WelshSkoda93

I got bored of all this maintenance work so I went shopping...

Next came the service. New plugs, fuel filter, oil, oil filter, cabin air filter, coolant and Ps fluid. Looking at this stuff, the car has not been maintained properly for years: The sump plug has of course been tightened with an impact and not to 15nm so i changed the oil but knew I'll have to do it again soon as 1. it was leaking out through the shredded thread of the sump bolt and 2. I was going to do it anyway as a form of a flush.... New sump and gasket. I decided to use a gasket as i would be doing this on a friends lift and didn't have to wait for it to cure: Old sump out. Lots of bits of the old dipstick tube..: Intake tube also full of junk including a full length rubber band.. This was removed, cleaned and put back on the car: New shiny sump back on. It was a bit of a pain to install the 3 bolts going through the gearbox bell housing due to the thickness of the gasket, but with some persuasion it all went in: It survived a 100 mile trip back home with no leaks, all good.

The battle rages on.. I wasn't confident in the 'flattened' seal of the cabin air filter tray, i so removed it again and used suitably sized bitumen tape to re-seal it: A few days later a large box from Auto doc arrived. It contains a whole timing belt kit from INA, as well as cam cover gasket service items. I wasted no time and started with the top. Cam cover off, all cleaned, replaced the chain tensioner sliders, removed the gauze filter and re-assembled it using new gaskets of course: The long life oil service intervals really aren't doing this engine any good...: Cam cover was leaking quite bad causing misfires: Next it was time for the timing belt itself. I knew I'd have to drain all the coolant out of the engine, so i bought a set of metal coolant pipes: They were quite cheap and needed cleaning up with a dremel and a burr bit. I also lapped the coolant flange to make sure it really sealed well: I then fitted all the pipes, they went in without any trouble: Next was the timing belt, I followed instructions from Elsa step by step. The hardest bit for me by far was removing the engine mount. It was an absolute pain of a job. The timing belt itself was dated 2009, and the hydraulic tensioner was held on with just one finger tight bolt... New belt, tensioner, guide pulley and water pump in: I also replaced the lower crank seal, a 35mm socket was perfect to hammer it in: I also used new shiny new bolts on the bottom pulley: As you can see above the control arms have seen a better day and will need doing too, for now they are ok - they don't knock or have any play. Aux belt tensioner was replaced too: I also checked the wear on alternator regulator brushes and given that the car has covered 109k id say they are 50% gone. Keep in mind this car has an automatic gearbox and heated seats..: New vs old water pumps:

Few odd jobs: Got a nasty leak in front passenger footwell, narrowed it down to a missing grommet in the cabin air filter area: I found a suitable grommet, added some dirko sealant just to be sure and plugged the hole. The damage has already been done though, I'll have to strip the interior and replace the carpet and sound proofing: Next thing was a super rusty PS hose: Autodoc came to the rescue with an affordable febi part, i had to source the 4x copper washers separately though: Rear wiper wasn't spraying, I remembered back in 2018 my first octavia had the same fault and the union behind the boot liner roughly in the cd changer area has come apart. I've plugged it back in and put a self adhesive heatshrink over it so it won't happen again: Oil cap did't feel tight and was slowly leaking, so i replaced the seal on it as well: Fuel cap has also seen better days so it was replaced with a TPS part: Same for the antenna: Arm rest latch as also been fixed with a cheap ebay parts: The car came with 2 key fobs. both not working remotely. First one was an easy fix, just replacement of the battery, the second one was not. It was missing the battery terminal so i bought a 'blank' on ebay and replaced it, its still not working.. not sure what im going to do about it. Some more stuff from TPS, because autodoc is taking a while to deliver my timing belt stuff.... 2x front badges 2x air filter screws 1x fuel filler cap (seen in earlier pic) Replacing the badges was very satisfying:

At this point i felt the car was ready to scrape by on the MOT. I asked for a new set of tyres to be put on beforehand, These were the closest Firestones I could find to the release OEM tyres: The car passed with some advisories: I agree about the Macpherson bushes and rear springs. This will get done. Not so much about the 'defective exhaust mount' This bracket on the exhaust simply isn't used on the Octavia..: Corrosion on sills is also questionable, but there nonetheless: Rear spring: More to follow... I'm just getting started.

