OK, so I was going to celebrate the TX3 being off the road for 2 years, by starting it tomorrow, so I can tow it to an exhaust shop. A few highs and lows today, but long story short, it pays to be thorough!
Blown head gasket (well, leaking) at cylinder #3. I don't remember the car chewing through coolant, so this is very strange. particularly strange that it passed enough coolant past the intake valves and still didn't boil off in the valve cover. Any chance this could be something other than a head gasket?
Yay,
Gav.