Bye bye water pump and core plug

[gnutz2]

It's been a quiet year for the Golf with most of my efforts going into a front end rebuild, but I did manage one trip to the dragstrip, in hindsight I should have stayed at home

Launched the car for the second time and immediately heard a pop, of course I did the sensible thing and carried on to finish the quarter mile. I drove the car back to the pits to inspect the damege but couldn't find any leaks until I poured some water in the expansion bottle and ended up with a wet foot

Blew the 28mm core plug out of the back of the head and smashed the water pump off, it was holding on with 2 bolts and only God knows how the timing belt stayed on





Back home I found the back 2 head studs were loose, I had re torqued down the whole head after a few heat cycles but the gasket must have settled some more. I won't be making that mistake again.

Engine did over 600hp on the rollers a few weeks later so It looks like I got away with it.

Baz

[SteveH]

Sounds like you've been very lucky. Makes me think about pulling the cam cover off to check my head bolts. Don't think I've done it since I put the motor back together

[adam g]

Is this something that is done at the factory, heat cycling then re-torque. I would imagine not and hence the gaskets are designed not to settle. Just suggesting the problem may lie elsewhere.

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[gnutz2]

Is this something that is done at the factory, heat cycling then re-torque. I would imagine not and hence the gaskets are designed not to settle. Just suggesting the problem may lie elsewhere.

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Manufacturers use stretch bolts which don't need checking. I'm on arp studs which most definately do need checking.

[adam g]

Aah, that makes sense.

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[Rikki Kitto]

Lucky man go buy a lotto ticket

[andy10v]

Mega lucky with the timing belt!

I went with JPs advice;

Re torque I normally advice 1 heat cycle, then 150-200 miles and once more before mapping at 500-1000miles. If you still get movement at this point do it once more after mapping. This is done to allow for the settling of the headgasket, the digging in of the firing rings of the gasket into the block and head etc...