I wouldn't bypass the throttle body heater, especially not at this time of the year. Ideal conditions for carburettor or throttle body icing are high humidity and a temperature slightly above freezing. The airflow through the venturi accelerates and cools so the damp in the air freezes in the venturi coating the inside of the venturi and throttle plate with ice. In the old days cars used to have a swivelling intake on the air filter and the winter position would draw warmed air in from next to the exhaust manifold. Many years ago I ran a car that had been fitted with pancake filters and got so used to it icing I used to boil a kettle and put it in the car before setting off for work. After about half a mile the car would go ridiculously rich and splutter to a halt so I'd pour the contents of the kettle over the carbs to melt the ice that had formed inside them. When I went out to the Ascot this morning it was covered in condensation and the HEVAC said it was 3 degrees outside, perfect icing conditions without a throttle body heater.

I changed the plumbing on the Ascot to series but although I'd got full flow, the heater was doing odd things. After glueing the dash top down a couple of days ago I ran the engine with the Prog button in (but heated screens switched off) to warm up the glue and help it set. Although it started off hot, after leaving the engine idling for around 20 minutes, the heater was barely lukewarm. So this morning, having seen you'd improved your heater by backflushing the matrix, I pulled the two pipes and did the same. Something resembling tomato soup came out..... Having put it back together, used it a little while ago and the heater is now working exactly as it should.

Yes that's right, in hose 21 (and not 22 as I think I said before). So it';s manifold, reducer, heater and then the return as it was intended. No Tees, but you'll need 19-16mm reducers in the hoses but the restriction is not noticeable..

I don't think you'd want to use anything like that for absolute measurements but to watch a varying voltage or resistance on blend motors, lambda sensors and the like, they can't be beaten (other than by a scope......).

No they're not. The one on the right hiding in the gloom looked to be an early AVO but not with a wooden case and single scale. My 8 still gets used occasionally, there are times when you can't beat a big moving needle over a digital display.

Is that an AVO6 you've got there? I've got a 7 and 8, but that looks older than both of them?

It will and it still will after you've turned off passive immobilisation. The idea is that if you do accidentally press the fob button when in your pocket and unlock the car, it realises you didn't mean to do it and locks itself again. I don't think you can kill that feature.

There's 3 options if that is the problem, re-weld it (not easy as it's a pretty hefty lump and the oil inside it could catch fire), replace it (not cheap) or see where the porous section or crack in the weld is, drill it out, tap it and put a screw coated in Loctite in the tapped hole. The third method was used successfully on a Classic Range Rover that had the same problem on the rear axle.

EKA in the door would have worked. The fob won't sync while in that state. I used to get it all the time until I disabled passive immobilisation if I didn't start the car within 30 seconds of unlocking it.

Front brake lines don't run anywhere near the diff so unlikely. I'd say diff oil, the modern stuff is almost clear, especially if you used the synthetic which doesn't smell like the mineral based stuff does. It hardly smells at all. It doesn't get dirty either but stays looking like it did when you put it in, there's no combustion or anything there to dirty it. Clean it off with a blast of brake cleaner so you're starting with a clean and dry diff. It'll be either the pinion oil seal or a porous section in the weld in the actual casing.

I take it you've started you paternity leave then?

Agree totally on alloy wheels. Other half has a 2004 Merc and one of the tyres kept losing pressure so I took it in to get the rim cleaned off and sealed. They dunked it in a water bath only to find it was leaking from a 2 inch long crack on the inside of the wheel. No sign of it having been kerbed and it runs 65 section tyres too so not the low profile ones a lot of cars run these days. I was able to find a replacement matching wheel on eBay as I wasn't keen on he idea of getting it repaired, I've seen some repairs in the past that I wouldn't trust.

Probably quite well, he wasn't going to be driving it and the air was staying in there so why should he worry?

Doesn't matter. If the car is locked, put the new key in the hole, turn, press button, return, turn the other way, press button and if the sync has been successful the central locking will operate and unlock all the doors.

You have to hold the key in both positions and keep the button on the fob pressed until the LED starts to flash much faster. Just turning and pressing won't do it. If passive immobilisation has been turned off then I don't think it will sync in the ignition as it isn't told to transmit.

I've never noticed the lugs before and have used a strap wrench on the odd time it decided to try to come loose. It was only this time that I unscrewed it completely and noticed them while trying to work out how to grip it to remove the cap.

There should be two lugs inside the tube so you can turn or hold it in relation to the filler. Mine came right out when I did an oil change before setting off for France last weekend and I found that my pliers were a decent fit inside so used them to screw it back in after I'd got the cap off.

While you have the stat off then you'll also be able to check that it doesn't have the same moulding fault that Sloths had highlighted in the other thread I linked to.

Heater is dead easy, just take the two hoses off that go through the bulkhead, attach a hosepipe to the return and turn the tap on. Don't go bonkers with it though or you could create more leaks if you try and blast it through too hard. To do the engine your best bet is to clamp the two heater pipes and put your hosepipe where the top hose would connect. That way you will backflush the block and the rad or you might want to do the two separately so anything in the block isn't pushed into the rad. All you are doing is pushing water through in the opposite direction to the normal flow and hopefully flushing out anything in there that shouldn't be.

Looks like K Seal to me too. Time to give the whole cooling system a good back flush if someone has put that in there. Back flushing heater matrix is easy enough and I suspect you'll be surprised at just how much crap will come out. Also make sure the air bleed nipple on top of the rad, the hose from it and the small hole into the header tank are completely clear too or you'll never be able to properly bleed the cooling system.