How To Clean Your Plenum Chamber

[NathanG]

With the wet and cold time of year coming and a lot of people getting misty windows due to blockage in the plenum chamber i thought i'd make a really easy how to. My 1st one so here goes.  Ignore my pic order as i removed the 3 plastic things 1st but you may want to do it either way, you get the same results.

You will need...

Little flat blade screwdriver
Medium scewdriver
13mm socket
11mm socket
Torx 30 bit
Windscreen wiper puller (optional)
Little plug things that hold the cover on as they WILL break. ( Thanks to Lee01 - For reference Part Number for the clips is N90911301 £1.38 for three from Skoda (price correct October 2013)

1st off, take the little screwdriver and remove the little caps that cover your wiper blade bolts.



Use the 13mm and remove the bolts and wipers.

Next remove the 3 things that hold the cover in place. They will break.



Pull back the rubber seal.



Lift up the cover. Start at one end by the windscreen. The seal has a ridge that fits into the windscreen.



Once released from the windscreen lift it up slightly and disconnect the washer pipe (just dawned on me i didnt reconnect mine.....bugger).



Now you should have something that looks like this.



You'll need an 11mm socket. Remove these 2 bolts.



Now, i can't remove the motor without undoing these 3 torx 30 bolts on account of its too fiddley and way easier to remove the bolts.



I removed them and turned the mounting bracket to the side.



Slightly lift the motor up and unplug the connector thats underneath.



My hands are way big to get to the plenum chamber any other way but if you have child like hands you may be able to.

Once you've removed the motor, look down into the corner (where the plenum chamber meets the wing and you should see you drainage hole for the drivers side.  The passenger side is in the same place but on the opposite side of the car.  You can't really see it but you can feel it easily enough.



Clear out any rubbish (i had a crisp pocket down mine  )

Then just put everything back. Easy. Took me about 15 mins or less.

Hope this helps.

 

Sorry about the rubbish pic's).

Edited 6 January, 2014 by NathanG

[@Lee]

Good guide, thanks

 

For reference

 

Part Number for the clips is N90911301 £1.38 for three from Skoda (price correct October 2013)

[Andyroo!]

Hi! I've come to this a bit late, after searching for some advice about my Fabia, which has this problem of a good deal of condensation. After reading all the forum links I decided to clean out the plenum chambers on my car, but tackled it "inside out" so to speak, by removing the plastic mud guard from inside the wheel arch and using a vacuum cleaner to suck out the gunge from the opening in the wheel arch. My car has over 90,000 miles and I don't think the chambers have ever been cleaned.... There were things in there of interest to scientists looking for alien life, it was so smelly! 

 

Anyway, tomorrow morning at 4:30 am I'll be off to work on my first shift since before Christmas, so let's see if it's any drier.....

Edited 1 January, 2019 by Andyroo!

[sepulchrave]

You mean the scuttles of course...

[Andyroo!]

Yes, sorry, the plastic scuttles (mud guard inserts) 

[Breezy_Pete]

1 hour ago, Andyroo! said:

Hi! I've come to this a bit late, after searching for some advice about my Fabia, which has this problem of a good deal of condensation. After reading all the forum links I decided to clean out the plenum chambers on my car, but tackled it "inside out" so to speak, by removing the plastic mud guard from inside the wheel arch and using a vacuum cleaner to suck out the gunge from the opening in the wheel arch. My car has over 90,000 miles and I don't think the chambers have ever been cleaned.... There were things in there of interest to scientists looking for alien life, it was so smelly! 

 

Anyway, tomorrow morning at 4:30 am I'll be off to work on my first shift since before Christmas, so let's see if it's any drier.....

 

Nice one. If you haven't already done so, check for door carrier leaks. Just open each door, look down at the rubber seal at the bottom of the doorway, and if there are puddles on there that door carrier is leaking. Rear ones are most likely to be leaky.

 

@NathanG I'd never seen this how-to, so a very belated thanks for creating it.

On lots of engine variants, there's very little attached to the vertical panel at the front of the scuttle area, and it's pretty easy to remove. This improves access to everything considerably.

[TMB]

58 minutes ago, sepulchrave said:

You mean the scuttles of course...

 

Wheel arch liners.

[sepulchrave]

27 minutes ago, TMB said:

 

Wheel arch liners.

 

No, he removed those to get access to the scuttle drains.

[TMB]

13 minutes ago, sepulchrave said:

 

No, he removed those to get access to the scuttle drains.

 

Yeah I  misunderstood you. 

[Stewartasb]

Fantastic guide did mine today big thumbs up to Nathan. Only thing I would say is be prepared to have a wrestle to get your wiper arms off even with wd40 and an extractor tool which was worse than useless the longest part of the job was getting the arms off worth doing though plenty of squirrel bedding in mine  

[DennisB]

I had bad windscreen condensation on my "new" 2005 Fabia Mk1 1.4 caused by water leaking into the rear carpets. I read the old forum posts on this subject and had ordered some gutter sealant and door card clips to repair the carrier seals; but then saw a new post about extending the lower end of the inner door seals by ~5.5mm with adhesive p-strip. So I decided £5 for a roll of p-strip and 3 minutes work was well worth the try; before attacking the carriers seals. To be honest I wasn't expecting a fix as the root cause (capillary action sucking water from the inside of the door sill into the door and then out through the bottom of the door cards)  sounded far too whacky (sorry poster!). However, I am very pleased to report 100% success!!! 3 recent downpours, not to mention strong winds and the mats are now bone dry and the car condensation free. Part used roll of p-strip for sale...      

