# Spent some quality time with the VR6 today..



## mycarsux (Dec 1, 2005)

I've had my VR6 for about 11 months now, and it needed a little TLC. It was leaking oil up through the spark plug holes, and had a coolant leak from the nether regions. I had a Golf 1.8T for 9 years and got to know that motor inside and out, but I've only replaced the serpentine belt on the VR so far. Thanks to the DIYs here on the forum and a Bentley, everything was relatively easy. 

I had never removed the lock carrier assembly on my old car, but using the DIY, it was a piece of cake. Not nearly as scary as I thought it would be. 










Manipulating the intake manifold up and out of the way was probably the most difficult part about the disassembly. 










After pulling the valve cover, I was surprised at how clean the valve train was. The car has 150K miles on it. I think the timing tensioner/chain has been done in the past, and when they replaced the spark plug seals they didn't install them correctly. There is an indexing notch for each and they were all out of place.










I also replaced the thermostat, housing, and crack pipe. You can see here where the t-stat housing was leaking.










You can see how nasty the mating surface of the block is. 










Surprisingly the crack pipe was intact, but since I was going to be in there anyway.....









All of the coolant pieces installed and ready to be buttoned up.










Getting the intake mani and everything else back in place.










I didn't take any pictures of it all back together because......well you know what it already looks like probably. And of course it wouldn't be a VW if something didn't break while fixing something. 

Problems I encountered.......

A valve cover bolt broke in the head while tightening. How? I don't know. I hadn't even fully tightened everything down and one snapped. I managed to drill and extract the broken piece, and took the remnants to the auto parts store, sized the bolt, and pulled the weird button/rubber seal piece off of the old one and it's fine. No seepage so far.

And the PCV pipe that comes from the passenger side of the intake manifold over to the intake tube cracked of course. I'm very used to cracking hoses coming from the 1.8T world. 

The fuel pressure regulator was leaking a bit. Pulling it out and reseating it seemed to fix that.

Other than those minor issues, nothing has leaked, caught fire or is smelling funny, so my first operation on a VR6 was a success. :beer:


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## GTIVRon (Jul 24, 2009)

Judging from the grass it looks like your up north. Want to take a trip down to texas and practice removing and reinstalling the intake mani again? lol.


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## mycarsux (Dec 1, 2005)

I'm in Houston. It's not that hard. If I can do it, anybody can!


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## GTIVRon (Jul 24, 2009)

Did you have to drop the front off completely? Did you happen to see any way that it could be tilted forward far enough to get the intake mani off? If no, did you have to disconnect any a/c lines?


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## mycarsux (Dec 1, 2005)

GTIVRon said:


> Did you have to drop the front off completely? Did you happen to see any way that it could be tilted forward far enough to get the intake mani off? If no, did you have to disconnect any a/c lines?



If you leave everything connected you only get a two inches or so of forward movement. It might be possible, but its just so much easier with it out of the way. All you need to do is disconnect the headlight connectors, the hood cable, coolant hoses, and the electrical connections for the fans. It's only two bolts that hold the carrier to the front fenders, and four for the frame rails. There is enough slack to where you can set it down and not disconnect any A/C lines. 

It really is much easier than it looks.


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## GTIVRon (Jul 24, 2009)

Thanks!


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## Drewdownkali (May 8, 2011)

*manifold???*

why did you pull off the intake manifold? couldnt you have done everything with out pulling it up and off?


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## nyman (Sep 6, 2010)

Drewdownkali said:


> why did you pull off the intake manifold? couldnt you have done everything with out pulling it up and off?


No.


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## Drewdownkali (May 8, 2011)

*Y?*

the bentely mentions nothing bout the intake manifold.


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## mycarsux (Dec 1, 2005)

Drewdownkali said:


> why did you pull off the intake manifold? couldnt you have done everything with out pulling it up and off?


I could have done the coolant stuff without taking the manifold off, but I was also replacing the spark plug seals in the valve cover and the manifold has to come off to take the valve cover off.


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## GreyBullet (Nov 10, 2007)

How much oil was coming out of your spark plug gaskets? I ask cuz my cylinder 2 spark plug gasket was leaking out oil and shorting out the coil pack thus causing a misfire. Have you had this problem?


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## Drewdownkali (May 8, 2011)

*ok*

Oh ok. you had me scared for a sec. Didn't want to have to pull the intake. I have a leak in my radiator and also have noticed another leak by the whole thermo housing. Gonna put in new radiator, thremo housing, thermo cover, crackpipe and main hoses. Wow finding all the parts is not an easy task. most of the companies (ecs, dbc, uro tuning) don't have all the hoses, or have the upper listed as a lower and vis versa. Ordered a stock radiator b/c was worried about the mishimoto being a problem to install. Sucks to have to put a bunch of plastic parts in. Need metal thermo housing and cover and metal y's and t's and such for hoses!!!! lol thanx.


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