wiredsoftware

Funny enough I was watching that just the other day - if you search for wheeler dealers xr2 on YouTube you'll probably turn up a dodgy copy. Not sure it's much use for this project though, the XR2 design is quite a bit different. He does give a good explanation of the principles behind what you're trying to achieve, but reckon the OP has that covered

All sorted now, guess the regular bulb I tried must have been broken, and the LED one didn't work I guess. Anyway, once I put another bulb in, removed the key and left it for a few minutes, it started working again...

Yeah sorry got my N/S and O/S reversed in the post, you're correct! That's what happens when you work on the car parked on the wrong side of the road Interesting about the pulses, will check again when I buy some fresh bulbs - tested with an old standard bulb I had lying around and a LED one, so will try a new bulb to be 100% sure and check the pulses are present. Are the pulses long long enough to pick up on a digital multimeter? Don't have access to an analogue one at the moment.

Hi all, I got a warning light on the dash the other day for bulbs. The front O/S side light turned out to be the problem. However, replacing the bulb hasn't fixed it, and after checking the wiring diagram there appears to be no power to the grey/black wire that supplies the bulb at the connector. I don't suppose this is a known issue, but if anyone can point me at any obvious places to check before I take out the battery, airbox and everything else in that side of the engine to chase the wire? Apparently it comes from the "on-board power supply control unit" (any idea where that is?), and the N/S light is fed on a separate wire from there (which presumably is why the N/S is working fine). Car is a 2005 Octavia 1.9 TDI. If I can't find the control unit, or the unit turns out to be defective, presumably I can just run power from the N/S? Not sure how the warning light knows that it is gone though, would a bulb warning on the dash be an MOT failure if all lights worked?

The oil cap will get rid of the smell, fixed the smell for me anyway. The idle is "rough" on these, but assuming everything is in order, that just means it should wander up and down about 50 RPM in each direction, and do so relatively smoothly. If it's jumping harshly, something's not 100%.

Thanks - that's the one! Forgot to mention mine's a 2001, engine AQW. Judging by that, I just need the seal so I've ordered that.

Anyone got any idea what size bolt (or part number) you need for the oil drain plug on the 8V MPI? All the ones I've tried so far that claim to fit "all Fabias" don't fit, probably because the 8v is pre-VAG. Not keen to measure my existing one as it's holding the oil in (mostly, it's weeping a little). It's also a different design, the one on there is flat with an Allen key design rather than the simple bolts that I've tried. The wrong one I got was M14x1.5mm, the one I need seems to be bigger, not sure of pitch. Really I guess I probably just need the washer, but guessing they are integral? Any help appreciated. The one I need looks a lot like this:

Switch cleaner on the pot seems to have sorted it for now, wonder if it will last!

Try harder Seriously though, it got tangled because it got forced through the gap while folded, so it must go back again. They always do, just needs a lot of brute force and swearing. If you fold the strap at an angle it helps, as does adding some non-destructive lubrication. Furniture polish is good for this, it doesn't stain, but makes it slippier/shinier which helps a little. The fold will need to be really tight, so you may need to encourage it with a butter knife or something.

Number 11 in pic below.

To fit aftermarket ones you'll need to cut the existing wires and add new spade connectors. You can buy these very cheaply and simply crimp them on, no soldering. Off the top of my head, there should be three wires to the existing connector. Two will be chunky, with one thinner one. The thinner one is the positive feed for the ring of light that comes on/off when you turn the car lights on. The two thicker ones are the positive and negative. The positive is permanent live so that you can use the lighter with the car off. Main positive: black/white Main negative: brown Lights positive: grey/blue for the aftermarket ones, most likely they will use red for positive, black or brown for negative. The lights one if they support it could be any colour. If you only need a lighter socket to power USB devices, there are aftermarket options that replace the socket with 2x USB instead. These usually contain the bits needed to step down the voltage, but often have a light in them that is permanently on, in which case you'd need to run a switched live to the area instead so it doesn't gradually drain your battery.

Could be a number of things, I could list them all but you could spend a lot of money replacing parts that don't need to be replaced, could you get a scan of fault codes and post them up?

Washer fluid container is easy to remove, however to get it out you need to remove the bumper and the battery. It's just held in with a couple of bolts, and the water connections are just push-fit. If you're taking the bumper off anyway, then you cold attempt a DIY patch of that crack by doing some at-home plastic welding using a soldering iron on the back side. The video below shows how it's done, but please do this outdoors unlike the guy in the video, the fumes are bad for you! It should make the split much less obvious if done carefully and will stop the crack from growing.

Don't think I mentioned, but in case it's helpful for someone in the future: Removing the engine cover and replacing it with a simple cap from the Felicia (as mentioned above) completely stopped the fumes in the cabin. Problem solved.

Could be. I'm not convinced that flap is a good design, when closed the air is forced to come from the manifold, up a relatively narrow pipe, and then completely double back on itself to get to the air box. When open, it's always partially obstructing the inlet tract. Probably a triumph of efficiency over engineering.