[Breezy_Pete]

@DennisB Why didn't you post about this in the thread where the whacky door-leak fix was mentioned, instead of in this unrelated thread?

Edited 7 March, 2019 by Wino

[DennisB]

16 hours ago, DennisB said:

I had bad windscreen condensation on my "new" 2005 Fabia Mk1 1.4 caused by water leaking into the rear carpets. I read the old forum posts on this subject and had ordered some gutter sealant and door card clips to repair the carrier seals; but then saw a new post about extending the lower end of the inner door seals by ~5.5mm with adhesive p-strip. So I decided £5 for a roll of p-strip and 3 minutes work was well worth the try; before attacking the carriers seals. To be honest I wasn't expecting a fix as the root cause (capillary action sucking water from the inside of the door sill into the door and then out through the bottom of the door cards)  sounded far too whacky (sorry poster!). However, I am very pleased to report 100% success!!! 3 recent downpours, not to mention strong winds and the mats are now bone dry and the car condensation free. Part used roll of p-strip for sale...      

 

2 hours ago, Wino said:

@DennisB Why didn't you post about this in the thread where the whacky door-leak fix was mentioned, instead of in this unrelated thread?

Sorry Wino I should have added  - If you have a condensation problem in your Fabia 1, before trying emptying your plenium chamber; or re-sealing your door window carriers, try this  simple fix.

 

[Breezy_Pete]

Sorry @DennisB, I see that you did do exactly what I suggested as well.

[DennisB]

45 minutes ago, Wino said:

Sorry @DennisB, I see that you did do exactly what I suggested as well.

No problem @Wino

[Breezy_Pete]

17 hours ago, DennisB said:

the root cause (capillary action sucking water from the inside of the door sill into the door and then out through the bottom of the door cards)  sounded far too whacky

 

My interpretation of what Dave wrote (here) is a little different, and sounds less whacky.  To me he seems to be suggesting that if too much water (coming from the p-seal area) is pooling between door and sill it may prevent the drain holes from working as intended - i.e. reducing the level of water accumulating inside the door to near-zero.

Rather than saying that water is wicking up from the sill into the door and then reaching the level of the carrier seals, as your description suggests. 

 

However - water will always get into the inside of the door from the main window seal, but it isn't really the case that it needs to build up to the level of the carrier seals before problems can occur.  Water gets directly onto the carrier from the window seal drainage, it doesn't need to come up from below.

 

Can I suggest that any further discussion is done in that other thread, where it's more relevant.

 

 

Edited 7 March, 2019 by Wino

[coupe]

Thanks for all this as my wife's Fabia had a wet patch on the drivers footwell after all the rain (thought it was a dead animal somewhere!) Water not coming in from the door. I tried to remove the wipers but they weren't going to budge easily so I managed to rig up a small tube attached to Henry and slowly sucked out all the gunge under the wiper cover. There was lots of it. On inspection there is a rubber bung underneath the wiper motor. From underneath after removing the mud shield you can see the same rubber bung which has wires going through the centre for the side indicator (and something else?) I could not see any other exit. I've cleaned all this up and much crap (leaves, soil etc.) came out so hopefully this will sort it out? Question is - is this the only exit for water from the top shelf under the wiper motor area? Incidentally managed to overheat the Henry this way but after cooling down all ok.

 

Thank you. (Should have taken a photo).

[Breezy_Pete]

The drains are at the bottom of each vertical section of bodywork, inboard a few inches from the extreme ends of the scuttle.

If you want to see where these slots come out, remove the front wheels and the arch liner plastics and you'll see them.

 

[Breezy_Pete]

Nearside one viewed with arch liner removed:

 

 

 

Edited 15 June, 2019 by Wino

[coupe]

Ok. Many thanks for posting this. Much appreciated. 

[TMB]

3 hours ago, coupe said:

 Incidentally managed to overheat the Henry this way but after cooling down all ok.

 

 

 

It should be fine. You can't kill a Henry vacuum cleaner too easily

[cthreepo]

On 06/03/2019 at 17:42, DennisB said:

I had bad windscreen condensation on my "new" 2005 Fabia Mk1 1.4 caused by water leaking into the rear carpets. I read the old forum posts on this subject and had ordered some gutter sealant and door card clips to repair the carrier seals; but then saw a new post about extending the lower end of the inner door seals by ~5.5mm with adhesive p-strip. So I decided £5 for a roll of p-strip and 3 minutes work was well worth the try; before attacking the carriers seals. To be honest I wasn't expecting a fix as the root cause (capillary action sucking water from the inside of the door sill into the door and then out through the bottom of the door cards)  sounded far too whacky (sorry poster!). However, I am very pleased to report 100% success!!! 3 recent downpours, not to mention strong winds and the mats are now bone dry and the car condensation free. Part used roll of p-strip for sale...      

Hi just wondered if this solution was still working and if so, could you take a photo of exactly where to put the p strip?

Thank you.