DieselMonte

Was running e5 until I ran that through, e10 since April as that's the only petrol available locally. As I say I'll take it further afield and fill it with premium and see what happens.

Few pics of this turned up. Also found the government's e10 checklist says any subaru after Jan 31st 1991 is good for it. Then found another which states the same, except all vivios and justys before April 1994. Nice. Closest station to me is a fair drive but looks like I've no other options as all fuel stations near me use e10.

Still not been up your way to meet you. Did you do skodafest? Must do it next year if it's on. More photos from the weekend Good meet (impreza is a complete stranger, very cool car though) Noticed a guy next to a red celica taking photos as we went down, must try hunt down them photos. Halfways hiding regs, don't care about mine but don't know if anyone else does so. Fitted the spare lamp. Cars beaten and smokes even more when it's cold now. Definitely deserves a some downtime for repairs. If it gets it though, I doubt it.

Pics of the damage. Intercoolers bust through the splitter, not sitting right on the bar either but it's not bust. Happily the new genuine undertray seems to have held up, impressed. See the exhaust has flattened at the bottom, again, cosmetic and not a big deal. Pretty impressed it stuck so much abuse especially with my apparent skill issue. Made it back to the ferry safe And home from there Just over 1000 miles on the trip meter. Definitely wants a good going over now. And it turns out I have a spare foglight to throw in for now too. Gonna respray the lip soon, it needed doing anyway so not a big deal. 145k on it now and somehow still going. I'll upload any more pics I get of mine here If the ferry was any cheaper I'd be over every weekend.

So, Invading England: Around the penines again. Roads rough as ever. Intercooler and sprayer helped massively with heat soak. It ran a LOT better this year. The K brace and the caster increase bushes helped a lot, as did the new brakes, they were needed. Did an awful lot of brisk driving, got caught in standstill traffic in Penrith and the car starting ticking really bad. Figure it was running very hot. Thankfully as soon as I got out of gridlock the ticking went away and hasn't come back. Some beautiful views. Did hartside pass quite a few times, busy spot. Saw an RS3 on its roof near the end just before Alston. Thing behaved very well for what it is. On the last big drive last night I sent it a bit hard and did some damage. Hit a very rough cattle grid at a brisk pace and made ****e of the backbox, bottomed out hard. Thankfully it just slipped off the hangar but it was only when it was sparking off the road that I noticed. Oops. Then pulled into a lay by with a big ass hole and destroyed the splitter and broke the tab on the drivers foglamp. Minor damage and not a big deal to me since the fogs were rough and the splitter was needing paint anyway.

Just back from my big trip. Just over 1000 miles done in 5 days. Gonna start with stuff that I did before going away. So I wanted to hook up a cb that was lying about for this trip. Wired up temporarily with a fuse tap and mounted into the cubby beside the headlight switch. Used a mag mount and strapped it to the roof. Then set about giving the car a full detail before setting off. So wheels off, checked all the brakes suspension etc. Washed and detarred the arches, painted the brakes again. Washed, decontaminated, polished and sealed the alloys. Photos are a bit out of order here but anyhow, original grille was flaking so sprayed a spare one and swapped it out. Came out fantastic for a rattle can job. Grilles out, cleaned the spots, polished the intercooler. Also took the fogs out as the tints were flakey, got some tint spray paint and tried it. Did not end well These fogs are pretty beat and cracked, recently got new ones for another monte for £35 a side, so will buy some new ones and tint them again, eventually. Very fine machine polish, then a few coats of glaze, then waxed. Lucky I have the justy on the road so can actually have this sitting for more than a few hours now. Can see the painted fogs now, looks alright from a few feet but not happy with it. As I say they needed changed anyway.

Driving 100 percent otherwise. Doing 60-70 happily on the way home, handles absolutely amazing, especially considering I haven't touched the suspension at all. Extremely comfy and surprisingly quiet considering its an 800 odd kg economy car that's been made since the 80s. Insurance disc didn't arrive still so while it is insured the disc on the window says expires October 2010. Will post any photos I find of it online.

Gonna be driving around "My hooptie" all summer Been driving it around since, running pretty good. Has a mean hot start problem though. Cranks and cranks and cranks until it eventually fires. Changed the Fuel filter before the carb. Still gunk coming out but the filters seem to be catching it all, looking through the window into the bowl the fuel there's clear, happily. Washed and waxed it last night for cars and coffee today, was behind a ferarri 440i there and on the way back too. Place was jammed when I arrived, so was put out in the bleachers, know to get there earlier next time Plenty of cool stuff there though Sort of out in the bleachers but still got a few looks and photos. Seemed to get a fair bit of attention. Even driving it had people come up to me asking what it was, or saying they hadn't seen one in years, which was nice. Tried moving it from its spot and it would not start, so left it. Started once i went to leave though. Mean hot start problem and this heat is not helping.

