Dungadungadun's Fabia mk2 Estate

[Dungadungadun]

About a year ago, I was looking for my first car and I found this:
A Skoda Fabia estate, 1.4L TDI, not too bad for a first car. So I called up the dealer to get a reservation after months of searching for a car and finally have my first car. Anyways, the dealer later rang up and said his wife already sold it.
So I got this instead: Another Skoda Fabia estate, same colour even, but with an extra cylinder, 1.6L and 105 horses. But I did loose my climate control and fog lamps :(
 

 
Up to now, its been a fine and dandy motor, never had a moment when it couldn't do what I want, but I'll be honest,  this car is not a special edition and I'm not planning to do too much to it outside for the sake of convenience, but hey, why not record what I do end up doing?
Things I currently done:
Get a spare wheel.
Discover the spare wheel was only 14" and couldn't fit the front brakes
Get a replacement spare wheel at 15" with legal tread

Have an inadvertent collection of car jacks

Vacuum up the birds nest that was hiding in my engine

Spoiler

before:

After:

Mayor of London did unfortunately revoke my ULEZ status after this.

Hardwire install of my dashcam, I wont admit how many times that flatten my battery.

Spoiler

And turn it into a camper to prove that estates are the superior automotive.

Few things I plan to be done:
Fix my boot open light
Install fog lamps (just need wiring, switches and to unjam a stuck bulb)
Find a boot floor mat
Install a towbar (real exciting)
Grab some mk1 VRS alloys, will admit the current alloys are too small for the brakes
NOT install a whiteline RARB... @DieselMonte

[DieselMonte]

H&R one then?

[AnnoyingPentium]

Following with great interest. Love the car and the humour.

[Dungadungadun]

Second update: Even more blander edition
The TDI badge looked little tatty, so decided to go over with a permanent marker

Spoiler

Before:

After:

At a glance, it looks pretty good I'd say but a good idea fairy beaten me to painting this and it looks little dodgy close up so  I might just debadge it later.
Now the most dramatic thing to occur: A bulb had blown. 
Having a close look, it was the sidelight that blew, so just a simple pull in and out

BUT THEN, IT GOT WORSE! A weather cap fell off. So I bought a new one, just a fiver for one off a ford.

So a month later and nothing I intended to do has been done?
Yes. But not entirely, as I have fog lamps lying around
 
This one only needs a buff to look good as new
 
But this one has a bulb trapped inside, I think I'll just have to cut it out somehow (Anyways, how the hell did someone get that in there in the first place?)
 
Plus I am still searching for the DRL switch, wiring and electrics or DIY my own.

[Dungadungadun]

Also forgot to add responses

On 05/11/2022 at 20:56, DieselMonte said:

H&R one then?

Listen here you little...

On 06/11/2022 at 08:29, AnnoyingPentium said:

Following with great interest. Love the car and the humour.

Glad you liked it

[Dungadungadun]

Mild update no. 1:

Monte finally managed to get his hands on my car, and had a fiddle around with VCDS and now the steering setting has been changed from the stock steering weight to a more “heavier” setting. Quite like the weighty steering.

Lack photos because its hard to visualise weight without a newton meter

I really should grab an OBD2 adapter of my own.

 

Mild update no 2:

Also decided to give a quick clean of the gear stick, looked bit crusty. Simple go over with a brush did the trick.

Spoiler

Only have the after photo

If you are so inclined for a before photo, draw a 1-5 on the back of your foot.

 

Now the big update

I have finally gotten around to installing my fog lamps

Bulbs are just for show for now, hopefully I can get them fully working soon!

The hard part of this entire ordeal was getting the old blanks out, preferably without breaking them (nor my bumper).

Here is the story of trying to remove it:

Spoiler

At first I thought it would just be like the fog lamps, have a tab that could be pushed and it popped out – turns out not so much.

So second thought would be to whack it out. Which went as well as you’d expect when all I have to swing is my wrist. However I did find out that the catch for the fog lamp tabs was an excellent fulcrum for my hand, but just not quite strong enough to pop it straight out.

Third attempt used a little more brains and used a end bit of a flat head screw driver to force the tabs down and hopefully slide out. Didn’t go anywhere

Fourth attempt was thinking of removing the front bumper. When I realised the entire front end was designed by Rube Goldberg, deterred me a little.

Fifth attempt was when I found some copper wire lying around, it turns out it had some very useful features, namely that it was flexible enough to wrap around the fins of the blank, it was narrow enough to squeeze through the panel gap and doesn’t like to snap often. But unfortunately it tends to hook off the blank if too much pressure is applied. And even if I could apply the pressure, it probably snap my fingers first.

