DieselMonte

Is he doing the console bushes at the same time? I know it didnt fail on them but when its off getting all sorted you'd be as well to do all at the one time.

AFAIK All fabias have adjustable steering wheels rake and reach.

I did a bit of digging on here, from this thread: A Mk1 Fabia Hatch has a boot capacity of 260 Litres. A Mk1 Fabia Estate has a boot capacity of 426 Litres.

Its a 12point bit to get the bolts for the seat out. I unbolted my seat and lifted it up so I could access the bottom of it to screw in the underseat storage.

I just snagged the one from the mk1 lol It must have had one on the drivers side too, because there was nothing there not even a blank when I got it. Do you have the right spline bit to get the seat out?

Its worth doing, I retrofitted one into my monte and Its great for stashing stuff in. No one knows its there either which is a plus.

Bodged the pump this evening, washed it first to try clean off some of the power steering fluid from underneath, and it was filthy anyways even though I washed it sunday. Much better Pump simply fell off again, hoped I managed to tighten the clip enough before. Guess not. Got it back up into place easy enough atleast, used a bottle jack like so. Held it up like that and wrapped a lot of cable ties around it to try and brace it, keep it in place for a bit longer. "Finished" product. Obviously degreased all before I put the arch back on. Atleast the pumps ok and it does hold fluid so it should just need someone to properly tighten the clamp. Chasing a few potential leads for a disc axle. Early days but heres hoping.

Didn't get taking it on a trip, **** happens. Was getting poor mpg, then noticed one of my drums had changed colour. So I jacked it up and had a look. Funny it picks the whole back up when its being lifted. Second jack supporting the other side now, no weight over the back axle so 2 jacks are fine to hold it. Only a month since I had these apart so no trouble getting the drums off. Cleaned them up and scuffed the drums and shoes a bit. Really pushed to get a disc axle as 8 don't want to mess about with replacing the drum assembly on this and I don't want to deal with anymore silly issues from these. Still not ideal. Brakes are working better and it feels a bit bettet to drive. Obviously fuel economy should be noticeably improved too. Before I even got out to do this I felt a clunk going over a speedbump Power steering pumps fallen off again, but its due for a service within the next week so I intend on having the pump and the downpipe sorted then. Might need to bodge it again before then though. Won't be a cheap visit to the mechanics I suspect. After that next thing has to be a disc axle, sick of messing about with drums at this point.

Has sat for a long long time, at a guess last august was the last time it ran. Old battery finally kicked the bucket so I got a used not great one for it. Cables wouldn't reach the battery, hence... No mould in the interior, happily. Got it running too, with the battery in place properly. Found more trouble though, namely the coolant has turned to jelly.Barely any fuel in it so didn't chance driving it.

Here they're not really a "chavs" car, golfs,leons and the likes take over for the felt spec crowd. Don't really see many vRS' around me though. Lot of people just see them as old skodas not really chavvy spec cars, atleast from what i've seen.

Plenty being broken now, Never see any rough but running ones come up anymore they all just get broken for parts. No intentions of getting rid of either of my fabias even with the big push to go EV. I still maintain a used diesels better for the environment than a new electric car. Very much off topic but wanted to say it.

How did you get your hands on one?

Well its been a while but I have it moving under its own power again, used an eezibleed to bleed the brakes, still took a while to do. Massive amount of air came out of the front brake. Old fluid didn't look terrible even though its atleast 5 years old now. Had to bleed the coolant too as I changed the coolant temp sensor and disconnected the coolant bottle to make it easy to fit one of the tigersealed engine mounts. Got it out and running, brakes work good but, for some reason the hand brake is seized solid. I also tried to adjust the shifter linkages and its made the engagement for first and reverse pretty poor, first and reverse now share the same position which is interesting. Otherwise, its driving really well, new drop links and arb bushes have tightened up the front and its no longer rubbing on full lock. No knocks or rattles from the suspension, even though I know full well the console bushes are past it. Had it "driving" in place on jack stands when I was trying to bleed the coolant, and while I knew the drivers side wheel bearing was bad, when the wheels were spinning the drivers side was wobbling around like it was barely on. Fine for running around the farm yard but not ideal for an NCT. Forgot how nice these seats are. Still a lot I want to do to it but its getting there, albeit slowly. Think its 5 years now since I got it, and its still not roadworthy.

Well its not ideal but this might give some idea of what I was trying to say. Both cars were on standard suspension on both of these photos. The mk1 sat high in the back as at that time it was stripped bare inside. Mind you montes are lower than standard mk2s, and its still taller than the mk1 on normal suspension. This time both of them are side by side, same suspension as before. Mk2 still sits taller. I personally like slightly different fonts on plates, plates on my car are a thicker font than standard, but they're clearly legible and displayed properly. Shoving the front one on the windscreen like that, with a car looking like that is just begging to be hassled.