So It's now taxed and insured. 190 a year insurance, 56 euro tax Been driving it about locally to make sure its running right. Drives out great comfy, pretty sharp handling, tyres good, brakes are fair. Small bit of stumbling at times but I think I've the idle mix set a touch lean, for nct. Fatten that up and see. Looks are deceiving, it's covered in an inch of dust cause the garage is full so it's been sat outside for over a week. 20230602_234559.mp4 Radios fantastic in it. I'm sure its gonna break constantly now its back in service, but for now I'm happy. Again, not cost me much to get it on the road and insurance and tax is very cheap, figure it's getting about 40mpg so it's not hard to run. Considering that the Monte is getting on a bit now it's nice to have a useable second car.

Going away in a few weeks all going well, same as last year. Since I won't have the power I want, I want to do everything to minimise power loss. My biggest problem last year in the summer heat, was heat soak. I've since put a front mount on, but I figured I could do more in the form of an intercooler sprayer. I could buy a kit ofcourse, but that costs money and there's no way really to mount it stealthily. So then I thought about plumbing into the washer bottle, but I couldn't figure out a good way of splitting the feed on the fly to the intercooler. So, I had a look and noticed the mk1 has the bottle on the passengers side. Whereas the mk2 has it on the drivers side. After a bit of looking. I noticed the top bolt is in the same spot, and there's a hole near the power steering reservoir on the mk2 where the bottle also mounts to. Good enough. Hoped to just remove the splash panel and snake it up through there, which proved optimistic. Had to loosen the bumper off and pop the headlight out to get the best access. And with a bit of fettling, it fits. Looks standard, if a bit odd. It's a pretty tight fit, but the splash panel and fog do go back in properly. This is only a 2l bottle, I seriously doubt a 5l fits. Even used the nozzles from a mk1, fit pretty well, tied on top of the bumper spraying down. Wired it with a relay, fused of course. Then used one of those fuse taps inside on the fuse for the wipers (switched ignition), and put a push switch through that to turn it on and off. It's taped into place for now near the radio, until I can find a good spot for it. Works well for a parts bin bodge job. Think I'll add some isopropyl alcohol to it, which is meant to cool things even more. I'll need to add some sort of return valve to the washer hosing as it drips down if the bottles too full. But happy thus far. 20230523_214406.mp4

Rear axle is out. Brake lines were horrid to remove.

Service this evening New air filter New oil and filters No glitter in the oil or filter. Oil was very watery though. New fuel filter too Primed the system with vcds, lot easier than bleeding it the normal way, doubt that'd work on this anyway. What came out of the fuel filter. Might cut the old one open just to see how bad it was. Probably gonna service it more frequently now on since it's racking up the miles. Also got the darkside feed line aswell as all gaskets (genuine) to put the turbo on. Everything got now to fit the turbo, waiting for someone to get back to me if they can map it. New undertray got too. Was bought for another car but that ended up using one of my damaged trays, so now I've a new genuine tray to go on whenever. Also making another gearbox mount as the one on it is going.

Progress since Interior loom In Abs pump swapped over and front lines ready to run

Be taking it to retrorides in a few months Debating taking it to the penines next month. Hoping to take the Monte to that if its not broken by then.

In for nct this afternoon Towed up because I didn't want to chance getting stopped. And... Clean sheet pass. So now tested until September next year. Should be 2 years but due to the unique way nct works, it goes from the month it ran out to that month the next year. Because it's over 30 years old it gets a "2 year test". If it were any younger it'd be tested until September of this year, and have to go back in again. Makes complete sense right?

280mm fsiii is seen on mk5 and mk6 golf platform. Never used on fabias.

New wheel bearing on. Took me 40 minutes. Didn't need a gear puller it just came off. Only thing I had to buy was a 30mm 12 sided socket for a whopping €6.50. Fronts are a different beast and I wouldn't want to tackle one of them without the proper too. Thankfully it's not needing one yet.

