mollusc

All, Firstly an apology if this has been covered succinctly somewhere else, but I'm damned I could find the information I needed and my investigations lead to be being locked in the car for an hour at one point! I'm hoping this might save someone else from the same interesting predicament. I got a cheapy Remote Kit with two HAA style transponder keys from eBay. The 'manual' I got (the one I've found photographed a few times on here) was horribly ambiguous. I now understand that the Octy uses a "multiplex" system that means it doesn't need two wires to activate the central locking - It just uses one, and it locks or unlocks dependent on the signal on that wire. I used the GREY/YELLOW wire inside the driver's door as the central locking entry point, although I put the control unit inside the dash. At this point I'm only talking about the remote receiver box, not the car wiring: For the purposes of fitting to the car, the remote receiver box seems to be three remote controlled switches (i.e. relays); one for locking, one for unlocking and one for the boot release (which I'll be ignoring). Pressing the lock button on the remote triggers a relay to temporarily disconnect the white wire from the orange wire and connect it instead to the yellow wire. Pressing the UNlock button on the remote triggers a relay to temporarily disconnect the white/black wire from the orange/black wire and connect it instead to the yellow/black wire. It's very flexible but a bit confusing when there are 6 wires and only one of them actually does any triggering. I'm aiming to provide the correct signal on each of the yellow wires (i.e. yellow and yellow/black) at all times so that, when buttons are pressed, the correct signal passes from that yellow wire into the corresponding white wire. We also need to make sure the orange wires are disconnected from anything so that - without any buttons being pressed - the white wires are effectively connected to nothing (i.e. open circuit). Lastly, because we can't lock and unlock the car at the same time we can connect the white wires together so that either the correct lock or unlock signal ends up on one wire. The lock signal for the YELLOW wire is a direct earth connection, and the UNlock signal for the YELLOW/BLACK wire is a connection to earth via a 180 Ohm resistor (well, that's what worked for me after trial and error). To put it another way, I connected the YELLOW wire to the BLACK wire, and then the YELLOW/BLACK wire to the BLACK wire this time via the resistor. The WHITE wires were joined and that made my Central Locking signal. (I actually opened the box and made the links linked the solder points of the connector with little jumper wires and the resistor to make it a bit neater) So, I ended up with a black wire that needed to be connected to the chassis; a red wire that needed volts and a white wire that needed connecting to the GREY/WHITE wire in the CAR. I cut everything else off. Two things - 1 I don't seem to be able to unlock the whole car with the remote - just the drivers door. A second press doesn't do anything. 2 I'd stupidly assumed that the non-remote key wasn't chipped, but alas they are. Getting the new keys cut was easy but I now need to get hold of chips for your new keys (or transfer them from existing keys) in order to be able to start the car properly. I've just been quoted 90 quid to do this. Gutted. I hope this helps someone who was in my position. As I say the information is probably out there but I really couldn't find it.

I've just ordered a pumpkin (still haven't quite come to terms with the name) VW shaped for my facelift mk2. Gotta say it took me some time to get my head round the dash hole size thing - double DIN vs VW, then trying to work out which head units were which size. Has anyone bought the aftermarket double din fascia and removed the inner "lining" to leave the VW shaped hole? There's an ebay item that's clearly the right part but the image is a 3d rendering which makes me wonder if it's actually even been made yet!

Hi there. Did you get any offers?

Hi all, Having owned my 2004 VRS for a while now, I think it's probably the best car I've ever owned: my list of niggles and moans is impressively short. However, pretty as it looks, probably my biggest gripe is the light grey upholstery. It really wasn't a very bright idea (I'm being rather polite here), and certainly doesn't mix well with a 3-year-old with perpetually sticky fingers... I appreciate that the seat cover washing topic has been discussed at length elsewhere and the job has been on my "one day" (more like a weekend I fear) list to do - but the other day I got into the car with a pair of jeans with a broken pocket zip which ripped a chunk out of the back panel of the driver's seat , so it's action time. In a nutshell, I've decided to make some replacement seat covers for the car myself.. (cue laughter). I've upholstered in the past and I've already got an industrial sewing machine that makes the house shake and scares the crap out of me: how hard can it be?!?? (more laughter) My questions: Before I buy a cow hide on eBay and lock myself in my garage, has anyone else had any experience of this that they can share? Does anyone have a knackered seat cover or covers that I can use to make a template? I'm loathe to bitz mine to create a template until I'm reasonably confident that I'm going to be able to make a replacement as it's my daily transport!

....Have a couple of photos from my phone... but can't seem to get the upload bit to work. :( I'll try from home later.

