Choppa

Given you've replaced more tanks than most, is there much of a difference in materials, fabrication, and even sizing between the various ones available? Asking for a friend who thinks he's likely to have to get this job done sometime soon on an S3.

Be fair they did use Grey coloured sealant, there are some cowboys around that would have used white, or even clear!

It was rather odd being the only Esprit owner among loads of very well turned out Elises Exiges and Evoras, they were all so clean and shiny! Eventually another Esprit owner came along to help keep the Esprit flag flying. Great chatting with you @Bibs , as you say it's been a long time!

When I came to do this job on mine, the foam had rotted so much there was hardly any left and I was able to use a vacuum cleaner and tweezers to suck/pull out out the remaining bits. I didn't remove the B pillar, I purchased a piece of the black foam that pet shops supply for fish tank filters, cut it into sections and carefully pushed the blocks of foam through the gaps in the B pillar using a spatula.

These are the people in the UK who do the tags for the French motorways. It is kind of sweet when you are in a UK reg'd car and sweep past loads of EU reg'd cars in the queues, especially with the tool booths that allow you to drive through at up to 20mph without stopping. https://www.emovis-tag.co.uk/

My single drive to the alps wasn't nearly so eventful, nothing fell off, nothing broke and the car behaved impeccably. However travelling through France you'll need to carry a few bits of "stuff" to keep the French police happy if they choose to stop you however you go. The motoring organisations will give you a complete list but off the top of my head you'll need a couple of breathalyzers, Hi Viz jackets for each passenger, plus if you are driving up to a ski resort during the season they will insist on you having snow chains and that you fit them when required. Kneeling in an icey puddle while fitting chains to the rears on my Esprit isn't an experience I'd be keen to repeat so a waterproof sheet to kneel on would be my number one suggestion in addition to Peter's list.

TOOLS EXPLAINED DRILL PRESS : A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it. WIRE WHEEL : Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, 'Oh sh*t' DROP SAW : A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short. PLIERS : Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters. BELT SANDER : An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs. HACKSAW : One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle... It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes. VISE-GRIPS : Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand. OXYACETYLENE TORCH : Used almost entirely for lighting on fire various flammable objects in your shop. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub out of which you want to remove a bearing race.. TABLE SAW : A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity. HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK : Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper. BAND SAW : A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge. TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST : A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect. PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER : Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads. STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER : A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering your palms. PRY BAR : A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part. HOSE CUTTER : A tool used to make hoses too short. HAMMER : Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit. UTILITY KNIFE : Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while in use. ADJUSTABLE WRENCH: aka "Another hammer", aka "the Swedish Nut Lathe", aka "Crescent Wrench". Commonly used as a one size fits all wrench, usually results in rounding off nut heads before the use of pliers. Will randomly adjust size between bolts, resulting in busted buckles, curse words, and multiple threats to any inanimate objects within the immediate vicinity. Son of a bitch TOOL : Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling 'Son of a b*tch' at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.

That's different to mine. The headlight switch has a small bulb fitted in a holder behind the green illumination window which comes on with the ignition. The fiber optics wires run from that light box to the illumination windows on the other switches in the dash but not the window switches.

The window switches on my S3 N/A are identical and don't have bulb holders for illumination either. From the photos neither do yours. As per Henry's post if I were ever after doing this job, rather than running copper to them I'd fit a couple of extra strands of optic fibre from the central light box for the switch illumination behind the dash down to the window switches and make some sort of holders to keep the fibre in place at either end. While I was at it I'd probably fit a much brighter green LED bulb in that light box as well

When I fitted the LED headlamp bulbs on mine I had two of the Cibie lamp units re-silvered by these guys. http://www.chromerestorationspecialist.co.uk/services/headlamp-re-silvering/ Not a cheap options but worth it IMO to pass the MOT and to retain the original look. The company did a fine job, and all done and returned in a couple of (pre-lockdown) weeks. The problem for refurbishing these Cibie lamp units and maybe units like yours is that they have to split the glass lens from the reflector before they can do the re-silvering and that comes with a breakage risk and an extra labour charge on top of the re-silvering. They don't often have lens that break while they split them from the reflector but they did warn of the risk before hand. I'd love to know what other car used those headlamp clips, they seem so expensive, maybe someone else sells them at a better price when it's for a different car. I ended up only replacing a couple of clips that had definitely failed and cleaned the adjusting screws rather than replace them.

Do your car have the Thermal Trip switch fitted under the bonnet? P/N A082M6196F On my S3 N/A L/C its under the bonnet on the LHS of the "frunk" Mine has a little red button on the top of the little black box which is marked Otter. I've never had to touch that button but I think the device is supposed to sense if a radiator fan has failed and stops them running until the red button is reset (and presumably you've sorted the problem with the fan). Maybe the problem is around that?

I don't know anyone who has fitted those PNM units. However me @Chillidoggyand a couple of others on here have fitted LED headlamp bulbs from Classic Car LEDs in the original lens units of our cars and have seen a fantastic improvement in the beam quality. They supply top quality lamps not the cheaper bulbs you find on ebay and are very helpful. Mine has the Cibie dipped beam units which are no longer available and the silver coating was starting to flake away so I did think about the PNM units briefly but I decided against because I think I would have had to replace the mounting plates in the pods as well. I eventually got the Cibie units re-silvered by a specialist company in Kent so it still looks original.

@Bazza 907Sorry Barrie @LOTUSMAN33just beat you to it. If Dave changes his mind about wanting it I'll let you know

There is a capacitor across the brake switch on my S3 to stop the interference you are talking about but it doesn't look like that. It's item #12 on the diagram P/N A074M6008Z Capacitor 1uF stop switch. No idea what the markings on the capacitor in your photo mean. It doesn't look in very good condition and it can't have been doing anything if it was in the passenger footwell! Maybe it was wired across the brake switch, removed at some point and never replaced hence the noise .

I think Fab's wife might have something to say about that!