areed

I stuck a fairly strong neodymium magnet that I had to hand to the bottom inside of the sump before I refitted it, I figure that can catch anything left over and I'll clean it whenever the sump next gets removed

To anyone reading this in future, FAI kit TCK289 does fit the 1999 Felicia 1.3 50 kW engine and matches part number 6U0198026A as recommended above. And my engine does indeed seem to be running OK despite all the metal shavings, fingers crossed it stays that way!

For what it's worth, at 195,000 miles my timing chain looked like this: timing_chain_play.mp4 The large sprocket has lost ~14 teeth, probably not far away from catastrophic failure... And the oil pan is full of teeth and metal shavings: Shockingly, the car was still running fine before I took it off the road to start this maintenance. Hopefully the metal shavings haven't caused further damage to the engine, we'll have to wait and see. In conclusion, the replacement interval is probably less than 195,000 miles 😂

Thanks for the reply. Do you know if a kit matching 6U0198026A will also have the boss on the large sprocket? The FAI kit I have at the moment does have the 30mm sprocket, but still doesn't fit because the large sprocket is wrong. Water pump was done ~5 years ago when the old one started leaking, fortunately seems to still be going strong at the moment.

Hi all, I am in the process of changing the timing chain on my 1.3l 1999 Felicia. The first kit I bought (BGA TC0560FK), the small sprocket had an inner diameter of 32 mm when the original was 30 mm: I therefore returned the kit and ordered a replacement from a different brand (FAI TCK64). The small sprocket from this kit appears to be correct, however the large sprocket is missing a boss on one side and so will not sit in line with the small sprocket (original on left, replacement right): Both of these kits were sold as compatible with the 1.3 Felicia but clearly aren't. Before I waste any more time and money, can anyone recommend a brand of timing kit that they know fits this engine?

Does anyone know a part number for the clips used to retain the front mudguards on a 1999 Felicia hatchback? They look like this: There's nothing useful on the clip, and I can't find anything on the online parts catalogue. The mudguards themselves have "ATEST 8SD 0963" written on them, which lead me to the following image on a Russian forum giving a part number of KEA 075 001. I can't find this for sale anywhere though, and all I really need is a replacement clip as one is missing from mine. Any suggestions on where I could look?

Nope definitely TL VW 774D, here's a photo:

The manual I have for mine says it should use VW774D (G12) only?

Managed to find the time to finish the cleanup and reassembly. I had the head skimmed, the machine shop didn't say how much they took off but the notch at the centre top has now vanished. I vaguely recall seeing on here that this notch is the skim limit indicator, although I'm not certain. If it is, then the limit has presumably now been reached. The block I cleaned as best I could by hand, and I hoovered out the pile of disintegrated gasket from inside the coolant ways too. For future reference, if anyone else finds themselves having to remove lots of the grey stuck-on gasket material I found that applying acetone with a dropper bottle would soften this enough for it to be gradually scrubbed off with a plastic dish scourer. It still took several hours to clean up, but I was wary of using anything harsher as the aluminium is so easy to scratch. All back together with a new gasket (made by BGA, as they made a gasket set with the new style separate inlet/exhaust gaskets), and seems to be running OK. Today I discovered that the front brakes had partly seized, presumably because it sat for so long, but having disassembled and examined these I think they will be OK once freed off. Still not sure what caused the gasket to disintegrate, it seemed to have failed worst where it was exposed to the coolant. Does anyone have a recommended brand of coolant compatible with these cars?

Their gasket looks to be in far better shape than either of the ones I removed, particularly around the coolant ways. Wonder if it was the original one or had been changed recently too. My current plan is to get the head skimmed, and refit with a new gasket. I haven't seen anything obvious yet on here that I might have missed last time, my current suspicion is that the surface of the block was marginally not good enough. Unfortunately my circumstances at the moment mean that I don't have the time or facilities to disassemble the engine sufficiently to get that resurfaced, but if the new gasket lasts another 6 years then perhaps by then I'll be able to do a more compehensive job!

I did have a search online, the images I could find were either of the red sealant type or too low-resolution to tell, like the one linked above which looks like this: Now that's some quality parts numbering!

Fairly confident the engine is the original one. That's interesting though, all of the ones I've found to buy online had the same red sealant. Where'd you manage to pick yours up?

The car's done about 40000 miles since it was changed, current total for the engine is 162000.

I think the gasket set was made by Payen, part number on the receipt was DT580 which comes up with a Payen set on Google. Coolant was red G12, 50/50 with DI water

Hi all, 6 years ago the head gasket on my Felicia failed, and I was able to replace it thanks to the guidance of these forums. Since the replacement, I've made sure that the car has never overheated or run out of coolant, and the coolant has been changed every few years. All was fine until recently, when the car started losing coolant and generating mayo again. Having taken the head off again, I can see that the replacement gasket has disintegrated and that there is coolant visible inside three of the pushrod ways, as well as inside several of the head bolt holes. I'd expected it to last a bit better than this, does anyone have any suggestions as to what may have caused it to fail so quickly, or ways to prevent it happening again?