Chris H wrote:
The only issue is it doesn't accelerate the car fast enough with the button so I do have to use my foot occasionally
Are you kidding? - Sometimes when I re-engage my cruise control the car scares me to bits! (although admittedly thats different to increasing it with the button!). I re-engaged it once after clearing a roundabout and I'd never known it to do anything other than a gentle acceleration. I've no idea how the cruise control computer works out what rate of acceleration to use but it suddenly floored it from 25mph up to 60mph. I nearly dropped a brick

I also noticed that sometimes you can be in 3rd and when you floor it the car will drop not into 2nd but into 1st instead. I used to give a colleague a lift home / to work sometimes a few years back and he used to love it to bits.
As for the needle, I used to have a similar thing with the safrane I broke up last year/year before. The needle would stick though usually at the lower end. It would move eventually not just reliably. I was told it was the sender in the tank but it was such an old heap that I ended up dismantling it anyway so there was no point replacing it.
As for the lock up, your gearbox might be different in the 2L.. I think the doc I read was for the 2.5L box but I'm not sure if they have the same autobox or different. I'll see if I can find it and email it to you.