Around two months ago now I swapped my Mk1 Fabia for this blue weapon.

 

 

Cheapest one I could find at the time which wasn't rotten, battered or broken, so I expected a few niggles and here they are:

• Poor fuel economy down to suspected binding rear brakes - one caliper already replaced and the other arrived today and will be done shortly.
• Very unevenly worn front tyres - practically bald on the inside edge, these have now been replaced with some nice Goodyears but I reckon the alignment is out (probably contributing to the poor fuel economy as well).
• The car had gone nearly 20k miles without a service when I bought her, so immediately replaced the oil, oil filter, fuel filter, air filter and cabin filter which made me a lot happier - the old oil came out looking like molasses  🤮
• Oil in the coolant (but thankfully not the other way around) - I replaced the oil cooler and gave the coolant a good flush through to rectify this - there is still a little in there as it seemed to be impossible to get the whole lot out but there is a lot less than before and it doesn't appear to be accumulating over time.
• Very scary injector issue which caused the car to drop a cylinder and go into limp mode while coming off a roundabout - this transpired to be a faulty injector loom, a much more palatable amount of money to sort than a faulty injector.
• The paint isn't great - lacquer peel on the bonnet and little bits of missing paint on the rear bumper, along with tiny scratches and swirl marks over most of the body which should come out with a thorough polish.  It does clean up relatively well though and the colour is gorgeous.

 

Other than that list the car is great - huge boot, much better seats than the Fabia and cruise control keeps me happy on the motorway.  It also has a good bit of go (although not that much more than the PD130 Fabia) and handles pretty well for a sizeable car if you can stop things flying around in the massive boot!

 

I'll try to keep this thread going - I'll add a little bit on some of the jobs I've done already and keep updating with any other small fixes or upgrades as I get around to doing them - hopefully no big ones!

Following with great interest. I love a Race Blue Octy.

17 minutes ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

Following with great interest. I love a Race Blue Octy.

It's the best colour imo, almost bought a black one a week or two before looking at this and it ended up being a dog - I'm glad now beause they don't look nearly as good!

Tackled the offside brake caliper this weekend and thought I'd do a little write up...

 

Everything came apart no bother until it came to removing the solid piece of brake pipe between the caliper and the flexi hose.  The nut on the caliper end was seized to the pipe, and thanks to the folly of youth it ended up looking like this:

 

 

Lesson learned I suppose... I booked train tickets for my weekend's movements and took to eBay to find a new one.  £9.74 delivered did me nicely.

 

Once the pipe dropped through my letterbox I got to putting everything back together.  Pads installed with new shims too:

 

 

Copper grease applied to the offending pipe area for the 1% chance I ever have to take it apart again - be nice to the next guy just in case the next guy is you!

 

 

Shiny red caliper ready for service:

 

 

I got that bolted on and bled up and job's a good un!

 

I don't think this side was dragging nearly as much as the other, I haven't noticed any difference in mpg so far.  I'll be booking wheel alignment the second I next get paid!

Car also got a polish yesterday so I took some sexy shots...

 

Just an aside for anyone else with an Octavia estate - the variable boot floor is brilliant.

 

I managed to find one on eBay the other week, paid £40 and collected it the same night.  Fitted in under two minutes and its excellent.  All of the usual crap I like to keep in the boot (tools, rags etc.) can be thrown under there tidy and out of the way to leave it looking tidy and have a clear load area for the rest of your junk.

 

Another plus is that I now have serious camping capability - the seats folded down are level with the raised floor and as I am pretty small at 5'8" I can lie completely flat and fairly comfortably.  Might have to try this out properly at a later date!

 

 

Final note - the car and I will be at Caffeine and Machine this Saturday evening (23rd April), if any fellow Brisky members are there come and say hi!

For the reasons that you mention both my MK1 and MK2 Octavia estates were perfect for my itinerant renovation in 2 countries lifestyle the variofloor being superb although it means a lot of offloading to use the spare wheel.

