floydboy1

Thanks for sending this over and taking the time to reply in detail! i shall have a look at this , didn’t really give the immobiliser a thought because of the sluggish start when cranking like as if it’s more a fuelling issue, but I will check this out too!

Hi all, I have been having issues where my fuel gauge is dropping on my 2004 Skoda fabia VRS from half tank to under the red and then back up to half tank again, intermittently. it hasn't done it for a while, but i noticed it does it most when I have just filled up with fuel. Recently when starting the car, the car will start for 1 or 2 seconds sounding rough and then die, it will then take around 5 seconds cranking before it will start and then runs absolutely fine for the remainder of the day, starting on the button every time until left for over 24 hours when it SOMETIMES does the same as above, other times starting straight away, its very hit and miss. I have checked the fuel pump under the rear seats, I am getting 11.97v to the plug, and it is showing 1.3 ohms across pins 1 and 4. I tested this as the sender for the gauge and the pump is obviously in one unit in the tank so I assumed the pump was giving up the ghost as it seemed like the car is being starved of fuel, and takes a few cranks to fill the lines again to the cylinders, but after checking the numbers at the pump it seems to be fine? Has anyone else had similar issues and have they managed to find out the issue? Many thanks Lloyd

only now seeing this. Here is a pic of the cooler fitted. I've only just finished rebuilding the head as the gasket went and i decided to change all of the bolts and seals for the injectors, valves, PD150 bolts etc etc, so took me a bit of time (and money :'( ) but never-the-less here it is....with me in my engine bay

to the OP if it helps at all, i just rebuilt the top end of my VRS due to head gasket failure, and I had to drive around the past few months in my stage 1 Astra VXR, and to be totally honest, I couldn't wait to get back in the Fabia. These turbo'd petrols are rapid in 1st, 2nd and 3rd, but after that it dies out compared to the torque of the diesel, the Fabia is smooth in all gears and once ur in third i'm sure it could pull a 747 uphill at a comfortable 70. The Fab pulls on the astra in 5th and 6th gear like as if the astra has run out of petrol. As someone has posted already, these similarity between the diesel and petrols are they have 4 wheels and a steering wheel, the power comes in totally differently. And may I add im not saying that you dont know how to get the best out of ur car, as you must know ur way around a track to go to the extent of modifying that 106, so with that being said, those torque figures do drop off rapidly, so may be worth having a think about putting a bit of money into the fab and getting it to a similar stage as the 106, you can do a huge amount for the steering and handling with some strut braces and suspension mods out there, etc etc. My fab has a stage 1, FMIC, all pd150 bolts and bits that have gone into the head since rebuilding and it suprises a LOT of cars that should be much much faster, specially 30 - 70+ (not that you can do over 70 on our public roads aye aye ) Plus the way people are getting rid of these cars, there will only be 4 or 5 left on the road soon haha, maybe an investment ????

Thanks all, sorted this the other day. Just to get back to you all to say thanks again. All the comments and guides helped, it was just me worried that it doing damage turning it while the spring was compressed but doing it again made me see exactly what the guides were explaining. For anyone doing this in the future, its best to use an actual 'L' shape allen key as using a 3/8" allen socket on a extension wont give you enough grip to be able to turn the adjuster screw down, which is the problem I was having which made me think it was too tight in the first place. But using a L shaped allen key , you could feel a definite stop when it was at its lowest point. Also made backing it off 180 degrees easier to visualise too! So thanks again all! Lloyd

Nice one. I didn't screw it down any further than it was already screwed down tbh. The car was running fine a few months ago until the head gasket went. I was really afraid to back it out and then try again as I was confused by the fact that the spring would follow the grub screw back up all the way, but I will do it again over the next few days. Cheers all . P.S What actually breaks in the injector if you force the adjuster screw down too far?

the locking nut that is

I get what u mean. The weird thing is I undid the allen bolt adjuster and tried to tighten it back up and it was still tight, so maybe it has been screwed it WAYYYY to far. I will crack if off tomorrow wind it right out and then wind it in, im sure i'll feel that definite stop ! Cheers for taking the time to explain. And thanks mogwye for the links

