Breezy_Pete

I would be extremely surprised if that has any basis in truth.

Probably just his metal pipe that runs across the back of the engine, or one of the connections where rubber hoses join onto it? Can't view your video unfortunately. Seems like wishful thinking that you'll get far without removing intake manifold. That's probably not too difficult, especially if you can get some light behind there and have a 'mirror on a stick'.

And what happened this afternoon is that it just rained, gently but persistently. No progress on the bumper refit. 🌧️

The morning session has gone well. The challenges were: Despite being a Classic spec car, it has plastic undertrays that have to drop at least partly to get to the places that handbrake cables emerge. And of course most of those steel clips that hold it onto studs on the underbody were 'crumble to dust' status 24 years on from build. These clips that attach the cable to the underside of the rear beam are pure evil. The handbrake cable rubber grommet was well stuck in there, as per hatboy's video posted above. (Rotary) Wire brushed clear of loads of white aluminum oxide before fitting new cable into it (tried without and it was about 8mm shy of full insertion). For those who didn't watch the vid, it's these alloy tubes that the rubber bits stick fast into That's a spare I kept from last time I did this job, and used new tubes. The bearing showed up and the rear end is now all done. Just front bumper to do.

And what really happened yesterday... Coolant and exp tank change went well. Rocker gasket change went well (just two fasteners, M6 nuts, on this AWQ-code 1.4 MPI engine from 2002, 3Nm torque. I'd bought the gasket from ebay, and the little 'grommety bits the studs come through' from Skoda parts,.com, for a hell of a lot less than I could find elsewhere. Bumper came off very easily, and I kinda made progress on gluing various bits, but haven't yet refitted. Bumpstops arrived with the postie, late morning, so that job became doable. 🙂 Lubed, wire-brushed and loosened the lower shock bolts both sides before lunch, including a brief 'oops that's the tightening direction, that won't work' moment on one side. 😆 Bumpstop changes went well, apart form forgetting to refit the little plastic cap that goes on the topmount on the side that goes up into the body. Couldn't live with knowing I'd left that off, so the topmount had to come back down again. Then I thought, while the wheel's off I may as well investigate this drum brake... And that's where it all went to crap. Drum wouldn't even turn by hand with handbrake fully off, despite having moved the car a few yards mid morning, so definitely seizing well. Decided that the shoe set and handbrake cable were getting changed (both bought ahead of time), so thought I'd carry on and disassemble some stuff, despite running low on energy. Realised that the hub/bearing would need to come off to make the changes much easier, as the shoe set I'd bought was preassembled. It didn't. Hub nut took much more force (2ft breaker bar and my full weight) to undo, and even when removed completely the bearing wasn't 'just pulling off freely like they do on youtube'. Turned out the inner race was seized to the stubaxle, and the bearing was destroyed by the time I'd removed it in multiple pieces. No spare on hand. Heat and chiselling required to de-stick the inner race. Amazon delivering a dodgy-sounding-brand one sometime this morning. So the plan for today, remove old handbrake cable, hopefully not seized at the exit point out of the body like they generally are: https://youtube.com/shorts/xzMXu85LUjU?si=6T-_FLKP7GnSQ2VT Then fit new handbrake cable, shoe set, hub/bearing and adjust it all up. Then refit front bumper. 🤞

Thought this might be a fun thing for a non-model-specific, general interest thread. Inspired by yesterday's events, and probably today's too. 😁 Idea being to show the gap between the plan and the reality, because in my experience they rarely correlate exactly. Obviously, it will be more entertaining and instructive when things don't go to plan. Not intended to be a post for just bragging about how fast and efficient you are, but if you want to feed back preventive or problem solving tips in response to others' problems, that's obviously going to be good. Example - yesterday I planned a few jobs on a mk1 Fabia that I recently acquired, wasn't sure how far I'd get through it, but there was always today as well, to finish off overspill. Remove front bumper, to fix a little front-end collision (hedge) damage Change coolant (flush too) and expansion tank Check right side rear drum handbrake, which was seizing on, and had a bodged fixing from last visit (see The Daily Bodge 30th Aug) Change rocker cover gasket to fix oil leak Change rear bumpstops if delivered

Probably worth disconnecting battery negative before unplugging it, but then you certainly can. You can buy replacement brackets very cheaply on ebay, but they are likely to be 3D-printed, weak and not necessarily a good fit. Lashing it in with cable ties is a good suggestion and perfectly adequate. Genuine replacement not that expensive in the grand scheme of things, if you must: Skoda parts

Polos have this feature, Fabias don't, I think.

Correct.

Take left front wheel off and loosen front half of wheel arch liner. You can probably see from there.

Have you checked the power steering fluid level?

The driveshaft that's in his second photo looks completely dry to me.

I just had a look and didn't really have any great ideas. Please come back to tell us if you ever figure it out.

The little dent and the tiiiiiny rust spots should be totally ignored, not worth a moment's effort; neither will ever threaten the future of the car. Alasdair is spot on with wheel balance checking, it may have shed a weight. Also about the door loom wiring.

I'll have a look at my car this evening, to see if I can make some suggestions.

I guess you meant 2% petrol?

Skoda parts list 3 interchangeable part numbers for the 5K0 part, with applications limited to Superb 2, Octavia 2 and Yeti. https://www.skoda-parts.com/spare-part/5k0907659-air-quality-sensor-european-union-38255.html Maybe just buy one of their non-genuine offering?

I believe that a supersession automatically implies compatibility, but I guess I could try to see which other vehicles use the newer part and see that their circuits don't mark up the signal line as 'LIN'. Remind me this evening!

Good to have confirmation of the comms difference. 🙂 As I mentioned a couple of posts back, I couldn't find any Yeti diagrams showing the LIN version of the sensor.

Go for it, but see if you can detect any difference in engine sounds or behaviour. In the filling ratio you mention and with it starting out as 'mostly diesel' I can't see much risk at all.

Sounds right, yes.

Skoda dealership are telling the truth.

Crank sensor on the 1.4/16v is on the back of the block, low down, pointing in towards flywheel area. The sensor has a captive cable, I think, with a plug/socket somewhere higher up, in the area of the top of the dipstick tube, from memory. Check spark plug for cylinder 3 first, and if that's OK, change the pencil coil if it has individual coils on each plug, which I think will be the case on a 2003 1.4/16v.

You'll need to tell us which type of engine your Fabia has, there are several options. No idea what 'bank 3' might mean unless it's something referring to cylinder 3? Guessing it might be one of the 3-cylinder 1.2L variants? Does it start and run, or not?

That code is just a referral, saying "check engine ECU, it has a stored fault code", I think.