engine and trans was tried to be removed together with the radiator support, supercharger, and many wires still connected as it was tried to be "pulled" out of the engine bay. Damaging the firewall, about 14 wires broken and the radiator support like a crushed aluminum beer can making the hood not to be able to close/ or open correctly. The body is REAL rough, wont be a garage queen. Has bondo cracked on the side skirt, on the A-piller, below the drivers tailight. Has a repainted yellow hood, drivers fender, and a red drivers door making me think it was in a good accident. This is what I noticed within 1 minute of looking at it. Interior was pretty clean, kinda musty smellin' but I asked if there was a key, he replies, "Its not in the igntion?" Nope. We looked for a good 5 minutes, can't find one (-$). At this point I was not wanting this at all for how much work it will need considering he installed a supposed 90K motor and trans, without running it. He simply gave up for it being to much work and admitted he didnt really know what he was doing. So I asked how well did it run before? It ran great about 1.5 years ago, and 6 months later it had a slight power loss.......(hmmm....bad charger -$) So I looked into the charger outlet, Apex strips all in the black box. I just flat out told him I cant give 1200 for whats going on with it. What can you offer? he asks. I should of gone a little lower, bash me for not but I gave 700 and he jumped right on it.
I picked this up this spring of 2010. I got it home in Holland to my buddies barn and started to rip and tear to see what was really going on. At this point I wanted to atleast see if the motor ran without the charger, and to check the condition of the tranmission. So first thing was first, I had to install the cv axles, in doing so I broke 6 total lugnuts, EFF. Got them out and installed the joints.
I checked some more stuff out on it and noticed it had a push button start, and a manual switch for the fuel pump
. I figured the igntion switch was shot. So since i didnt have a key anyways I removed the ignition housing prolly the improper way, but I got it. Took off the door handles and brought the ignition housing, door handles to my local key maker that has always made my keys and hooked me up for like $30 bucks. The one key only works in one of the handles (pass. side, OG door) he said but i didnt really care. With a new ignition switch, got all that put together, removed the aftermarket junk switches, and then started repairing all 14 of the broken wires under the hood. The wiring was mostly seemed to only be damaged from the motor getting removed. There was 3-4 grounds. 2 wires to the positive terminal. 3 wires from the ABS unit. O2 wires 3. And the throttle switch connector. This so far was about 3 days after buying the Corrado. Some wires were not plugged in either. Also looking before start up, NONE of the motor mounts were bolted IN! My goodness. :tear: Found bolts from the bolt drawer and put those in. Got a battery for dirt cheap at Autozone for like $35 bucks, they called it "old" so they can keep it on the fresh shelf. Found the battery clamp was missin, back to the bolt drawer. Got It all in battery connected. Before turning the key I made sure the fuel lines were conneted and tight, good thing I did cause they weren't. I changed the oil and filter for safe keeping, got a couple of 90w quarts for the Trans too.With the charger disconnected, I attempted to turn the key to on, fuel pumps buzzed, lights on in dash, cycled 2 more times, turned over, buh buh buh BANG!!! EFF. Double checked the plug wires, cyl. 2 shouldnt fire on cyl. 4. Switched them over, started right up thank fully:beer:. Upon it running I put the clutch in and tried to put into 1st... went into reverse..realigned the cables. Works good. Tried 1st again.. griiiiiiiiiiiiiind.
. Noticed the pedal was kinda low for the clutch. Tried to bleed it, the master bled no problem, not the slave. Got a slave cyl, installed and Voila! Goes into all gears while running, sweet. With all this fixed a major concern came up, the brakes were hard as a rock. ABS light stays on while running also. Tried a thread awhile ago on how to check for ABS codes and didnt have any luck. So I had a full Passat brake booster/ bracket and master cyl. for a buddy of mine that never picked it up for his car, and well used it and installed it and uberslow2.0 helped out bleedin the brakes, thanks Trav.This is how it ended up lookin, granted like crap, but functional.
The charger on the corrado was definetly bad from the get go, so I proceeded to take it apart and what I found was that the housings were both chernobilized from the displacer blowing a bearing. Off of vwvortex I bought 2 chargers that had 1 good displacer and 1 good housing. That costed about $100 bucks. Still needed the outlet housing. Hondanutb16 PMed me saying he had his for sale w/ just rebuilding it a month prior before his went "BAD". For $125 I got his charger, and RSR outlet (believe thats what its called) Intercooler and some tubing for the intercooler. Upon having his charger I took his apart and found that he had a cut up licence plate to cover the boost return of the charger causing dirt to enter the charger. All the apex strips were perfect, but the bearing in the pulley side housing was bad. So 2.5 chargers later I have all the parts to make 1 work. I cleaned all the housings and oiled all the bearings and housings and reinstalled together and now boosts. I had the intercooler bypassed for awhile to just test the charger to make sure I didnt how you say, screw it up? After I got the brakes all figured out and bled I proceeded to install the other intercooler hondanutb16 gave me w/hoses. After looking for this one tube for a half hour or so I figured out that I was missing an intercooler tube. noftINC, Steve-O thanks for the tube! That helped having the right tube.
Running it with a correct charger the car was just pouring black smoke uncontrollably! Found that the black signal wire was broken right off from the O2 sensor. Replaced that and seemed to help but still black smoke. Found that this 1 vacuum hose goes bad. From the ECU to the throttle body, guess its for the MAP sensor inside of the ECU that has to be 1 meter long exactly. I replaced that. Still had the same issue. Did some research and found that hose has to be connected to the passenger side port of the throttle body. Switched it and, runs like a top. Kinda amazed. Though I am in need of a Bentley Manual for it. So far so good. Hope you all enjoy! Sorry about this essay.
As of yesterday this is how she sits:
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