 

I now have a Yeti 4x4 which is brilliant for towing but am faced again with a several year restoration and it just does not cut it compared to the Octavias, I have adapted a MK1 Octavia Variofloor (2 out of 3 sections used) but the remaining load space even with the seats folded forward is severely compromised, I will have to remove the seats and make a front platform to sleep in it, with the Octavias they could simply be folded forwards, and there isn't a spare wheel space under the variofloor, if I carry one on long journeys it takes up all the remaining luggage space.

 

I might just yet revert to an Octavia Scout or 4x4 but the Yeti is great to drive.

PD 170.  So it's a BMN engine.  Is it still running the original plastic inlet manifold with flaps?  If so, you'd be well advised to swap that for a BKD alloy manifold without flaps.  

 

The flaps stick and break up and in extremis, bits get sucked into the. head.  Also the bushes for the spindle on which they're mounted wear and that allows boost to leak out of the manifold. All of that leads to rough running, poor performance and poor fuel economy.  

 

Changing to the BKD, PD140, inlet cures all that.  If you then have the car remapped you should get 210 bhp and 325 lbs-ft.  I did this to my old Mk5 Golf GT Sport and it flew while returning 50 + mpg on long runs if I restrained myself from exceeding 100 mph for long.  

8 hours ago, Schtum said:

PD 170.  So it's a BMN engine.  Is it still running the original plastic inlet manifold with flaps?  If so, you'd be well advised to swap that for a BKD alloy manifold without flaps.  

 

The flaps stick and break up and in extremis, bits get sucked into the. head.  Also the bushes for the spindle on which they're mounted wear and that allows boost to leak out of the manifold. All of that leads to rough running, poor performance and poor fuel economy.  

 

Changing to the BKD, PD140, inlet cures all that.  If you then have the car remapped you should get 210 bhp and 325 lbs-ft.  I did this to my old Mk5 Golf GT Sport and it flew while returning 50 + mpg on long runs if I restrained myself from exceeding 100 mph for long.  

Very good to know, I hadn't heard that anywhere until now.  I'll have a look at doing that mod, are they a straight swap without changing any other parts?

 

I've thought about a remap like you say to take the performance up a bit, as it's not blowing my socks off at the moment compared to my old PD130 Fabia... but I need to decide whether to go down the DPF delete route first.

13 minutes ago, valver16 said:

Very good to know, I hadn't heard that anywhere until now.  I'll have a look at doing that mod, are they a straight swap without changing any other parts?

 

I've thought about a remap like you say to take the performance up a bit, as it's not blowing my socks off at the moment compared to my old PD130 Fabia... but I need to decide whether to go down the DPF delete route first.

 

This is the easiest but not the cheapest way to do it.  https://www.darksidedevelopments.co.uk/products/ppd170-used-bkd-aluminium-inlet-manifold-conversion-kit.html. 

 

Otherwise, you can source a manifold from a breaker, I'd recommend Wigan VAG Parts, make sure its clean inside, get the correct gasket set and the necessary bolts.  

 

The Darkside kit comes with a .pdf fitting guide.  It's not exactly straightforward but no major modifications are needed.

 

Personally, I'm not a fan of DPF removal.  It's an MOT fail and a Constructions and Use Offence and I dislike smokey cars.  However, if you do remove it, you can probably see c. 240 bhp and over 360 lbs-ft with a remap.  210 bhp and 330 lbs-ft was enough to light up the front wheels

of my Golf on anything other than a dry road, even with the traction control enabled. 

 

9 hours ago, Schtum said:

 

This is the easiest but not the cheapest way to do it.  https://www.darksidedevelopments.co.uk/products/ppd170-used-bkd-aluminium-inlet-manifold-conversion-kit.html. 

 

Otherwise, you can source a manifold from a breaker, I'd recommend Wigan VAG Parts, make sure its clean inside, get the correct gasket set and the necessary bolts.  

 

The Darkside kit comes with a .pdf fitting guide.  It's not exactly straightforward but no major modifications are needed.