The alan key will always bind as it is pushing against a spring that is trying to put it back up. The only time it wont bind is when the adjustment screw is screwed above the bottom of the rocker arm. This is what I don understand

Hi all, Ive recently replaced the head and gasket, and I'm just finishing off the last few bits. I replaced the seals on injectors and replaced them with new bolts as recommended, and I wanted to go out today and set the lash correctly on the newly installed injectors. I was reading this forum post But after trying this out I am completely confused. When the injector is fully pressed (i.e the spring is squashed down as far as possible) when you crack the locking nut off and attempt to screw the adjust screw down, it constantly feels hard to screw by hand. And as a poster has recommended, unscrew it and then screw back in until you hit resistance, but of course, when you unscrew the little grub screw, the spring will of course continue to raise until it hits the underside of the rocker itself, and when you try to screw it back down, you are fighting against the spring again making it difficult to screw in by hand? It would make more sense to adjust the grub screw when the injector is at its highest point, that way, the spring is at its highest point already, therefore when you screw in the adjuster grub screw, you can go down until you hit resistance, then back out 180 and lock it back in place. Can anyone shed some more light on this for me please as I find it very strange that anyone would be able to screw IN the adjuster screw when the injector is fully depressed. Cheers all.

Hi all, Looking for a bit of advice please! I had my new head gasket the other day, its a 3 hole gasket as the old one was 3 so replacing like for like. My concern is, the little tab with the 3 holes stamped into it, when i removed the old one, the tab was furthest over to the right of the head (while looking at the engine from outside). Ive noticed however on a few pics i've seen of other skoda's that the tab is on the LEFT side of the head, just behind the vaccum ball..... There is nothing to say which way is up on the new gasket and I was going to put it on the same way it came off, but wanted to double check with others who may have noticed the same when changing their gaskets. Thanks all.

Im confused because after posting this same question on the Fabia facebook page, and emailing darkside directly to see if they will be willing to share the torque pdf with me, every answer I have got is 2 x 90 degree turns. So if darkside are selling the bolts with the instruction to turn them 2 x90 degree turns, and as you said the bolts are high tensile, and dont have as much elasticity as a normal pd130 bolt, why are they still saying that it needs 2 x 90 degree turns?

Another torque settings question for the PD150 headbolts. I'm in the process of putting a new headgasket on the VRS (fabia pd130 asz engine) and i've got my hands on some PD150 head bolts but they dont come with any torque guides. I know the ones bought from darkside come with a PDF, would anyone be willing to share the pdf with me. I would be eternily grateful. I do have a diesel guide book for most torque settings of most bolts on the car, but I am a bit confused as it shows the PD130 torque settings are 40nm, 60nm, 90 degrees, 90 degrees, but the PD150 is 40nm, 60nm, and only 1 x 90 degree turn. I'm assuming that as I am using the PD150 bolts I should stick to the 1 turn as the book suggest, but looking for any help with this to be extra safe. Thanks all

Can you feel it through the brake pedal too? I just put a clio on the road while im repairing the head gasket on the fabia and I had changed the clutch in the clio before I put it on the road. In the process of taking the lower ball joint off as that needed to be replaced too I hit the ABS sensor ring and it split - it didnt split in half but between 2 teeth there was a crack all the way through. I left it as it was anyway as the car is going to be driven in to the ground whenever I need it, but now that Im using it on the road it is making the same noise as you are explaining above, grinding only under low speed. It did it for a few miles and then the car obviously picked up the fault that the ABS was kicking in every time I was hitting the brakes so it put the light on the dash and turned itself off. You could feel the pulsing through the brake pedal mind can you also feel this? Can you take the wheel off and check that the abs ring is intact. any lights on the dash?

Scratch that above post. It has come back with a vengeance. Ran it all day today with no problems. Went to go out in it tonight from a cold start and crank but no start......car is doing my head in so much right now that I'm thinking its going off the road tomorrow and going to be put into bits and sold.

