inlet manifold removal

Been having some trouble with my '89 clipper cabrio.  It's running really rough when started from cold but fine when upto normal temp.  It's all standard; 1.8 with a pierburg 2e2 carb.  I've read through the troubleshooting sticky thread by rubjonny (awsome stuff) and decided to replace the coolant channel o ring.  Anyway… I've got as far as removing 5 of the 6 allen bolts from the inlet manifold but just can't get to that tricky one 3rd from the right - wondered how anyone else has done this or if anyone had any tips?

Yo Haz…see you've didcovered what a pain these can be….its not getting the allen bolt out thats the problem, its finding the bl**dy thing in the first instance.

My solution (worked for me !!!!!) was to go to my local Machine Mart (or perhaps Halfrauds) and get a set of metric long-reach BALL-NOSE Allen keys::

eg Clarke PRO54 7-Pce Metric Hex Key Set

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/pro54-7-pce-metric-hex-key-set

There is insufficient clearance between the inlet and exhaust manifolds to get a regular hex allen 3/8" socket drive into the bolt's recess or even to find it…hence the (6mm iirc) ball nose key will enable you to approach the recess from a slightly off-angle…it took but a few seconds to find the recess using this key and then there is enough of the other end of the key sticking out so you can turn the end with your crescent wrench or molegrips to slacken it off (assuming you have already removed the carb from the manifold).

While I had the bolts out, I cleaned up the bolt heads and sprayed them silver so I could perhaps see the ends using a light and mirrors when I replaced them. In the end I slid the bolts into the manifold with a bit of grease around them to help keep them in place  , hung on the gasket  (not forgetting the O-Ring !) and then offered the manifold up to the head. Again, finding the recess in that bolt wasn't easy but only took a couple of minutes to find it with the ball-nose key.

Make sure your tongue is hanging out the right side of your fizzog else none of this will work!!!!

Good Luck

Cheers

Alan

Cheers Alan

I managed to borrow a 6mm ball nose from work, but this didn't completely save me from wrestling with the bloody thing in the dark, and sometimes rain, every night this week and most of this afternoon!!

Before my first post I hadn't realised there was a supporting bracket underneath the back of the inlet manifold.  I made the discovery when using my camera to take pictures of the last allen bolt from the bulkhead, to see what the clearance was like.

This pic shows the last allen bolt to the left between the inlet and exhaust manifolds and the supporting bracket underneath the heater of the inlet.


Before I knew the bracket was there I was trying to get to the last allen bolt from a very acute angle - impossible


With the bracket removed you have much better access


Now all I had to do was remove the bolt securing the bracket and jobs a good'n - easy!!….well not quite.  The bolt securing the bracket was rusted and seized solid (wd40 and all) .  To add insult to injury the first socket I tried, 10mm, was too small so used an 11mm, which seemed to fit but ended up rounding the edges off the bolt   which meant I had to spend ages trying to file flat edges back onto the bolt in order to get a spanner on it.  This didn't work, just rounded it even more! and so it was time to break out the hacksaw.  Tried sawing it for a good while, but try to imagine sawing something at the back of the engine bay, underneath the inlet which you cant see - not easy.  Anyway I gave up sawing and at some point discovered the bracket could simply be bent out the way.  Finally I could get the ball nose allen key in and remove the last bolt.


Out with the old and in with the new




Hope the pics help anyone else unfortunate enough to have to do this

hi
yeah ive got to do mine but i will wait till spring/summer,that o-ring is knackered.
The tools i use to remove inlet manifolds off these golfs is halfords socket set, the smallest size they do then buy the 4 inch extension bar with the allen socket and extension bars through into the back of the engine (lean over the carb, causes nasty back ache though)that works fine, i done the head gasket and replaced the inlet manifold on my old golf and it worked quite well this way.
this is very informative though you will have to tell us if it cured your problem
cheers kurt

Sorry Haz - forgot to mention that little bracket as I removed it along with the exhaust manifold heat collector gizmo and never gave it a thought when I made my response.

I note that your old "O" ring is almost a dead ringer for my one - the reason that I removed the inlet manifold was to replace that o-ring as coolant water was pizzitivley pozzing out of it (at least I hoped so (I was correct!!!!) ) as water was pozzing out of the backside of the engine and it could have been due to a cracked head or a popped core plug - couldn't actually tell (even in the daylight!) from whence it came…getting the manifold off for a shuftee turned out to be the best option!

If your running proplems are sorted, at least you won't have a water leak from here for a great while…

Cheers

Alan

at least your studs for the heat shield are ok! mine both sheared off. i ended up using a pair of jubilee clips to hold it on.  exceleltn guide i think you should make up a nice write up on it and add it to my faq, or i could nick it and put it in there for you?

Thanks for your posts guys and no problem using any of this for your faq Rubjonny (congrats on your member of the month award btw)

Sorry for the radio silence on this - it's just been one thing after another!  Long story though!

