StevesTruck

The bottom of a beer can also works quite well. I couldn't get a genuine part, but Staropramen is Czech, so I thought that's probably as close to OEM as you'll find.

A 1.6TDI is going to be a little bit better on fuel, smoother and cheaper on tax. PD's pull from low down, CR's like to rev a bit more. Everything's going to want a set of brakes one day. It's probably worth pricing up a clutch and flywheel so you know what the numbers are saying. Keep at the back of your mind that a 1.6 will probably want a set of injectors at some stage. Any particular reason why you're looking for a 1.6 rather than a 2.0? I can't see a lot of reason other than road tax bands and a very slight amount of economy, but my impression is that the 2.0 is generally more reliable.

If it's just the rear "console" bush, they're available as a separate part to the wishbone, very inexpensive and not particularly time consuming to change if the cars in the air. Whether you want to change the whole wishbone/arm depends a bit on the state of the inner bush and the arm as a whole.

Normally blue

Yep, that is a bit random. I wonder if the header tanks been replaced with a poor pattern one at some point. Either way, I think I'd chance a new tank and cap before taking the engine out. Like I say, I think you're chasing two separate faults that together look bad.

Thats a bit oddball. Are you sure it's not the cap seal or the level sender sending a tiny amount of water down the outside of the tank, which is then accumulating on the lip?

Sounds like you've got it. If you're having another look another day, it's always worth changing the pollen filter, or at least taking it out and having a look at it. It's probably worth running your cable down the pipe again just to make sure it's definitely clear. Whenever I have a car with a sunroof, I rod through all the drainage pipes in the same way when I do a service.

Intercooler pipes always have some oil in "full" would be impressive. As long as you haven't run it dry of oil, the engine will probably be fine. The pop noise makes me think it might have just popped a boost hose off somewhere. Have you been round all the connections? Might not be that, but, optomism and happy thoughts.

Just had a bit of a skim of the thread. I've definitely got experience of vehicles going flat if left not running on SSA for a period of time, rather than being turned off. The battery voltages do sound a bit weak, it's always worth giving a battery a long, slow trickle charge (1amp or less) if it's looking that way. I'm not great on the science, but it does reach the places a fast charge can't. I've had a few chargers that claim to do all sorts of clever stuff to recondition batteries, but the one thing that works is a really old charger with a 1 amp setting. I've used a little solar charger to bring batteries back up with some really good results, might be an idea if you can't get a mains charger to the car. Personally I'd just run my mains charger out there and put a bit of old carpet or something over the lead. One thing that won't have changed since you were auto-electricianing is this - 9 out of 10 times it's going to be something simple or stupid rather than properly technical. Give your battery terminals a check while you've got the bonnet up.

They're far more likely to give a false positive due than a false negative.

Any external signs on the engine of where the coolant has gone? What did the coolant look like before the steel seal? Run the car with the header tank cap off, turn the engine off and see if it bubbles. Does it drive and idle smoothly despite the noise? Not the best idea pulling injectors on and off on a modern diesel, but if pulling the injectors one at a time didn't effect the noise you were looking for, I'd be more tempted to look at something that's attached to the engine as the source. Have a good listen around the engine, see where it's loudest from. A mobile phone video won't really help because you don't get directionality. I think realistically you're looking at two separate faults that between them look really bad. I wouldn't worry too much about the fact you've steel sealed it. It does work as a temporary head gasket fix. If there's signs of bits of it floating around, and you're fairly certain the engines not terminal, it might be worth doing a coolant flush.

I've always just scrounged another plug off the front of back of any scrap VAG car. I see you're in Derby, so Loom's in Spondon will have something.

Get some spray under the boot, let it soak in then give the piston a wiggle round with a pair of water pump pliers before you put the windback on. It doesn't work every time, just gives you the best chance of success.

Come to think of it, it's fairly easy to swap a seat cloth, they're just hooked in.

Always have a good look at the cable running down to the wheel. Flex it about a bit to look for cracks.

My concern would be displacing any crap from further up the fuel system and it ending up in the injectors. Particularly on something with as fragile injectors as you find on a 1.6TDI.

I'd like to see ewe do better.

Make sure you get a few quotes for the repairs rather than just going to the nearest body shop. Wouldn't want to get fleeced!

If you're not getting anywhere doing it the technical way, I'd be going basic with the fault finding. Take the outlet pipe off the fuel filter, prime it and see if there's a decent amount of fuel coming out. Pull the plugs out, see what colour and condition they're in. See if they will spark against the head. Do a compression test. Put a test "Noid" light on the injector plugs. Pull the injectors out put them in some test jars and see if they're spraying, and spraying well.

VCDS will do most of what you ever want to do on a VAG and do it well. I've got it, use it quite a bit and it does what I need, but I find it clunky to use and having the cable into a laptop feels a bit old fashioned, especially when you're doing live data. My brother's got about £500 worth of Topdon diagnostic tablet. I don't do anything on VCDS that it doesn't seem to be capable of. It's a little slow but really intuitive and the Bluetooth dongle is great, and it works on all marques. The question really is what do you want to do, on what cars, and how much do you want to spend.

I always get a few extra MPG's in diesels in the summer vs winter, I've always put it down to different formulations being used in the fuel for summer/winter.

Doesn't take much to hurt a fuel pump on a commonrail. Open your diesel filter up and see if there's any metal particles in it.

Did you run it at all on the wrong fuel?

I bought a bag of them off ebay for a few quid. I got them years ago and they still haven't run out.

Impact socket and a lump hammer