Breezy_Pete

Thanks for that. Manifold is already off, surprisingly easy. Tried to take some photos down the ports but really need torch, mirror, assistant. Had none of those. Did note with satisfaction that the breather jet that I expected to be completely blocked does indeed appear to be. Should look like this:

Have you looked at the workshop manual?

Take it off the firewall and read the part number off it. It will be cast into the plastic.

The Rescue Roomster is rather on the high end of the mileage spectrum at 160k, so I'm expecting to find a good collection of carbon on and near the intake valves (from burnt-on oil mainly). Aiming to take the inlet manifold off tomorrow so will see the state of them then, at least as much as the limited view down the ports will offer (image of a shiny clean head from an ebay listing): These ports face the rear of the engine bay too, so mirror involvement expected, and awkward reaching over... A local VW group specialist said they could do walnut shell cleaning on it, and it probably wouldn't cost more than £500, which wasn't exactly the territory I was hoping for, price-wise! 😁 Looks to me like it'll be hard enough to judge whether any given valve is closed or open, let alone get anything in there manually to attempt to scrape and clean. It could be partly a camera angle thing but the ports look very narrow close to the backs of the valves, presumably to generate swirl anticlockwise? I suggested they could maybe make it cheaper if I pushed the car into their premises after having removed the inlet manifold myself, but the fella I spoke to sounded unenthusiastic about that idea. Experiences? Prices paid? Anyone DIY'ed with the walnut shell/sandblasting kits you see on ebay etc? Any thoughts or info appreciated. Cheers.

Go here: MK1 Fabia workshop manuals - SKODA Fabia - BRISKODA Click 'download this file' and a bunch of mk1 Fabia workshop manuals will appear. Download the second one in the list. Is it safe to assume that there are no fault lights showing? Just because some garage says it's gearbox related doesn't necessarily mean it is.

Scan for fault codes.

Probably had to unscrew and lower the compressor to make room to drop alt out downwards, then forgot to plug the compressor back in after refitting. Control valve, not clutch. Did the same myself on the Roomster recently. Could reach from above to reconnect on that, doubt you'll have as much luck, but have a look.

I didn't find time (or energy) yesterday to fit that replacement, refurbed manifold. Wednesday should give me the opportunity. Can't wait to see if it resolves the crankcase breathing issue (see vid above of oil filler cap dancing). Confirmed there was a problem by looking for a little 'suck' on the air inlet pipe* to the cam carrier/valve cover and finding not a hint of flow into the system. I'm quite confident that the manifold is going to be very wet with oil that hasn't separated properly, and that the little jet/hole seen in Saturday's post is going to be equally occluded. The spare manifold was from a car with around 1/3 or even 1/4 of the mileage that ours has. At idle, inlet manifold vacuum should be ported/jetted through that tiny hole found on Saturday, above. *That little air pipe has been made infamous by people breaking off the non-return valve at the engine end of it whilst changing the air filter, see here for example. From another SSP with slightly clearer diagrams and annotations than the Audi one, bottom right exploded view shows the 'suck' that ought to be happening at/near idle.

No.

Evaporator temperature sensor. I agree, that may be misreading high, causing the system to cool further than it should.

First reg is a DQ200, gearbox code WGS. Second is a DQ381, code WFQ. Lee wins the gold star for today. The ever-present child in me wants to know if there's a WTF code anything...😁

Injector and HPFP replacement appears to have made no obvious difference to anything, disappointingly. But having refreshed bits in those places can only be good in the long-term. Had a bit of a breakthrough an hour or so ago though, whilst cleaning up and studying an inlet manifold with intercooler that I'd acquired very cheaply from a much lower mileage car. The PCV (positive crankcase ventilation) system relies on a subtle feature of this manifold, which appears to be a bit of design frailty, at least for pressure reduction at low throttle openings. When I first looked at the relevant "fifth port" on the spare manifold, it was very easy to conclude that it had a plastic blanking plug in it. Perhaps because the design had ben changed to apply a bit of vacuum to the crankcase in some other way. Didn't photograph it before my breakthrough, sadly, but after leaving it for a few hours and going back to it and having more of a (literal) poke around, I found a teeny-tiny hole that is fundamental to the design. The tiny hole you can see in the first pic, especially after seeing it in the closer shot, was utterly occluded and invisible at first.

Not really close enough for in person help. I'm 1:20 away just north of Swindon.

Remind me whereabouts you're based?

Nope. Water is superior in outright heat capacity. Don't waste your time.

Let AG Falco help you, he's an expert. No need to charge a battery that's already at 12.8V, even an AGM. The first thing the car will do if you put a 100% charged battery in, and code it, is let it deplete back to around 80%. So pointless.

Small fan is 1K0959455DG which has been superseded by 1K0 959 455ES, a mere £270 + VAT at Skoda😆 Described in parts list as 290mm, 150W, Siemens.

Yep, can look up next time I get up.

Part number is written in white all along the hard plastic section. 6Q2 612 041 and then a couple of crucial letters. The letters are the only difference between a bunch of different types for different engines.

As an alternative, if you have a multimeter, you could measure the volts between pins of the connector that comes out of the big fan towards the little fan, to see if there's 12V there when the big fan is running. Just be careful fingers etc don't get involved with the big fan.

Looks like the fan control module is integrated into the main fan, with the smaller fan powered from it, so not quite as clear-cut as if I'd found a circuit showing the fans wired directly in parallel, like many of the earlier versions are. I still think they should probably run together, so maybe try powering the small fan directly with 12V, to see if that makes it run (disconnected from its big brother/sister).

Can you please share the reg plate or VIN with me so that I can look up the relevant schematics and parts info. I think the two fans should probably operate together, but need to check.

They don't lead to the same place. You can see everything that's available in "individual vehicle info" without paying the flat rate, so have a look first and note which files you want. Only after you pay the flat rate do the download buttons appear for each pdf. The tab you were in is a subset of the other, showing only the info specific to your car/VIN. The place with the pdfs covers every car of each model, so the documents are much bigger, more general and require a bit more effort with 'ctrl-f' to find stuff specific to your car. No idea about your last question, I haven't tried it.

If you did not find a broken wire in the location I described then my idea is not correct. Engine ECUs are incredibly reliable in recent cars. Very, very unlikely to be that.

I think you were not in the same area of the site as I described above. You can't download stuff you find via the "vehicle specific info" tab. Everything in the tab I suggested is pdf files.