MountainBikeMike's Skodaru

[brad]

Has anyone with auto wipers had any experience with Rain-X? I used it not long after I first bought the Octy, and found it messed with the rain drop counter thing's mind for the auto wipers and they became even more erratic than they are normally. Also experienced a fair bit of juddering of the blades with Rain-X on, so removed it.

Never had those issues on mine.

Could be the following:
Excessive use of product or product not buffed off properly.
Windscreen not prepared properly prior to application of product
wipers not cleaned properly
rain sensor requires adjustment

[Martin]

I didn't encounter random auto wiping but I did get a lot of wiper blade judder - that's what forced me to look for alternatives (Nanolex)

[MountainBikeMike]

Get bored

Make battery cover cover











Lol. Took about an hour and half, bending it and cutting with the scroll saw. Doesn't look amazing, but something different. At least this weird type of sheet metal doesn't show scratches at all. Will have to do one for the fuse box as well.

Also put on a new sticker, which I find really makes the engine look tough and fills some boring space.



ALSO got a new better mat finally. Its for the sedan but it fits! I put little slits where the ground hook points are so they fit through after taking the pic. Looks much cleaner than that foam crap and would hold a water spill ok. $30 SHIPPED on AliExpress... wtf





Decided randomly to do the ghettoest, most retarded mod. Adding weight to the gear rod with dynabolts and zip ties. Its an extra 250grams, but its not high enough really to make a solid difference. Still pretty lol and hasn't moved in a month.



AND FINALLY got my DNS-810! Yay sat nav, bluetooth, rear cam (not working yet) and mp3/flac/video. Still need fascia! And proper firmware so the kent works!



And some casual trails at West Gate park

[MountainBikeMike]

Some pics of whats been happening in the last month:

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Moar lows, with 2 downhill bikes and gear inside, plus the trail bikes on the back, in Cooma



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Matti (Mysticality) came down for a Melbourne meet. Toddzy also came for a get together

















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Had a 4 day trip to Stromlo, Tuggeranong, Jindabyne and Thredbo.



Hit this 50-60ft double at Thredbo. Was spinning out in tenth and overshot. Shat my pants











I won't bore you too much with riding pictures

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VAG Monthly Reefton run in January

[guile]

Bore away mate, pretty cool, wish i had the minerals to do that shizzle...

Different and interesting mods as usual, keep up the good work...

[brad]

Love the bike photos. I should start riding again - miss that feeling when you're flying through the air & aren't quite sure if you'll die.

You should pop in at my home forum carandimage there's a pretty keen (but small) biking / driving / photographing community there.

Can you link to the Aliexpress for the mat? What do you mean by "cleaner than that foam crap"

[MountainBikeMike]

Thanks guys

Love the bike photos. I should start riding again - miss that feeling when you're flying through the air & aren't quite sure if you'll die.

You should pop in at my home forum carandimage there's a pretty keen (but small) biking / driving / photographing community there.

Can you link to the Aliexpress for the mat? What do you mean by "cleaner than that foam crap"

Hahahaha yes, exactly that feeling.

I'd be interested to look that thread up. Do you have a link for it?

Rear Tail Trunk Mat Protector Cargo Liner Carpet tray boot For Skoda Octavia

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Rear-Tail-Trunk-Mat-Protector-Cargo-Liner-Carpet-tray-boot-For-Skoda-Octavia/1541534705.html

from AliExpress

If you look back a bit for ny pic of the boot with the cleaning stuff from DOTVW you'll see the foam I had in there. In fact it's still on the back of the rear seats. Works fine, doesn't look great.

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk

[brad]

Car and Image Forums

best you have a browse. A lot of sections aren't accessible unless you are a member. It's a very tight-knit forum but they always welcome new folk.

[MountainBikeMike]

Replaced my cam follower finally today. Very happy I did, as it was clearly very worn on both sides. The plunger with the spring around it on the pump side of the follower also had a flat spot. It took around an hour, but I had complications.

The pressure release valve must be removed in order to get to the lowest of three torx bolts that hold the hpfp in place. The socket of the valve has the softest metal, and it stripped when using a cone spanner, and there was no way I could get rid of it. I clamped it with vice grips and also made new ridges on it with a dremel, no go. I had to wait a few days while I bought a new valve. I then chopped off the old one and extracted it no probs. All is well now, just need to shower off the fuel sprays :p




Lots of wear, inside and out




Extracting the dead valve...


I made sure to put some of this stuff on the follower before insertion

[MountainBikeMike]

Hey guys, bit of an update. After 10 hours of swearing and hurting, I'd finally done the timing belt change myself

When I bought the car dad and I looked up the specs for its change, and were certain it had to be done at 160-180k km. That ended up being for Europe, so we were wrong. I panicked, having already driven 118k km, it was almost 20,000km overdue. So I got to it straight away before the Winton FunDay.

