sparky Paul

When the slave cylinder/release bearing leaked fluid, that clutch failure can be discounted as it can be put down to contamination of the friction plate with oil. Were the garage absolutely certain that contamination was hydraulic oil, and not engine or gearbox oil? Were the later failures due to worn friction plates, contamination or what? The only way you are going to diagnose is to drop the clutch out again and see what's going on. The clutch could be slipping because the friction material is worn or contaminated, in which case the cause of this needs to be investigated and rectified. If the friction material looks okay, it points towards the cover plate, release bearing or associated hydraulics. Any problems selecting gears from standstill with engine running before the failure?

Is your car a mk.I or II car? Dryer/condenser arrangement is different. On the mk.I the dryer is separate from the condenser and is mounted in front of the offside wheel arch. You can replace it without removing the bumper, and they cost around 20 quid for a new one. On the mk.II, dryer is part of the condenser, as Chris says above. Most common failure on the mk.I is the pipe which crosses under the chassis leg at the front of the offside wheelarch, and on the mk.II the condensor/dryer.

I think my man would fail that, should be a straightforward job to patch it though, and should look neat once it's blacked. The rot probably goes under the reinforcing plate, so that may have to come off and be remade. The days of cheap welding at garages are gone though, find a mate with a mig if you want it fixed for a few beers. The only thing that will slow down rot under there is waxoyl where you can't get, and good underseal on external surfaces.

The sensor is a fairly tight fit into the casting, and the corrosion which creeps from the inside of the hub makes it extremely tight. If the sensor has been undisturbed for any length of time, you usually have to destroy it to remove it.

You should be able to find someone who does mobile aircon servicing, but it might be worth having a chat over the phone first to make sure they have the facilities to repair the pipework. Alternatively, you could try refrigeration engineers, or even agricultural service engineers - most modern tractors and the like have aircon, and they always want the aircon working! Failing all that, it's a case of waiting for the pipes coming up on fleabay, which they do occasionally.

If they can't make a complete pipe up, it should be fairly straightforward to cut the old bits back and make a joining piece to make up the missing bit.

...or alternatively, they could probably repair what you have.

Some of the mk.I pipes were difficult to get hold of, even from dealers - they were permanently 'on order' when I was last looking, although the position may have changed by now. I was wondering if they had ceased manufacturing them anymore and were relying on remaining stock. The pipes were very expensive from the dealer, in any case. I would think the best bet would be to find an aircon specialist who can make replacement pipes up for you.

Well, I took the offending wiper blade apart, cut a bit off the end of all the bits, ground up the ends to resemble the original steel ends and put it all back together. Result is no bumping on the windscreen trim, and it looks okay. Still prefer the original ones, but you can't argue at £6-odd a pair, even if you do have to doctor 'em to fit. :)

Not a difficult job really. I didn't even take the CV joints off when I did mine, I left the CV and driveshaft in situe. Just take the driveshaft bolt out, separate the bottom balljoint from the hub, remove the driveshaft from the hub and remove the old ring. Remove the scale from the CV casing and carefully tap the new ring on, heating up first if necessary - then reassemble. Don't forget to renew the driveshaft bolt on reassembly, it's a stretch bolt and shouldn't be reused. If the sensor is damaged and also has to be replaced, they can be fun to remove - it's easiest done with the driveshaft removed from the hub.

Yeah, but when it's against the 'screen it's straight. :) The original metal frame wipers curve to match the curve of the screen at the bottom, if yer know what I mean! Anyway, I have a plan - I'll take one of new wipers apart and remove 1¼" from the inside end, see if that works. ;)

Yes it does. B) I did wonder because I don't recall seeing any curved aero blades.

Cheers John, now Iknow it's not just me with this problem. I'm not gonna start chopping bits of trim off the car, so if these won't fit with a bit of shortening, they'll go in the bin. @seatkid, I know about the later arms, but these blades were supposed to be specific fit for the mk.I and fit the old style hook fasteners. I was just wondering if the proper mk.II aero ones were straight or curved - I must say I prefer the look of the old curved blades against the bottom of the 'screen.

