DieselMonte

Painted the front brakes on this car, trying to use up the rest of the VHT before the can goes bad. They came out nice for a relatively quick job. Looking at the pictures i'm thinking of using a touch up pen to fill in the FS-III indent on the brakes. You can see I tried to tint the front fogs on this car too, they came out like ****. I couldnt get the tint to sit proper no matter what I tried. I tried my Monte Carlos 17" wheels on this for kicks. I think they look seriously good. Lastly, the brake warning light was on and I thought it was just the handbrake switch going bad. Turns out the rear drivers side drum is leaking fluid. Looks like the rear brake cylinder has gone bad. As if that wasnt bad enough I cant for the life of me undo the screw on either rear drum, The drill just skips around when I tried to drill it out so no luck there either.

Tried the vRS spyders from my mk1 on this. I think they look good but they could do with some more tyre. Ticked over 95,000 miles this evening too.

Oem raised suspension? Wonder If I could find a set of those for my mk1.

The wheels need refurbed no matter what car they're going on so I think a colour close to the monte carlo wheels on these will look good. These currently have a 195/45 r16 tyre on so if they had a 205/45 r16 put on them it would be almost perfect and I wouldnt need to fiddle with the speedo.

Ehh, maybe putting a bit more tyre would improve things a bit. More tyre is a welcome thing for the roads I'm driving on. I remember being told 'in England they drive on the left of the road, in Ireland we drive on whats left of the road'. Our roads are a joke.

I put on some 16" vRS wheels onto my monte carlo to try them, thought I should put them up here in case you were thinking of changing wheels still. I like them on this car but I'll probably paint them if I plan on running them proper.

Thank you again Wino.

Interesting, Mines a August 2012 registration so probably too new to be able change them over.

D3006494 is the last 8 digits of mine. Its a Facelift so it must be different. Good job I asked first then.

Hello again everyone. I plan on getting new bushes and ball joints for my 2012 Monte Carlo. I'm wondering if the mk1 fabias wishbones are the same as the mk2 as I know much of the common weakpoints are shared between them (i.e console bushes). I only ask as If they are the same part I could use my mk1s wishbones, clean them up and do all the bushes on them, then put those into my mk2 and put the mk2s back onto my mk1 to keep it rolling. I'm hoping that they are the same piece because it would leave it a case of just swapping in the refreshed wishbone, instead of having my Monte Carlo out of commission for a day or two getting it done. Also, I saw some console bushes made by PSB, are they a decent make of bush or should I just get the cupra ones instead? Thanks again.

My cars speedo is in mph but the digital display is in kmh. Most older irish spec cars read both kilometres and miles on the speedo, my mk1 fabia is like that.

For a car thats gotta be north of 100k miles making 3 times the power it was ever meant to on a stock gearbox (sans diff) i'd say it did well. I would've thought 5th would've gone first though. I'll miss the updates if you do decide to part ways with it.

I'll check next day I'm out, thank you. I cant imagine the alternators being different in anycase.

Noted.

My mk1 has a flashing glow plug light stemming from removing the brake light switch fuse so I could left foot brake. Brake lights still work but I can left foot brake, only after the cars been run for 10 minutes or so, for some reason.

The more you know lol.

At this point I could take the front of my car off blindfolded. Might make it easier to do. Looks like a PIG to do otherwise. I noticed when I crashed it that the alternator pulley hit the frame rail and left a dent. That cant be good for the its lifespan.

Silica packets stuffed down the windscreen vents work well too.

Theres your problem lol. How much is an alternator for one of these? I'll probably need to keep an eye out for one if I plan getting my car roadworthy.

I dont know what cranked over means but yeah. I was lucky I was in town so I limped it back home. Just. I imagine some of the more rural parts of the UK would be as bad as me. My car is in decent nick but the roads around me are killing the standard bushes in my car. New drop links not too long ago and now something else is starting to clunk in the front.

What I mean to say is, your tps is more than likely bad. But your battery and or alternator is probably on its way out too.

Most likely the TPS as in your video you have the gauges moving. However, your mentioning of the power steering light coming on (you lost power steering I presume) and not being able to restart it might indicate a battery and/or alternator issue. The exact same happened to my car with a dodgy battery, power steering goes first (I presume to save energy?) then gauges, then throttle. A 1.9 sdi is a heavy thing to try to start, you need to have a good battery to get it to turn over at all.

I'm in the same boat as you. I actually bust a front tyre a while back just from a pothole in a bad spot, I had to get 2 new tyres to match on the front. I bought a set of 16" Mk1 vRS alloys for my mk1 but I'm toying with the idea of cleaning them up, putting 2 new tyres on and running them on my monte carlo. The roads around me are lethal even at the speed limit. I'll include a pic of one of the vrs wheels put up against my car. I might test fit them next day i'm out.

I had my handbrake checked and set for my cars NCT and not 4 months later would it not hold on a hill. I live in a very hilly area so it goes out of spec very fast. Atleast the cables were near enough even so it wasnt much work for me to tighten them up. I set it to the 4 clicks you're meant to and its come up one or 2 since then. On an unrelated note the handbrake on my car is ****e for handbrake turns, so I havent done any since.

Lidl had those battery testers in the other week. I got one, they're a good job for checking batteries and alternators, only cost a few pound too. Maybe the new battery was dodgy? Touch wood its ok for you now.