sal_park

Hi Guys, quick question, and appologies if the answer's somewhere really obvious, but I can't see it... The bushes on the front wishbones were very very dead (as noted on the MOT), so for the first time with the galaxy I got the garage to change them rather than do it myself. Anyway after the job was done all was fine (no clonking) but give it 1 week/200 miles and it started to clonk. I sent it back and he 'tighten up a few bolt' and all was well again.... until my other half had to brake sharpy and the clonk was back. I strongly suspect that the garage has not lock-tighted the relevant bolts and want to check this - and here in lies my problem. Can someone point me to a guide that tell's me the torque settings and which bolts need to be lock-tighted ? The whole wishbone and bottom ball joint have been changed if this makes a difference. thanks in advance sal_park.

have a look here: http://www.fordgalaxy.org.uk/ford/index.php?showtopic=22526

I had to change one of my rear handbrake cables at the weekend after snapping it by pulling the handbrake on too hard. Took some pictures in case it helps anyone else who has to do this too. Tools needed: Axle stand hammer mole grips swan neck pliers spanners pliers socket set torque wrench (for the wheel bolts) time taken: about 1-1/2 hours procedure 1) Find out which handbrake cable has snapped. There are 3 (1 front & 2 rear). If you park it 1/2 on/off a curb you should be able to look under and see. 2) Jack up the car and take the wheel off. You can see where the front and rear cables join here. Spray the adjuster nut (just ahead of the spring) with WD40. 3) Starting from where the handbrake cable connects to the caliper, there are 3 clips to remove. The first is on the caliper itself. This was quite tight and need a quick twist with the swan necks to get it loose: 4) Now pry out the two metal clips on the suspension arm. Note that there is some rubber bushing either side of the 1st clip. 5) Now remove the cable from the last clip. Again it was rusted in place and need to be twisted a bit to get it free: 6) You can now remove the old cable and thread the new cable through in it's place. At this point I discovered that the new cable was a bit shorted (10mm), had a smaller nipple at the caliper end and would not fit in the last clip. With a bit of adjustment from a spanner it fitted in ok (btw, the new cable end was .2 mm bigger) 7) At this point you need to adjust the nut on the front cable to slacken it off to let you put the new cable on. Once the cable was on I tightened the adjusted back up so that I could only get 4-5 clicks on the handbrake. 8) Now the remaining 3 clips need to be put back. The two on the suspension arm need to be bent back in place with a hammer (careful you don't break the brake pipe!) and the final one was just pushed on. 9) Wheel on (125 lb/ft) and job done.

>>Because I saw in ETKA of VW that the Drier can be sold alone. was this for a mk 1 ? in the mk 2 the dryer and condenser are one unit. I guess another possibility is that this could be a replacement dryer cartridge that you simply replace the old one with. Still you'll need to de-pressurise and re-charge the aircon to do this. sal

Hi, since starting this thread I've found 2 very useful discussions on this topic: 1 - General discussion about the leaky condenser and how to see it easily without taking the bumper off here - this one is worth reading to the end - it's quite a long thread. 2 - Details how to remove the bumper here Also I got my condenser from eurocarparts - it was only priced at 90 quid (but strangely I was charged slightly less ??). Not a recommendation, but I'll report back when I've fitted it. sal

Hi, After reading this thread I'm pretty sure I need to replace my dryer/condenser. I've bought a new one from euro car parts (~80 quid) and plan on fitting it in the next few days, but I'm wondering if there are any things to watch out for or pitfalls to avoid ? Is it just a case of unscrewing the connectors for the current condenser and put the new one in ? I assume I shoud replace the seals between the aircon pipes and condenser - I've bought 2 for the local VW shop (VW part no 'V8E0 260 749' description 'A3G1D SEAL') - can anyone confirm these are the correct part ? thanks in advance sal

prudential car insurance are currently offering 130 quid back of their insurance here (about quidco) I've used this in the past and got

Hi mancini602, when you turn the lights on does this always 'stop' the problem ? when the lights are off, is the problem always there ? I would think that if you experiment with this a bit so ideally you can, as suggested by adrianf take it to an auto electrician and say to them 'do xyz and the fault occurs, do abc and there is no problem'. This is probably going to be the easiest/cheapest way to get this problem fixed. sal_park

how about a bad earth somewhere ?

Hi, I've just changed/toped up the gearbox oil in my 2001 V6 (5 speed auto) and this is what I found: 1) It took all day to do (8:30 am - 8:30 pm). Needless to say my other half was non too pleased ! 2) The diagrams attached in this thread are no relevant for the V6 autobox. On the bottom of the box there are seperate fill and drain nuts (as pointed out previously by wytonpjs) - a big 24mm nut - this is the drain plug & an overflow plug. The overflow plug that you remove to check the level only is a 14mm nut on the bottom of the box. There are lots of these on the autobox, but this this the only one on the bottom that is not used on an edge to bolt the sides of the box together. 3) To get the box warm I idled it for 10 minutes (no vag-com to test the temperature properly). The spec states you should have an oil temperature of 35-45 C which to my mind is hot-but-not-quite-scalding and 10 minutes idle seemed to do the trick. 4) As per other people here I could only get the oil from ford since I couldn't find the spec for it. If it helps anyone here is a picture of the bottle which may enable you to work out what this oil is: 5) The real time waster for this job is getting to the fill pipe. It is really really buried in the center of the engine bay under (what felt like about) 1000 cables and pipes. I suspect this is the reason there is a red collar is to aid identification. and you can only see it from under the car. Here is a (fairly bad) picture of the fill pipe with collar removed and the cap 1/2 way out: (The cap is outlined in yellow and the metal fill pipe is outlined in red) As you might be able to tell from the photo I've had to move quite a few of the electrical cable conduits and this picture is taken from where the auxiliary air pump is located. (yes, you do have to remove it first :ph34r: ) 6) I got a piece of clear plastic tubing (about 10mm external diameter and 1 meter long) which fitted into the fill pipe perfectly. This was then passed up through the engine bay to a funnel which was then tie-wrapped to the bonnet catch. I found I was about 600ml down in the end, so it was all worth the trouble ! sal_park

Hi, I had the warning light come up on the dash because one of my brake lights was not working. Not really an issue, got some more, fitted them but looking at them they appeared very dim. Turns out that the brake light connector can power the 21W brake filament or the 5 watt side light filament! Great design or what ? To be fair after fitting it both ways, the correct way was a good fit and the wrong way was a bit loose, but still worked !. Makes you wonder how many Galaxys are running round with 5W brake lights ?? I guess thats why the manual says to change the bulbs 'take it to a ford dealer' 5W brake light: (looks dim to the naked eye) 21W brake light: (difficult to stare at with the naked eye) sal

Have you checked that the old and/or new thermostat work ? stick them in a cold pan of water on the stove and then heat the water - when it starts to boil the thermostat should be visibly open. (this bit below may or may not be relevant to Galaxy's) Also you can get different rated thermostats on the same engine/car combination - they just open at a different temperature. It could be that you've been supplied the wrong one for the engine ?

what about some tie wraps ? you can even get re-usable ones, but I guess either would be pretty suitable given how often the cover should come off.

Hi, have you check the level of oil in the gearbox (this is separate from the engine oil) ? I believe that if this is getting a bit low then it can cause the changes to be less smooth/ make strange noises Just a guess, though. sal