 

In the end, I finally got out the blank using this method (I will go into stupid level detail, as I would of appreciated that myself):

Spoiler

1. wear thick sleeves and heavy gloves, and wrap the wire around tightly, this would distribute the strain of the copper wire away from you hands, makes it a lot more comfortable and easier to apply more pressure. (here I got some leather gloves, but even garden gloves should do the trick)

2. Insert the copper wire behind the blank, this can be done by pressing on the blank from the inside, giving enough of a gap to squeeze in the wire, then grabbing the wire from inside, dont worry about scratching as its all behind and it more likely to scratch the blank where nobody can see. Once it is hooked onto the plastic like this, make sure it's as deep as you possibly can get it otherwise it just slides off. Trying to get the wire to catch on can be difficult, so try flattening a part of the wire to hook onto the far end of the blank easier and don’t wear a glove on your free hand just yet too, but do keep one nearby.

3. Now that you are applying as much force as you can from the wire, put on the glove and start pushing from inside. I find grabbing the tab to hold the fogs and pushing with my knuckles works most effectively. Remember to constantly apply more force to the wire so the blank wont bend back into place.

4. A big enough gap should be made to fit a finger or two in, while this happens start yanking the blank straight out. I will not recommend doing this step without thick gloves and extreme caution in case something goes wrong. I do not want to be responsible for breaking someones hand as the blank snapped back.

One important note across all of this is that the bumper and blank are designed to take on a ridiculous amount of strain and flex, whatever you have would buckle before they break.

For being entirely held in by tabs barley a millimetre thick, they are some adamant buggers (like as if VAG didn’t want people just easily retrofitting lamps from scrapped skodas for a fraction of the price at dealership, what a surprise!)

Also I might make an actual guide about this later, but would like to set up the wiring first.

 

As of course it wont be me solving anything without creating 3 more issues.

Mainly now I have to sort a wiring system for the lights. Really hoping that I can grab a front fog light switch and make it just work

But now with the DLRs, it seems much harder to find the switch for that so I feel like experimenting. Considering on making this to wire up them up, though it needs to be remade to physically work.

If you understood that first try, then congratulations.

On the other hand, in trying to free the trapped bulb, now a piece of the cluster has snapped off, and I’ve lost it so I cant glue it back on. I have given a test drive and ragged around a little and the bulb hasn’t fallen out so I’ll just pretend everything’s fine. Perhaps put some blutack in if it somehow slips out.

Also now I have two spare blanks for no apparent reason. Think I’ll leave them in the attic and see if I can cultivate two new fabias.

[AnnoyingPentium]

20 hours ago, Dungadungadun said:

draw a 1-5 on the back of your foot.

 

 

Wonderful style of writing here. I love it.

[Dungadungadun]

This update was long overdue, but hey I had to wing most of this.

 

First a little piece of advice that I thought of in a dream, and not accidentality did to myself at all: if you are planning to get sick for over a fortnight and have a car with a dodgy battery that can barley last that, do not store your tools in the boot behind an electronically controlled boot lid, saving yourself from having to climb from the front drivers seat to the boot. Especially in an estate. No I will not expand on this any further.

 

But first real story: The Washening

For the first time in a while, good weather came around and I wanted to give my carpet cleaner a try on me seats and carpets. The car does feel fresher with a do-over.

The befores:

Spoiler

Trust me, there's bits of mud and grass somewhere in that pic. I think.

The Afters:

Spoiler

extra stuff

Spoiler

Always make sure you do have enough spare time and good weather to dry everything out, otherwise your left with this.

If you don’t think much has changed in the before and after, I’d like to offer an delicious smoothie I got here. I had a few to spare too if you'd like seconds.

Also I discovered where the saftey triangle was supposed to be mounted. Wasn't exactly hidden, just that I put 1 and 1 together now.

 

 

Dungadungadungadungadungan’s foglight shenanigans part 2

Once again, going into ridiculous details for anyone wanting to DIY the foglights in themselves.

First to get out of the way is the ordering of components and soldering:

Spoiler

Here is all the things I needed to wire up the lights, minus tools, two fuses (20 Amp), 2 meters of black cable and a box of shovel connectors. The surprisingly hard part was hunting down the DRL connectors, took a while to find “1J0973722” as my best option. Also that cable there was 20 meters, you could probably do it in 15 or 10, but the spare gives comfortable margins or error and I'll use it all up some day or another anyways.

If you are copying this list, I would recommend swapping out a ring connector for a fork, as it can save the effort of taking the entire screw out; but nothing was (solely) resting on the screws that I was using, if you prefer the extra security of a ring.

Forgot to take photos before, but first found the grounding points for either side lights, then used a ball of string to measure from the ground to the lights, then measured the cable against the string, then cut to length.