Update - All worked fine, but my wife killed the camera!!! I don't know - fix one thing... Back to General Custard... The wire was broken off right as it joined that weird liddle biddy rubber grommet bit. Actually, I spent ages trying to get the darned plastic bit off the solenoid until I noticed the latching mechanism - doh! When I pulled it off - and after I mopped up the knuckle blood - I found a small cylindrical shaped protrusion from the end NOT connected to the solenoid. Inside it was a grommet with an approx 1mm hole in it. I carefully removed the grommet, and underneath was a kind-of metal sheath about 7mm across with a solder terminal in the centre of it. There were little broken bits of copper sticking out of the solder - so I was pretty sure that's where the wire had come from. To mend it I carefully sawed off (!) the excess plastic from the cylindrical protrusion: not enough so that the rubber grommet wouldn't stay in, but enough so that my soldering iron would reach the little tag inside without melting the case. I recall it it was about 3mm. It looks as though it would be possible to remove the metalwork from the housing, but I couldn't find how to do this and I decided life is too short! I found a fairly slim and FLEXIBLE piece of wire (it needs to go through the grommet) about 15cm in length, and soldered the end to the place where the original wire had been. It was a bit fiddly even with less material round the edge, because I had a choice of either soldering iron or seeing what was going on, but not both. I won't be submitting the results to the "International Foundation for Neat Soldering", but it stayed on, and after I slid the grommet down the wire and into place it all looked quite neat. I know this is obvious, but I recommend you don't attach the wire to the loom before you solder it, or you'll have nightmares about the underside of Fabias for ever more. So, why did it break? My theory is... The original wire was bound to the loom very close to the point of entry to the solenoid connector - about 8cm in my case. The solenoid is attached very firmly to the engine, and the loom very firmly to the body. With all those torques flying around, I bet the engine swings around the engine bay a bit under acceleration. This would cause the wire to be "waggled" exactly like you would do to break a piece of wire on purpose - pulling it backwards and forwards until the internal structure of the wire crystallises and it fractures. Attaching the wire at the loom end was straightforward. Personally I don't use terminal block for permanent fixes and I'm not crazy about crimp terminals in outside environments either. I got a piece of heat-shrink sleeving, soldered the wires together, and covered the join in heat-shrink. I left as much of the original wire as I could. Although it was all quite knackered and hard, cutting it off near the loom would be really bad if it snapped on the loom side again. I also taped a little more of it to the loom for the same reason. I ended up leaving the whole 15cm length on the new wire. I taped round the end of the (shorter) solenoid connector and continued a few cm along the new wire to provide a little "strain relief". The new wire is more flexible than the old one by far, and as it is long enough now to form a semi-circular loop between the loom and the solenoid, the impact of the movement will be hugely reduced. Conclusion? Perhaps some of my ideas were a bit anal and others (sawing) might seem barbaric, but the overall plan was to maximise robustness and reliability - to avoid my wife being stranded somewhere on a rainy night - whilst not getting to bogged down with cosmetic detail. I hope this helps someone ). If you want any more specific help please do send me a message. I'm a Skoda beginner but I have some experience of wires

I've got a set of VIBE 16.5 speakers in the front of mine, and the fit was really tight. I ended up fabricating some quite thick rings out of mdf/isopon to space them far enough away from the window, and I also put a spacer on the front of the speaker to push the door panel out slightly, because the clearance wasn't enough. If they'd been 5mm deeper it would have all been over. For spacers, take a look at the polyurethane foam insulation panels they sell in DIY stores. The foam isn't that dense but you can carve it very easily to shape. If you make it deliberately a little too deep you can compress it and screw the speaker in until it actually makes contact with the window mechanism - to maximise the use of depth. You should put a thin bit of foam on the back of the speaker too to stop any buzzing. Don't try to make the foam smaller than necessary. The depth of the hole varies with height (from what I recall) so you might get a few mm more clearance by putting the new speakers slightly higher on the door panel. Just my tuppence-worth! )

Aha! The part I was looking at seemed to be a connector for a vacuum tube of some sort, but on further investigation was an 'ole for the wire... Problem solved. I've taken some photos and hopefully will be able to post the fix that I did... Assuming when I put it together it works, of course!!! Cheers,

Hello there! I'm a new boy with a chipped 54 plate Fabia VRS that must be one of the most fun cars I've ever owned! Finally, after a year of no grease-action, I've opened the red toolbox and tried to tackle my VRS's recently developed non-starting problem. I've wrestled the starter motor nearly off (all bar the positive lead that doesn't fit past the plastic cover - grrrr) and can see THAT little broken wire poking out of the loom near the back of the solenoid. Problem is... I can't see where it was meant to be attached to the solenoid. Maybe it's obvious if you know what the wire is for.... :confused: I've checked the Haynes Manual, but the days of plentiful clear photos (like they are in my Mk2 Cortina one) are gone :( If anyone can tell me where the wire goes - or has a photo of the setup with the wire in the right place - that would be a Godsend right now! If not that, then some idea of what it does will help! TIA.