Looking around at various supliers, I've found a few sets of 28"/26" pairs, they all seem to be straight blades - I presume the short blade is to avoid them hitting the windcreen trim on the passenger side. I might have a go at chopping a bit off these to make them fit, until I can get a pair of 'proper' curved ones.

I don't mean the springy curve of the aero blades - the original Bosch metal frame type wipers are curved when looking from above, following the curve of the bottom of the windscreen. These new ones are straight and the very end of the nearside wiper fouls the windscreen trim. This end of the wiper also catches the underside of the wiper arm when the wiper blade rides up on the trim plastics. BTW, my mk.I Galaxy has always had two 28" curved blades fitted from new.

Makes no odds, these are straight when flattened out, unlike the curved originals. They actually look reasonable on the car and sit parallel at park, but the nearside blade fouls the windscreen trim and isn't going to last long. Are the ones fitted to later mk.IIs curved?

I saw one on fleabay the other day with 420,000 on it! :)

Well the old Galaxy's still going strong, so I thought I would treat her to a new set of wiper blades, the old ones looking a bit tatty. I've seen the posts before about fitting aero blades, and as they're cheaper than the original ones, I thought I'd give them a whirl. Anyway, the wipers arrived in the post, and I look at them and they're straight. They fit the old 12mm hook style arms, but the nearside one rides up on the bottom windscreen trim and catches the underside of the wiper arm, 'clunking' everytime it passes the park position. Am I missing something?

Not 100% sure, but I believe the small quarter glass stays attached to the body, and the wing is bolt on - around the top and rear of the door shut, bottom, bonnet shut and behind the bumper, and of course the wheelarch liner. If you do need to remove the glass, the assembly is bolted on behind the trim inside the car.

As seatkid says, almost certainly broken wires in the tailgate gaiter, or a previous botched repair of the same. The only wires going into the tailgate should be those from the main loom.

Sounds like a good outcome potentially, I hope that fixes it. Good bit of info for future reference too, for those with diesels.

Very little difference in MPG between 2.0 and 2.3, in fact IIRC the 2.3 just edges it. The 2.0 struggles a bit with the Galaxy's big body. 2.3 has a timing chain, so no cambelt to worry about. The 2.3 engine is pretty bomb proof and will do big mileages, ditto the diesels. Purely on running costs, I would go for a diesel. When I bought my Galaxy 9+ years ago, diesels for the same money were 2-3 times the mileage and a year or two older, and petrol was around 80p/litre. Now, I look back and realise how much the car has cost me in fuel and wish I had bought a diesel... but hindsight is a wonderful thing. A diesel will use approximately 2/3rds the fuel of a petrol. Even if you are only planning to do 6000 miles a year, that's a saving of around £400 a year, and that soon adds up. The only other option is a petrol with a LPG conversion. The petrol car will be cheaper, but if you are paying someone to fit the LPG kit, it will probably take it over the cost of an equivalent diesel.

I am still suspicious of the MAF. From what you say, it does seem that the original MAF was faulty, and at first I would work on the theory that there was only one fault present, apart from the glow plugs. It's certainly not impossible that you have have multiple issues, but it has to be less than probable. I'm afraid that getting readings from the MAF means very little, it may still not be working correctly. Lucas are now just another aftermarket brand and source sensors from various manufacturers, whilst this is not normally a problem, MAFs are a different kettle of fish. A quick google and I found this snippet on another forum... If the MAF isn't at fault, there's a lot of things that could cause the problem you describe, from the low fuel pressure suspected by the recovery man, to low compression on one or more cylinders, timing, faulty injector, injector pump, fuel starvation, etc., etc.. The only way to diagnose is to see what VAG-COM shows up first, see if there are any clues there. Then start doing some physical tests... compression test might be a start.

It does sound like the MAF was faulty, as you are now getting a response from it. Is the MAF you fitted a genuine part, or an aftermarket one? I know I said this earlier, but cheap MAF sensors are a disaster. They can appear to be working, but fail to give the proper feedback to the ECU.

I've had some good branded parts from eBay, but even then you have to have your wits about you as there are fakes out there. The MAF sensors are a particular problem, the cheap ones are very poor and often fail again with 6 months, if they work properly in the first place. If you are buying from a trusted local motor factor, at least you can take it back if it does go bad.