yesiamtom

Very nice

Excellent stuff. Thanks guys. I was faffing about taking the engine cover off and looking down trying to figure out where it was. Got underneath and instantly spotted the air con pump. My engine doesnt have any tray underneath it, only the back part of the bumper so i doubt ill be finding the clutch there! I think I will just get a second hand replacement pump and use the clutch from that. Threads all looked fine so am hoping a nylock nut/threadlocked nut will work out okay.

Finally got under my car to look at my air con pump and took a quick snap of this. The ID of the pump is SD7V16. Is this the infamous clutch nut failure? The threads look fine so if I can fix it in situ without de pressurizing the whole air con system that would be great. Saving some money would be nice as well. I've seen the clutch assembly on Ebay for £100 or whole pumps for less than that. I did a search for SD7V16 and found pumps for citroens etc for about £30 so I'm curious as to whether i can strip the clutch off one of those and use it? That is if it is the same. Any advice at this stage would be great. I'm quite handy with tools but have a lot to learn about cars yet. Air con systems just boggle my mind!

I suppose theres one thing to be said. It was a relatively cheap mistake

i dont even modify my car and wouldn't buy JOM stuff from what i've read on here. Although did buy their bonnet kit so i can use the fixing bolts!

You car, as ever, looks awesome Rob. I think your right about the chrome as it doesnt fit with the theme of octavias in my opinion. The diffuser is subtle with a hint of whats underneath the bonnet but the chrome is just a bit bling bling look at me im a ricer.

in the past when i drove a mk3 astra with huge black trimmed bumpers i used a heatgun occasionaly on the black plastic thats all bumpy. It melts the top layer and leaves them literally looking new. If you are brave enough to do that i would then apply a layer of some sealent over the top to keep your hard work looking good. PS do this at your own risk!

I was unable to remove the scuttle cover so got my brother to pull it up enough so i could pull the old one out and put the new one in.

if this was in 6 months time i would drive the 200 miles to buy this. looks fabulous.

they look ******* awesome mate! I would be well chuffed if my car looked like that. Red with black splitter and that lamin-x WOW! My car has outlines from where i removed octavia and elegance...it ****es me off so much every time i see it so i know how you feel. From more than 3 feet away they dissapear though. Must get a good machine polisher on it sometime Or just spray over the top lol!

I knew that but completely forgot haha. Good thing i've got the paint in the shed!

The bolt is pretty long, nearly an inch. I think im going to cut a bit off.

So the JOM kit turned up today (I wanted it for the ball joints) and i think they've sent me the wrong one. The bonnet mount is the wrong size bolt as it looks like a M8 coarse thread. Kind of sucks because i was hoping to fit it tonight :( Wondering if the coarse thread will self-tap into the metal between the two bonnet mounts but i need to pikey a drill from a family member before trying that.

your in the wrong section i think JKM do it for the mk1 octy for £150, think i saw awesome or someone for about £120 quid.

Thanks volvoMeg for the fantastic reply. Is the process you described commonly used? I get the impression a lot of places just put more gas in and thats that! Its weird the air con on my car, as i said apparently the electros are dead. However the car does definately blow colder than ambient air. I dont know if that is still a symptom of a buggered air con system. Would a new pump fix that ?

this has me worried now. the electro magnets in mine are dead apparently. Still blows slightly cold air but needs a regas tbh. dont want to be left with no gas!

I always wondered if this would work...think i'll be trying that in 6 months time for my girlfriends insurance and mine

if you dont need the car and can get it cheap maybe its worth it if you can fix it yourself. Otherwise i would agree with the above and get something that works...even if it has slightly higher mileage. My TDI elegance 2003 is on 102k miles. Doesnt feel like it at all. Its all still tight and the engine pulls like a train. If you drive the car you should feel the turbo coming on quite noticeably at 2000rpm and giving a good pull to 3000. Past that its a bit pants really! Yes i realise 110bhp isn't really 'like a train', but once up to speed i never feel like i dont have enough power

Lol mike :-) Obviously getting good mpg is one factor, but im not going to severely reduce grip just to save a few quid on fuel. It must be pointed out - for a tyre to be resistant to aqua planning it can't be run at stupid low psi anyway which is what it currently looks like. Maybe i should take a picture of the tyres.

I'll look in my book for that - its not on my fuel cap. I found today driving at 32psi was very very squidgy and was making a noticeable delay to when the car turned. I also had a look at the tyres and they are definately underinflated because the edges are bulging out.

no its not a vrs! Just a boring diesel on standard 205\55\16. The front max rated psi was 36 i think and the rear was 51! That was part of the reason i wanted to switch. I know mismatched front to rear tyres is supposed to be okay but i didnt like it and the tyres were **** anyway. I found if i was at 32 the tyres were just to squidy and vague. If you check half way down this page http://www.carbibles..._bible_pg3.html it explains the 10% 'rule'. I've heard about it in a few places and found my car handled absolutely fine at a little under 10%. The tyres also had no uneven wear and no scrubbing after 6000 miles including a LOT of dry steering due to the terrible parking where I live. Obviously I checked the contact patch and the entire width of the tyre was in contact and had a small bit of deformation in the sidewall. It just seems odd they dont have a max rated psi! Shouldn't you also take into account the tyres maximum pressure then?

Just got some new uniroyal rainexperts fitted yesterday and they are really good. Nice and grippy, give much better feedback than my old tyres aswell. My only concern is the psi put into them. The fitter from event tyres (fantastic company!) said they need around 32-33 psi. The tyres dont look underinflated to much but I ran my previous tyres at 35 front and 40-45 rear based on their 10% under their max psi markings. They looked like they sat on the road with a full contact patch without squidging which the new tyres do. Now the rain experts have no indication as to a maximum psi so im a bit lost as to what sort of PSI i should be looking at. I say this because my MPG is down by atleast 5 according to the trip computer which is pretty bad! Almost 10%! Does anyone know what PSI they can take? Bit surprised they have no indication.

Sort of related, is it easy to take the panel around the switch off? I ask because my switch has pushed through which is annoying. Still works fine though. Unfortunately i dont have the original owners manual.

any idea if those panels can be retrofitted to other octys like the hatcback?