 

Heres a little video of soldering the wiring up (This took way too much effort to get to here)

I did attach the live cables on afterwards, but it was 8 meters worth each side and bit of a handful to show.

Next up will be the installing of the wiring (Or consider this Part 2 of Part 2 of Part 2...)

Spoiler

First thing I got done was to get the grounding points sorted

Next up was to pull the red wires up and through (did this the other side too)

Fed the wire to the passenger side with some wire management hooks, wired up the two sides together with a chocolate block connector, saves time bringing a soldering iron out and leaves the connection reversible too.

While I didn’t bother pre-emptively marking what was fogs or daytime, I decided to tap the cable off the battery and saw what light came on. Don't worry about the sparking, the sparks fear you more than you fear them.

Next challenge up was to feed the wires into the interior, first thing is to get under the scuttle. Which means getting off the wipers, which they really, really didn’t want to. As a rough estimation of the force required, this is what I had to do.

If you are particularly precious about your bonnet, I recommend to have someone else holding your wipers before they blast off with a bang. Also spare pair of underwear for the faint of heart

Once the scuttle panel is removed, I threaded the cables through the bonnet release grommet using a copper wire (same one I used to remove the blanks in fact)

Now that the tip of the wire got through, then it was just simply pull the rest of the 8 meter long wire through. Arm length at time.

Once again through the bonnet cable grommet into the interior, but since this time the copper wire was going in the same way I was moving the wires in, I made a double hook, one end to punch through the grommet, one to pull the wires through. Once it got through, I put a camera up the passenger foot well and looked out for the copper wire, then pulled it the rest of the way. And then repeat pulling the entirety of the 8 meter cable through, but now worrying if I caught it on anything that I can’t see, as if it wasn't enthralling enough.

Now two points: This does technically leave a (tiny) air gap between the two grommets from the engine to the cabin, however its miniscule considering there is a massive hole for the heater running right next this, and I have not noticed anything when driving around. Also there was another unused grommet not far from the wires, however I couldn’t find where it lead to so I just used the bonnet latch grommet again (Pic below without the grommet)

Once the wire is through, I just stuck it to the bottom of the glove box, fed it through the center by pulling out the radio out, put the cable underneath and fed it to the fuse box

Part 3: Wiring logic

Spoiler

While I don’t have any photos of the wiring around the taps as its a rats nest, I will explain what I did:

First up to do was to end off the wires to the lights with two chocolate blocks, so if I mess up here it will remain here. After that, find good places to place the switches, measure the distances from the taps and cable, then cut and crimp on spade connectors. Also make an additional ground for the illuminated switch.

Both wires were little finicky to wire up, lower switch had to be done mostly blind, top one had to be fed through the dash (and had a bit of a confusing wiring diagram) and the chocolate blocks often needed finessing to fit above the fuse box.

For taps, I reused my dashcam tap for the DRL, but gave a new tap for the fog light as putting them all down one wire, about 3-4 times the rated amplitude of the original fuse, just sounds like a bad idea to me

now finally, after a long time of arse-sitting, wiring magic and guesswork, I have my lights fully working

For future changes, I might either try to rewire the fog light switch to be like the typical VAG fog switch or attempt to have an indicator flash for the DRL too, but I really don’t like the idea of playing with the VCU. Also may still write a better detailed guide on wiring if the need be, but I won’t be surprised if there is some obviously better ways to do or improve this

[Dungadungadun]

So recently I got my hands on some trim tools

They’re cheap, nasty but got everything I needed done.

First thing to go after: the hole in my door

Since I first bought this car, it always had a hole where the mirror control blank belonged, and for the longest time I struggled trying to find a replacement part, all scrappers sold the entire door frame along with and the only spare parts store selling was selling it for 0.77c. With an import from Czech Republic for €15. This admittedly was a little bit off putting for a small hole in the door; however someone mentioned that it could just simply of fell into the door, so decided to take a bet and have a look.

Apologies for lack of photos, pretty difficult to do while holding a door card.

It turned out that blank was just lying within the door all along, and luckily no tabs cracked in the process. The tab itself was somehow undamaged too, just needed a little scrub and slotted back in.

I will mention I didn't hear a rattle or anything else that indicated that the blank was in there.

Quite nice to have the interior complete for once.

While I still have mcguffin removers, decided to take a go at the sunglasses retrofit

Small piece of advice for anyone wanting to do the same, rather than just poking for the tabs from outside and pulling down, I found it much more easier to remove the inside lights, reach in and push on a tab, while simultaneously pulling down.

Spoiler

two useless points barely worth mentioning

I accidentally cracked the alarm securing tab on the blanking cover when removing it. Truly heartbreaking.