The last thing before the MOT i tackled was the radiator fan. It was seized. I ordered a new fan from Maxgear: It was an absolute nightmare to replace it as 1 out of 3 bolts holding the old one have snapped due to rust so i had to use a traditional nut and bolt instead: Got there in the end:

Another batch of fixes before the MOT: There was an intermittent code for SAI system. I read about it and just ordered a whole new set. I removed the old SAI pipework and found a split here: Other components just crumbled in my hands when I removed them. I thought about coding the SAI system out for about £150 at a local tuner, but it was around £80 to have it all fixed so i opted for that. Even though i used part numbers from ETKA the sai asembly wasn't a complete match to what's on the car, but i managed to piece together one good assembly combining used and new parts.. This is from MaxGear: This is from Topran: I also replaced all the piping going to and from the SAI pump but forgot to take pics.

The car has very little service history, some from 2009 showing it's had a service in Germany, some bits from 2015 and then the new battery in 2023, thats it. I ordered a whole new complete INA timing belt kit from autodoc for it which will take ~ 2 weeks to be delivered so in the mean time i focused on ripping out the parrot system and the factory head unit: Pretty decent rat's nest removed: Next, a new 2 din android head unit went in. Of course it has android auto and apple car play: USB ports mounted where the lighter socket used to be: I 3d printed a little adapter so I can wire in a microphone in the OEM position at the dome light: And a reverse camera. Feeding the cable through the tailgate was a bit tricky, but went ok in the end: Camera itself:

Next were the door locks. I couldn't get the rear driver side door to open. I tried sending 12v to the lock actuator through the connector behind the rubber boot but this didn't work. I managed to open the window by removing all the door card screws I could see and prying the door card off from the top i managed to remove the whole thing without any damage This allowed me to drill the door lock cog area out, releasing the door: I then removed the door loom, and inspected it and spliced in new wires where i could see damage and wear. To top it off i dressed it in corrugated conduit: And ordered a new lock for it. There's many different listings floating on ebay, i found this 'senco' brand to be the best. The microswitches in these locks have the additional metal tab and the 'switch' itself is encased in a rubber boot: Over the next few weeks, I ended up replacing the remaining 3 door locks to the same brand and tidying up the wiring in each door as well.. it was a lot of work.

I used to own an ALH back in 2018. I've amended it now.

I found some freebies on the back seat, a brake servo pipe and dipstick tube: So i wasted no time fitting both, the tube that was on the car was in really bad state. I wonder how much of it ended up in the sump... Servo pipe was also replaced. This is what the old one looked like. I reckon someone damaged it when replacing the air filter..: This is all the effort I'm going to put into this build thread for now. If there's enough people wanting to see more and commenting I'll keep going...

This is a project log for my 1,8t. Initial Hello post here: Anyway, after having the car towed back home I wasted no time and scanned it with vcds: Not much really, just some faulty door locks and errors to do with low battery. Upon lifting the bonnet i noticed that the battery was recently replaced but not seated right so the cover was not on properly so i corrected this right away: I checked the oil, and it was overfilled and quite old looking at the colour:

It's 147 bhp And "expensive" is relative to earnings. Thanks for the compliments! 🥰

I can send you a service manual pdf showing how to do it if you want?

Hello I registered years ago on these forums as i used to own a 1.9 alh in cayenne orange in poverty spec, but recently somehow i bought myself a new project car. 1.8t automatic, l&k in black and black leather. It came from a 96yo second owner who decided to give up driving when it failed the MOT for a 'servo pipe repaired in tape' 'rear driver side door not opening' and needing 2 new tyres. It spent the first year of his live travelling to and from Germany but it only has 108k on it. I will probably do a project thread on it as it became quite a big recommissioning job and I have already overspent so there's no way to sell the car now break even at least..