Just to close this thread if anyone else is looking. I changed the fuel temp sensor today and it is working as normal. No abnormal smoke out of the back when cold so this was obviously the problem. Real weird how it went so sudden after a radiator change but these things are sent to try us! Thanks to all who commented and Sepulchrave who advised this first and Jars for the Link!

Thanks both. I replaced the coolant temp sensor today but still no firing just a lot of cranking. Ive located the fuel temp sensor and I have priced a new sensor at around £10 from GSF car parts. Has anyone else had these symptoms that were corrected by replacing the fuel temp sensor?

Where would I locate the fuel temp sensor mate?

Hi all. Ive been searching for an answer to my problem for the last week or so. Recently I had a major coolant leak while driving the other half over to the train station. Turned out that the radiator was cracked and was P&*sing out the back by the small rad fan. Anyways, drained the system and replaced the rad ran the car up to temp and it worked fine. Took it for a drive checked temps, checked for leaks and all good. The following day, i went to start the car and it cranked but did not fire. It almost fired, like as if it was starved of fuel but never actually fired. No EML no other signs. Plugged the computer in and it showed no codes. While the car was plugged in, we were trying to grab the crank speed while cranking the car and hey presto it fired like it normally does. Left it running for a while, took it for a spin, came back turned off cranked it back up and it fired as normal. I put it down to some crud in the fuel and left it at that. Tried it again this morning and it was fine. Took it for a spin this afternoon ran it up to temp, all good. Came back home, left it completely cool down so the temp gauge on the dials registered 0 tried to start and again, cranking but no firing. So ive kinda worked out that for some reason, the car will start fine from cold, it will also start fine when up to operating temperature, but as soon as you leave it cool from op temp down to 0 it will not fire again until the engine is stone cold i.e the next day. I unplugged the coolant temp sensor and it did actually fire but i'm really stunted now because it could have been pure luck that it started as it again struggled but did fire. Any help on this would be much appreciated.

thanks both, I will give them a try then :)!

Hi all, I recently snapped the bleed nipple off in my front VRS caliper. I replaced it with a seat ibiza FR caliper for the time being while I put my old caliper onto a vice to get the old seized nipple out. Anyways, I have got the old nipple out, re-tapped the thread and managed to fit a brand new nipple in which seals it perfectly, However while it was off the car I wanted to give it a refurb, making sure all the metal filings were out of the caliper. I removed the piston and all seals, but the piston was quite rusty around where the inner seal sits. I have browsed ebay for a new piston and seal set but it looks like they are only sold seperately and I cant seem to find any information on the size of the actual Piston, some say 54mm diameter with 54mm height, others say its a little bit taller. So can someone put me in the right direction and let me know where I can get the correct piston from. I've already been in touch with TPS who supply just the seals for 15 quid, so really its just the piston I am looking for info on. Thanks all!

Just a note to anyone interested. I mAnaged to source a seat Ibiza FR caliper for the time being. Have fitted it and it works perfectly. I've since stripped my old caliper and I'm hoping to get it drilled and tapped so that it will take a new bleed nipple. Does anyone know what size hole to drill to fit the tap to allow the new nipple to be fitted? Cheers all

I was thinking maybe worth getting the piston out and rebuilding. I have drilled out the rest of the nipple but there is still some residue left in there which is why I didn't want to reuse it. Do you mean that the caliper is the same on most mk4 golfs and the seat Ibiza for example just not green?

Hi all. Went to bleed the brakes this afternoon and snapped the bleed nipple clean off. It left enough for me to grip on to but after an hour of trying to twist it out it was not going anywhere. I drilled most of the metal out but I am a bit concerned about the metal filings now filling up the caliper. Does anyone have a caliper for sale in the South Wales area? It's a 2004 Fabia vrs ASZ Cheers all!

Thanks mate. Yeh they said they only sell the whole unit not just the little seal. I will get some black sealer this week and give it a try thanks again