DieselMonte

I'm after doing wishbones last weekend so I might be of help here. For your first question: You dont need to undo the nut to the driveshaft to get at the ball joint nut, I used a spanner to get at it and while it did need some persuasion to crack the nut loose, and it was a little annoying sitting there getting the nut off a little bit at a time I did get it out just fine. Fabias have the balljoint bolted to the wishbone so you can just undo the 3 nuts on the balljoint and leave it in place if you dont need to touch it. I had to give both balljoints a lot of hits with a hammer to get them out, in hindsight I would've bought a ball joint separator and have them off in 2 minutes. For your second question: Neither front bolts on my car contacted the engine, the impact gun I was using did touch ever so slightly on the sump but I could still get it on the bolt to remove it no problems. Word of advice though, douse them in wd40 a few days before you do it. If I didnt have an impact gun I doubt I would have gotten them off. I wouldn't be surprised if the bushes and ball joints were the original on mine. The ball joints had a few miles left in them but since I had all out I felt it best to just do them too. Edit: I didnt buy new wishbones, I bought urethane bushings to go in place of the originals and just replaced the old bushes, I think it was only £40 for the front and rear bushes. The rear one seems to be the one that takes the most abuse, its also pretty easy to do with a vice. Front bush is a massive PITA to remove without a press. If the console bushes are the reason you are changing them out I can highly recommend the psbushing ones, made a massive difference to my car.

After getting it aligned, wheels straight again and toe is back to normal. Ended up only costing 20 euro cause I was in a few weeks ago after doing the tie rods. I did not get a print out this time but that doesnt really matter now.

Mines a 5 speed too. Afaik all manual mk2 fabias are 5 speed. Amd87's car is a 6 speed now cause he changed it out.

Hmm, high draw could be a culprit. If the stamp on the battery is to be believed then it could well be original. If its starting to get worn out that would explain it. Saying that its started in below freezing weather over the winter and hasnt missed a beat otherwise so who knows. I do usually get it out on some backroads its just that i've been gentle with it so as to not chew up my tyres. For a diesel it does like to he revved out, insane to me how it can get past 80mph in 3rd gear!

Alignment should be getting sorted tomorrow afternoon. Looked over everything this evening and checked all the bolts. I put some pics of it before and after the mods. Standing next to it I can see a lot of toe out and a little more camber. Angles of the 2 photos arent identical so its not perfect, but should be enough to see some difference. Definately feels much more confident driving around. Once the tracking is sorted I should be able to get a good feel for it. Only trouble is that since i've only been pottering around town in it the cars started doing its high idle "thing" again, must be something DPF related. A good hard drive should sort it out.

I have a little experience with a sandero and a duster. Both pretty nice cars. The metal felt a little light compared to the heavy thunk I get closing the doors on my fabia.

Huh, i'm just saying what I was told. Not had a problem since so he must have put something right.

My car had this problem, when it was off at the mechanics being sorted for the NCT I mentioned it and he figured out that the brake fluid had gotten low enough to let a little bit of air into the clutch line and cause it to stick. He bled the system and no more problems. Weirdly it only happened when my mother drove it, never when anyone else including me was driving. Seatbelts get very stiff when she's in it too...

All done and put back together this evening. I ended up painting the wishbones silver to try freshen them up and keep rust away. Bushings went in ok, I attached a pic of the "rig" for getting the front wishbone bush out, after drilling out most of the rubber the rest pushes out easy enough. I was wrong earlier about hopefully not needing an alignment. With the wheels straight theres a visible amount of toe out on each side, It pulls to the left a bit also, i'll get the alignment done early in the week. I was able to drive it a bit after getting it done and it definately felt tighter, no clunking and the steering feels a little heavier too, more responsive. I am a little annoyed at needing the alignment done again, but at least that means I can have some data to compare before and after. I can't think of anything else to include now, will post up the alignment sheet when its done. Fingers crossed I havent made a mess of it and need to do it all again...

Got the wishbones out last night, pain in the hole, The two wishbone bolts where stuck fast on both sides. I was very lucky I got a impact gun last week, even it struggled to get them loose. Console bushes themselves practically fell out of the arms, they werent even sitting properly in the arms. Front bush was a little more difficult, I ended up drilling the rubber out and making a press to get it out. I'll need to sand the holes smooth, probably will give the whole arm a bit of paint. Hard part seems to be done. Should get the car back on its wheels this evening and get some shakedown runs in. Car ran pretty good before this, considering how worn the old bushes were, this should really tighten up the handling.

Yes, but I think you can put your insurance on a northern car but you wont be insured to drive it in the north, if you insure it with a southern insurer and address. A lot of people around here have family in the north and just use that address.