For reference:

I got the parts from Skoda Brighton. I called and the guy accidentally gave me the trade price, realized what he'd done, and said he'd just do it anyway. This came to (PLUS TAX):
-Repair kit including belt, rollers, tensioner: $275 (list price $358 )
-Water pump $80 (list price $115)
-Water pump core $65 (refundable upon return of used water pump core)
-1.5L of genuine coolant $20 (list $23) which I'm going to take back, as it wouldn't have been enough, and I ended up buying 5L on concentrate (makes 10L) from Repco for $46 (RACV discount)

My mechanic is very cheap most of the time, and he quoted me $650 labour, which I still didn't like the sound of. I would say difficulty wise, you need to be very switched on, and have a high level of perseverance. You also need an excess of time- that was my biggest struggle, and the major cause of stress (had to get it ready for track day Sunday). But there were a fair few times I couldn't see extra bolts thats weren't listed in the DIY's I used (I used two to cross-check).

I didn't need any really specific tools, I just followed the DIY's that can easily be found by googl'ing "FSI 2.0 TIMING BELT". On there it mentioned the job would take someone with experience 4-5 hours, but set aside 8 hours. Including re-filling coolant and some drive testing, it took ten hours for me. I jacked up the car in the morning and rode to work. Started at 5.30pm Friday and went till 1.30am... Then another 2-3 hours Saturday after work. It wasn't too bad doing the techy bits in the dark. The hardest part was dealing with getting the engine mount up and out of the way. The fuel lines needed to be moved in my Skoda, as well as removing the K&N intake so that I could jack the engine higher. Lots and lots of bolts also have to be removed, so its difficult to remember which is which.

I've now driven it 700km including 50 happy laps of Winton and no dramas at all!

The missy being stuck


And by 1am...


Shot of the belt and all rollers off, and the pump out


All the bits taken out of the side of the engine bay


Old vs New water pump. The guy at the dealer told me to give it a good clean before returning for refund...


Aaaaand the following day


For anyone else game enough to save the dough and learn a sh17load about their engine: GLHF!

[BrashDaniels]

Hey guys, bit of an update. After 10 hours of swearing and hurting, I'd finally done the timing belt change myself

When I bought the car dad and I looked up the specs for its change, and were certain it had to be done at 160-180k km. That ended up being for Europe, so we were wrong. I panicked, having already driven 118k km, it was almost 20,000km overdue. So I got to it straight away before the Winton FunDay.

For anyone else game enough to save the dough and learn a sh17load about their engine: GLHF!

I don't think I could have pulled that off without Dad and a lot more swearing - Well Done - and congrats to the missus for not divorcing you in the process. Awesome thread

[woofy]

My Dad and I came to the conclusion a long time ago when I was 16 and went to work on my first car, that we should never work on a car together again and that from now on, anything bigger or complicated is left to Mechanics to curse at and I'll just do the small stuff. It has worked for us ever since!

[Lucas_R]

Well done on the timing belt change Mike - big job for someone who has never done it before. Kudos.

[Martin]

Great effort

(I also have my 350Z in pieces - learning lots)

Love the photo of the lady in the tyres

Matti's wheels actually look good from a distance in those photos

[MountainBikeMike]

So today is another mod day. I finally got around to installing the $15 repco boost guage I've had sitting around for about 4 months. Back when I got it I made a fibreglass/carbon bay for it, which was cool as, but it didn't turn out that well because it was way to sticky with the resin, and also ended up with a bad fit.



Anyway I found inspiration from Jon doing a few installs for his mate, so I finally got to it. I might make another fibreglass one again one day, but for now this one sits nicely in the groove under the tacho.

So firstly I connected the vacuum hose to the other port where the diverter valve blow-back connects to the intake manifold, and routed it under the intake, and behind the battery, through the firewall (drilled its own hole there so it never gets pinched), and up to the top-dash. Will get an engine pic tomorrow.


I sat the sender unit here.


Opened this little part


Carefully drilled a little hole here and fed the wires from the gauge that I headshrinked in black through.


And drilled here to make some extra clearance for the cables. This is the section underneath the window that covers the top of the steering column.


Then I soldered the sender and gauge red power wires on to the amp-on wire that I just pinch in to one of the fuse slots.

I also wrapped the gauge back and sides in black tape to protect the window from scratching, and dull down the flashy appearance a bit. I stuck the gauge down with 3M clear sticky gel stuff, the stuff that comes on various packaging, it sticks well and peels easily. Here's what the finished job looks like.