An afternoon of tinkering later, and all i've done is top the gearbox oil up! It took me a while to find the filling plug, in the end I used the breather plug as only had a petrol haynes and the filling plugs are at different locations on the petrols and diesels (or I may have been short sighted and just not find it), I had to take the battery out to do so, and it was still tricky, and I glugged oil all over the gearbox as I had no funnel! Good job the oil bottle had a longish skinny neck. The gear change is much smoother now, and I haven't heard any whining yet.
I did find the water leak too, it's the hose that goes from under the expansion bottle to the top of the stat housing, looks like the jubilee clip ha had it's screw and housing (that tightens/loosens it) snapped off, so all that's left is the ribbed band and strap that the screw would have sat on.
There were some interesting things I saw under the car. This is the rear engine mount, with a chunck taken off!
Looking up behind the engine, can't quite see the power steering rack, but this is where LHM is dripping, can't see from where but it ends up on the coiled pipes and the pipe with the union in this picture.
What's the creamy plastic bit here? Can also see the water leak in this picture, juts needs a new jubilee clip I hope, or maybe a new hose.
Drivers side brake disc from behind, there's a wear ridge, and the pad must be worn to not be using the full depth of the disc.
Passenger side looks much better!
This is the passenger side driveshaft where it enters the gearbox, should this part be exposed? Looks like it's weeped/does weep oil, or that it should be covered. Other side is the same, but has other stuff around it that shields it a bit, not a boot or anything, more like a metal bracket for some other purpose!
The source of all the crackling noises when you have more than two electrical bits on at the same time (e.g. lights and wipers), a bloody buzzer! Why on earth would you wire a buzzer into the rear light cluster and towbar electrics? Other than this, the towbar wiring was connected quite tidily to the light clusters, with these little blue clips, not seen them before but they look quite effective.
Shocking picture, but no towbar! Looks a bit odd...
Going to clean the inside, and outside too if I have time. Cup of tea time though, need to clean myself too, been poking oily greasy car bits all day, and been rolling around on dusty, dirty tarmac too. I'm very mucky!
From here? I'd really like to do the water and oil leak, may as well do a service too as the sump will be off. Couldn't get to the turbo to adjust the wastegate, there just isn't enough room to get a mini socket ratchet in there. Wheel trims, want to do something about these too, I did think about speedlines, but decided to stay with the trims. I either want a proper set, as per Vince's lovely white TXI, or a good/perfect TZ style as a second best. Saying that, i'm thinking about bidding on the early GTI/Pilot trims on ebay atm, we'll see how the bidding goes!