PS Bushings console bush and front wishbone arrived today, they look to be good quality. Ordered TTRS balljoints and they arrived earlier in the week. All's there now so hopefully I should be able to put them in this evening, only worry for me is getting the front wishbone out as I don't have a press but i'll figure it out. Hopefully I won't need another alignment, I think i'll be ok.

Love a Cayenne Metallic Orange car, best colour offered in my (biased) opinion.

Hopefully. Most parts I've needed to buy for my cars have been pretty cheap, its just everything else thats expensive. When I got my Monte Carlo the nox charge was only implemented the month before, needless to say that was a shock! I still have got a very nice example in the end and since its been cheap enough to run, I've been able to keep a few euro aside for my mk1. Even still, if we use my monte carlo as an example, the price of all cars seem to have gone way up since last year. Most of the ones for sale here have a lot of curb rash and mines not got any. Generally speaking, NI cars are better kept, not run on as tight of a budget as ones in the south would be and are much cheaper to purchase anyway. Since I live near the border a lot of people get away with driving Northern cars anyways. It seems that Customs dont care unless someone rings them up and complains.

So far as I remember the tax was only for displacement so a 2l diesel and 2l petrol pre 2008 would be the same yearly road tax. My 1.9 sdi and VanhireBoys 1.9tdi would be the same tax even though ones twice as powerful as the other. Diesel itself is usually 10c per litre cheaper here though, atm its hovering around 1.35 here for diesel and 1.45 for regular petrol. My monte carlo is only 180 euro a year tax as its 2012 and is taxed on c02, but it was Very expensive cause of the nox charge when I imported it. Its only in the last year they have tried to be 'eco-friendly' but its just had the effect of inflating the price of cars in the south even more, Irish goverment has a knack of just pricing people out of stuff they dont deem ok. But the infrastructure for electric cars outside of big towns is non existant and electric cars arent cheap enough here to make anyone consider getting one. Even though we pay a lot for road tax and registration tax (only applies to importing a car mind) and fuel and insurance, our roads are shockingly bad and they never seem to bother salting them when they actually need salting. They are a potholed, uneven mess with silly speed limits, on a 50 mph road everyones doing 70mph (safely) and the odd person will do 30mph and slow everyone down because you can't easily pass on these roads. Sort of long rant and sorry for hijacking the thread but its a pretty rotten state of things and no doubt they'll only be getting worse from here on out.

In Ireland for a 1.9litre engine pre 2008, yes. A 1.6l pre 2008 is 514 euro iirc. The high tax is what made older cars very cheap to buy, covid seems to have done away it though. Insurance is also a robbery especially if you dont want a blackbox. Newer cars are expensive but you used to get away with importing cars from NI or the UK and paying a registration tax (which in and of itself is illegal under EU law but Ireland makes enough money from it to pay the fines off and still make money) But last year they added a stupid Nox charge and priced them out of reach aswell. My Monte carlo was 4000 euro itself and ended up costing 6500 ish to 7000 euro registered in Ireland not including insurance. Still a better car than any of them for sale in Ireland but you cant help but feel cheated by the whole thing.

How much for your 'lightly used' 5 speed diff? Asking for a friend....

Were you able to reuse the lsd from your old Gearbox and put it into this one? How hard was the 6 speed conversion?

If its the same as the mk1 then its pretty easy, hard part was getting the gauges out without cracking them, I ended up putting a tiny crack in the corner of the cluster but its not really noticeable.

I have Accelera PHI-R tyres on my Monte Carlo. 65 euro a corner and are very good quality. I've driven with them on Ice covered roads, waterlogged roads and Bone dry hot roads with them and I think these are going to be my go to tyre. I cant express how good these are especially considering the cost.

He's talking about pushing a button and having the boot go up on its own. One would hope that he knew about the trunk button already.

The vrs bits were 25 Euro when I got them. If you want it to be 100percent oem looking you need to screw it to the airbox and to the plastic deflector cause it sits just a little bit odd otherwise.

People put springs onto the gas struts to get that effect. 32KOFDATA's mk2 has that done to it.

Its a wonder your car is in kms, I take it the speedometer is only metric aswell? My mk1 is a full southern car and it reads in miles, it is a 2001 though.

The wear in that pic is the exact same as my mk1 had, its the d bushes on the arb. Mine were fubar and would allow the arb to freely move side to side. In the fields it would give a big "clang" when I would transition from right to left and it was cause the bushes were barely touching the arb at all. I 'Fixed' mine by removing the d bush and cutting a bit of rubber mat to jam in to them, to tighten them up. It works, but the d bushes are a few euro a side so dont be like me and do it right from the start.