Got the manifold back on but backache had firmly set in and I couldn't be arsed to put the carb back on to test if all was working ok (working in the dark didn't help either).  Whilst I had the carb off I gave it to a mate to clean and service (I re-iterate..before testing the manifold).  The carb came back looking great, so I bolted it on and turned her over…she didn't fire and the battery eventually died.  After charging up the battery I tried again but nothing.  This got me thinking there must be a problem with the carb, because that's the only thing that had really changed - so off it came, a bit of tinkering later and it went on again and off and on etc, etc - still nothing so started thinking blocked fuel lines (rusty tank/ filler neck).  Anyway some time later I just cleaned the spark plugs and it started straight away :dontknow: car was staring fine before I did any work - weird.

Even though I got her started she was still running rough and water was coming out the back of the block somewhere.  Thought it must be coming from the inlet manifold due to not tightening the bolts enough - so I stripped the carb off again and tightened up the bolts, although rounded the allen heads in doing so .  Thought I'd try again 'as is' but as I topped up the coolant I noticed it was running straight out the back of the engine….even without starting.  Eventually managed to source some new manifold bolts (thank god for the classifieds section on here) and as you can imagine had lots of "fun" extracting the old rounded ones.  With the manifold off this time I topped up the coolant to see if it was running from the coolant channel - it wasn't it was dark and I couldn't see exactly where it was coming from I just knew it was under the manifolds somewhere.  Fearing the worst I ordered a head gasket set.

Today was the first day off I'd had in a while and was going to tackle the head.  It was also the first chance I'd had to see it in proper daylight - One last check later and it wasn't that bad at all…a missing core plug .  Put everything back together and fired her up …all sorted, well not perfect and still a few adjustments to make but thought you lot were due an update.

Really good guide mate, been using it this morning on my car that's been needing this doing for a while, unfortunately though I snapped the head off my ball nose pliers in the head of the bolt (and that was after spraying them all with wd40 last night), handy as f**k…. Had to borrow a boroscope kit from work to see if it was still in there, which it was, can't remove it at all…..  

Think i'm just gonna put it all back together and hope that when I change the Fuel filler neck (there is rust in the filter and tank) it was that all along causing my running problems..

I did notice that the tube from thte manifold to the waxstat was getting hot, so there must be some water getting through even if my o ring seal is knackered….

Roll on filler neck change…

Again, good guide though, just think I was unlucky…    :cry:

i seriously can not see where this bolt is
can any one advise???

It is there mate, just takes a bit of patience to find it… If you notice in the picture there's a groove that kind of guides the allen key in to the correct place, "simply" (yeah whatever) follow that and you'll get to it buddy..  Might be worth spraying down towards the head of the bolt with wd40 and let it soak in otherwise you could lose the end of your allen key in the head of the bolt like I did…

Anyway, good luck, it's not a difficult job really, one of those that after you've done it once you'll find a piece of p**s next time…. Not that you should need to do it again hopefully…

its finally off for me and can confirm that the mirror, and ball nose allen key is the way forward

good work! carby inlet manifold oring is one of the VW owners initiation rituals
mk2 owners also have to do the heater matrix swap before being seen as a 'true' mk2 owner

Great guide - managed to get the manifold off my Mk1 1.5 in an afternoon thanks to this guide. Thanks for the tip about the ball-nose allen keys.
Now it's off I notice that the 1.5 manifold doesn't have the o-ring (or I'm going blind) and there was no sign of a gasket between the head and the manifold! (I have got one on order for when I reassemble).

Anyway, no crushed or grazed knuckles or sheared threads, so I guess you could call it a successful afternoon's work.

Now for the core plugs!

The o ring may have disintegrated and gone inside the inlet, if that happens its a nit of a bugger as its a real pain to get it out again and it'll clog up the idlet. Fingers crossed it may be someone took it off in the past and didn't replace it

or more likly the idiot before you didn't fit one along with the gasket between the head and manifold.  Some people shouldn't be let near cars.

Ive changed the o ring on the manifold and it's still leaking water, quite alot, anyone else had this problem?

Just spotted this >>>>>RubJonny said:::

mk2 owners also have to do the heater matrix swap before being seen as a 'true' mk2 owner

 
That was a horrible comment to post Jonny (LoL)

I'd rather replace 47,000  Inlet O-Rings rather than swap another bl**dy Mk2 Heater Matrix !!!!!!!!!!!!!

At least I'm a true Mk2 owner (well, the wifey is but she doesn't know one end of a screw driver from the other!)

Check your leak is not coming from elsewhere stumpy - its unlikely that your new one will leak unless you knicked it during re-instalation of the manifold - could be core plugs……..

Cheers

i almost certain  its coming from the manifold

Probably didn't explain properly - there's nowhere for an o-ring on this car (Golf mk1 Cab Auto 1.5)

Ah ok thats fine then, just your car is an earlier model without the coolant channelin the head