Mk1 looks great, Standard Mk2s look meh but I think montes make the best of the mk2s shape. Mainly with the mk2 the problem is the very high roof line compared to a lot of other cars, including the mk1 and the mk3. The black roof on montes (and vRS') sort of hides how tall it ism My cars on coilovers and I parked up next to a bog standard Mk3 fabia, my roofline was higher than it, but if you looked at the wheel arches, the belt line on the doors and even the mirrors mine were much lower. Its such a weird thing to try describe and not have photos or something to help.

Have you blacked out the indicators on the front?

My shocks weren't leaking and they were goosed when I changed them. Big giveaway for me that I needed to change them was that I was bottoming out constantly. Granted mines a diesel and it had 104k miles, all that weight is not easy on the front shocks. The rears were almost as bad though.

Ball joints and Track rod ends are cheap and relatively easy to do so a dealer would have it done in no time. When I did mine I think the ball joints could have been 30 a side and the Track rod ends 20 ish. I've replaced the whole exhaust on mine, midpipe and backbox was 80 euro shipped off fleabay. My downpipe is a used darkside one I got with a "sporty" backbox for 140 for the 2 of them. New downpipe would be expensive as it has the cat and the dpf on it, hence why I jumped at the darkside one when it was up.

Removing the battery for a while would force the car to relearn itself no? Just take off the negative terminal off the battery, go in for a cup of tea and put it back on when you're done. Heard of people "resetting" cars by taking both terminals off and touching them together, then leaving it for a bit. Don't think it would matter much either way. We've 2 petrol hyundais sitting out in the shed, had them about 4 years. I take them out for runs sometimes, give them a wash etc but otherwise they just sit. In that 4 years theres never been any issue with water in the fuel. Not new cars either one is 2003 and the others a 2004. Unless you got some seriously bunk petrol I think that won't be your problem.

I'll be in your neck of the woods for a few hours come thursday, I can come to you

Got it as ready as it will ever be now Had to change the foglight bulbs back to normal ones as one of the yellow bulbs blew out and I can't get a yellow one in time. Also changed the aerial (temporarily) to a longer "whip" aerial I've borrowed from the Matrix. Vs: No real reason, just wanted to. Then I did a bit of a bodge by getting a 2 socket adapter for the cigarette lighter in the dash. So I can power the dashcam and charge my phone in its mount. Finished product: Then I put in one of the winter wheels to use as a spare, filled the box with tools and other bits too. Lastly I did another bodge by wrapping the downpipe with some exhaust wrap I had laying about. Amazingly it has muffled most if not all of the noise from the crack on the downpipe. Not ideal and I'm not exactly proud of it but it'll do for now. All thats left now is to wash it and pack some luggage.

Its to do with how far the smoke goes out of the tail pipe I think. So if theres a big ream of smoke going more than 2.5m from the tailpipe its a fail. Stupid metric but they can't test diesels for emissions so they just use smoke instead. A straight piped car would pass on smoke easily unless it has a smoke map or what have you. Not sure if they can fail for a catalyst being missing if it still passes on smoke.

Got 2 tyres, went up north and got them for £50 each fitted. Obviously at that price they're not anything special, but I didn't want to go on this road trip on the winters. Lately they've felt very poor and on the motorway they made the car feel awfully nervous for lack of a better word, so they wouldn't do. So I took the worst 2 tyres and got new tyres fitted, they are "RoadMarch Prime UHP 08" tyres. Tread looks identical to the tread on the Grenlanders that have gone to the back axle of the car. Still, they're B rated for wet weather so they can't be "too" bad. As we know these cars have a 205/40 R17 tyre as standard. When I showed the tyre man the wheels the first thing he said was that they were undersized. He thought someone had put 205/40s on and I had to open the fuel door to show that those are the original fitment for this car. Now as I found out a while ago on this forum the sister cars in the ibiza and the polo got 215/40 tyres as standard, which is incidentally what the tyre man thought should be standard on a fabia too, being the same car and all underneath. I intended on keeping them 205/40 but he didnt stock that size at all, furthermore he only had the one type of tyre in 215/40 which is what I got. Those have gone to the front. Its very hard to picture but looking at the 205/40s (top) and the 215/40s (bottom) in person you can see just how much better the 215s fit on these rims. On the car you wouldn't notice the difference front and back. I'll still have to get matching tyres eventually but somehow I don't think it will make the car fall apart in the meantime. Put a few hundred miles on them so they're properly scrubbed in before I go off on this trip. I really can't complain for the cost of them, rides well, plenty of grip and its not pulling to the left as much as the old tyres used to make it who knows why. Have a few things to do still before I go, small silly stuff really. But in all i'll have over 1000 miles of driving in the space of a few days so I want it as good as possible before I go.

https://www.pesch.cz/cs/kategorie/skoda Relatively cheap considering, of course shipping is another matter.