Finally messaged powerflex to try warranty the dogbone bush. Extremely impressed with how quick they were to respond and send another out. Its a revised part so hopefully won't break again. In now and feels great. New pads on the front. Bit of life left in them but since I had the Mtec pads I threw them on. Feel great and so far no noise. Discs were lost in transit so I've got my money back from them. Ended up swapping the rear pads from the Mtecs to some Ferodo pads as they got very squealy. Guessing I got some dud rear pads. Alls fine now so far. New discs already rusted as it's been teaming rain.

Not much here but after some more fine tuning it's running much better, well enough to have it on (definitely private) roads. Filled it up and as you can see the fuel gauge is reading right. It's driving fine but a bit slow and it's not giving me the big bump in power when the second barrel kicks in. Gonna Check timing again and maybe advance it a hair and see how it goes. It is absolutely filthy now so I'll give it a good scrub soon. Nct on the 13th all going well. I'd like to drive it there to make sure its "hot" and give it a better chance for passing emissions. I'll see closer to the date. Nice to see it running well again. Set idle a bit higher just to let it idle smoother. Starts in half a turn 9 times out if 10 too. 20230417_212233.mp4 Still don't think it'd pass nct first try. Just have this feeling it will fail on something extremely stupid. But all the light work, brakes are good, trackings good etc etc.

More Work done. Rear brakes were getting very low, so ordered new pads. Ordered front and rear pads from Mtec, I think it was £50 for both. I ordered them at 11am and they were delivered the next morning. Extremely impressed. Front discs were ordered and were meant to be here last Monday, tracking last updated on the 16th so almost certainly lost. Left is the new Mtec ones, right is the ones that were on it. Swapped discs too which was a bit of an ordeal, but they needed changing. Lucky I never returned the discs that were meant to go on it when the axle was done. All fitted. So far so good. Noticeably more bite in the rear now. Have noticed a bit of squealing about town, whether that's down to them needing to bed in, or them being a bit more aggressive of a pad I'm not sure. If it doesn't get any worse I can live with it. Also noticed the drivers rear wheel bearing is a bit rough, so starting to go. No play in it, yet. Worth noting I used the wheel bearings that were on the vrs axle so all things considered I did well to get 20k+ miles out of it. Other side is fine. Its a fairly straightforward job to do and the bearing itself is pretty cheap so I'll do it myself at some point. Had a bit of an oh **** moment when I saw this sticking out of one of my pilot sports. Very luckily it came out and is not losing air. Ordered and received the timing belt kit too. Gates kit. Checked the belt and from what I can see it's "alright". I could, probably will stretch it to next service. Which at the rate of driving I'm doing will only be another few months. Lastly I've ordered all gaskets needed to swap that turbo. Genuine of course. Will be in sometime next week hopefully.

Finally lives again. New carb kit arrived. All it needed was the gasket really. Put it all together, slapped it on, fresh fuel in the tank and a bit into the fuel bowl. And... First try and it fired right up. New backbox is silent aswell Running pretty rough, High idle and lots of revhang but it IS running and does idle. Did take it out for a few runs of the farm ofcourse. And it pulled superb considering. Obligatory photos. Doesn't look it but it's covered in an inch of dust from sitting up. Got it on the weighbridge and according to that it weighs 740kg without a driver. So now it's back starting, steering and stopping. So nct is in its very near future indeed.

You know what I mean

I put 312mm heatshields on the Monte when the brakes were done. Theyre galvanised and after nearly 2 years and over 40k they're so far so good. The standard heatshields that came off it were Swiss cheese though. I have 312mm heat shields to go onto the vrsdi but the bolts for the standard shields are all rounded. I presume I should just use the aforementioned chisel method to get them out?

Is that everything you needed? Any other bits just shout.

So subframe is assembled ready to go back on. Had to cut a notch to make the non vrs passengers console work. I'll never be a surgeon but its good enough for this. Especially since the cut won't be seen. Reused the drivers console too. Suspected I somehow stripped the threads but chased them out in the vice and they seem fine. Have the vrs one spare just in case anyhow. Built up with all the poly stuff from the sdi. And the psb arb bushes I took out of the Monte. They'll do for now. Mondeo links from the sdi too. Used the vrs arb of course. Sdi one is 17mm and the vrs is 19mm. Not really noticeable in a photo. Turbos back on too. Hopefully no more leaks. Hopefully. Made some progress making the hole for the a/c. Didn't have anything on hand to make a nice neat cut, so I improvised. Used the rubber gasket as a template for the sdi. Drilled some small holes just inside the template. Figure I can enlarge the holes until they all go together. Far from the best way to go about it, but once I get the hole finished I can clean up the edges and make it look like less of a hack job.