I also found that my screw driver was skipping while removing the lights, took a closer look and found it like this. Did me good for 6 years, you will be sorely missed.

Also gave a shot at trying to solve my boot open light problem too by fiddling around with the boot latch

I took it out, couldn’t replicate the issue, shoved it full of WD40 and contact cleaner for good measure, saw the light work fine so I have no clue what happened, but now it works so I wont question it.

And finally, while I had the boot cracked open, decided to take a shot at restoring my plate screws

Unfortunately it seems I’ve developed an allergy to before photos, so here’s an assortment of things which came out while removing the screws. Also you could see old photos of my plate too.

All but one went generally fine, front plate screws were the easiest, no resistance and came clean off. The rear plates needed bit of convincing to come off, one eventually surrendered. The other however...

Spoiler

In the end I had to rip out the tab and replace it with plastic plate holders

 

Its quite nice to no longer have rusty screws right in front of my car, but the plates are starting to separate the paper and acrylic layers and possibly have their days numbered

 

 

 

[Dungadungadun]

 

Yes, I'll confess, I have been neglecting this page. Hell, all the embeds have gotten bored of waiting and left.

I hope this post will make up for the delay.

 

Part 1:

100,000 miles anniversary

Spoiler

 

Actually, its been a while since then and now my miles around here...

 

I think 100,000 was a more rounder number to announce.

 

Part 2:

Back boot cubby thing

Spoiler

Went to a dealer to grab a little boot groceries cubby thing

 

 

It holds groceries

 

 

very good.

Near must-have for an estate

 

Part 3:

I got a VCDS cable

Spoiler

 

First thing I did was check if I could add needle sweep, unfortunately my cluster lacks that. Perhaps I should hunt for a maxidot some day.

 

But I did manage to figure out which injector was making my engine run funny

 

 

 

I have been considering re-wiring my fog lights to work with the BCM, but all the guides I’ve seen never mention using any fuses, which just doesn’t sound right to me.

 

Part 4:

The futility of cleaning.

Spoiler

 

Starlings, beautiful, aren't they? Well they’ve been making me tear my hair out.

 

Birdwatchers from all over the country have been massing to watch the starling murmuration, where it seems to be entirely localised over my car.

This was the day right after I washed my car.

 

 

Few weeks later, I gave it another clean

 

Unfortunately, I was so disheartened again, I forgot to take photos.

But the day after, I had to pick up my sister who immediately burst out laughing when she saw how bad it was. Then laughed even harder once she heard I cleaned just the day before.

 

The muck was so bad, even the mechanics at the tyre shop joked about it, that was only a week after.

 

Part 5:

The big one: Finally managed to get some vrs alloys

Spoiler

 

First thing I had to do was replace one bad looking one with another second hand

There was a small corrosion issue I had with one wheel, which I solved by buying another spare. So now I have an extra alloy hiding under my bed, which I have no clue what to do with.

 

I actually had them lying around my house for a while, the part that took so long was mustering the courage to buy the tyres. But in the end I think the looks are worth.

 

 

 

Part 6: Extra shenanigans

Spoiler

 

Here’s a hubcap I found on the side of the road

Its been there for almost a year, so I doubt the owner is coming back to grab it any time soon.

 

So call now and claim your free* hub cap today, while stocks last (i.e the council comes and throws it in a skip – which once again its been over a year which I’m actually impressed by)

*Package and shipping fees not included

 

Edited 21 March by Dungadungadun

[Dungadungadun]

It seems my images have broken (again). Hopefully a new image host will work better this time.

 

I have a confession to make: I was lying when I photographed the wheels I had, the centre caps were merely stick-ons that were there for the pics, when I drove I just use the tatty old caps that came with the wheels.

Now I have made up for this deceit and created a more permanent solution, by stripping the worn old caps, and used an epoxy to give a strong bond to the stick on caps.

I would of taken pictures of the process, but somehow the epoxy combined with the protective plastic managed to attract every cat and dog hair within the midlands region.

 

I also got around to fitting some Wind Deflectors

I’ll be honest, I am still on the fence whether I like them or not

I’ll wait until summer and see if the car becomes a self-propelled greenhouse and cast judgement then.

 

On the other hand, I believe I have now completed my list of things I wanted to get done to the car. ignore the tow bar and boot mat, don't need them as much now.

 

Finally I’ve been facing DRL issues for a bit where one bulb randomly went out time to time. It turned out the bulb was held in loose and the potholes I’ve driven over managed to wriggle it off the contacts.

Screwdriver to tension the contacts solved the issue. More importantly it meant I did not have to admit to a fault of my own wiring and my pride remains intact.

Also the fog light cluster retention clip snapped somehow. So the cluster held in with zip ties for the time being.