 

Personally, I'm not a fan of DPF removal.  It's an MOT fail and a Constructions and Use Offence and I dislike smokey cars.  However, if you do remove it, you can probably see c. 240 bhp and over 360 lbs-ft with a remap.  210 bhp and 330 lbs-ft was enough to light up the front wheels

of my Golf on anything other than a dry road, even with the traction control enabled. 

 

Some very interesting information on the Darkside website about this for anyone who's looking at this issue - https://www.darksidedevelopments.co.uk/Blog/killer-swirl-flaps/, I'll definitely be doing that I think.

 

I'm not a fan of smoky cars either, just shouts of a bad tune to me... not that fussed about the extra power from a DPF removal really, more interested in stopping it giving me bother in the future, but if you've had 210bhp and 330lbsft without removing then that's plenty for me.

Bobbed over to the Total Retro show near Kendal this weekend - the dad wagon is a bit new to get in but there were some awesome rides there!

 

The odd rolling shot on the way down...

 

 

Parked up...

 

 

100% recommend to anyone who likes 80's and 90's cars, with little bits of older stuff dotted about too.

Let's not talk about how much I've spent in the last ten minutes on bits for this car... let's just say it is not compatible with apprentice wages 😫

 

List is as follows:

• 2x track rods - there is play somewhere in my steering and I'm 90% sure it's one or both of the inner joints
• Both track rod ends - might as well while I'm in there since it's getting wheel alignment anyway
• A couple of coolant hoses - I've had quite an alarming leak from a rubbed through hose for a couple of weeks now
• A front Skoda badge - it looks tatty
• A front grille - If you look closely in above photos you can see that mine brayed (braid?) a pheasant at about 50mph not long after buying the car

Photos of it all on the car to follow next week, fingers crossed!

I'm not sure that I will be able to contain my excitement while waiting for photographs of track rod ends, coolant hoses and a badge.

42 minutes ago, J.R. said:

I'm not sure that I will be able to contain my excitement while waiting for photographs of track rod ends, coolant hoses and a badge.

I have to get excited about something since my actual project car needs more money throwing at it than I can afford 😂

Long time no update, as I've been busy busy recently.  Nothing particularly exciting has happened to the car since I last posted on here but for you boring sods here's the list anyway:

 

- Track rods and ends fitted, which made precisely zero difference to the play in my steering, so I'll just live with that for now...

- Finally flushed the coolant through enough that there's no residual oil left from previous oil cooler issues.  Now all that's needed in this department is a nice new header tank since mine is beyond cleaning.

- New front brake discs and pads - good quality Pagid parts which should look a lot better than the crusty old discs for some time to come, the silver paint on Pagid discs seems to stay on and prevent ugly rust around the edges pretty well.

- I had a minor rear end bump (no other cars involved, entirely my fault) and now need to source a bumper and tailgate in the correct colour.

- And the most exciting for last: fitted an RCD330 head unit which was going spare from my dad's old Tiguan and it's brilliant, a huge upgrade.  I also fitted a USB extension from it which goes into my jumbo box so that I don't have annoying cables coming out of my dash when using CarPlay.  The fitting was very easy, plugged straight into the existing radio connector and worked straight away.  All I need now is the correct dash fascia to fit it (same as Columbus/Amundsen I believe), but finding one of these in VRS silver with pre-FL climate control holes is proving tricky.

Have you managed to find a facia to suit the rcd330 and the mk2 climate controls? Picked up a 2007 vrs wagon same as yours last week so may upgrade the radio first haha.

@JBROWNE -  I have not yet.  The standard fascia still goes on but there is an unsightly gap around the edges.  I've just been trying not to look at it...

 

There are plenty of Chinese copy fascias in the right shape on eBay, but only in standard grey rather than VRS silver.  I suppose you could spray one silver or just deal with the incorrect colour, but I haven't bothered.

 

I did order a correct silver one from LLL Car Parts at vast expense, but despite it being listed as in stock on their website, they emailed me a few days later saying they didn't have any, and refunded my order.