I topped off the tank today having done 355km city driving and whaddaya know...39 litres!
That's like 9+km per litre!
Woohoo!
And I still have an oil/filter/plug change to do having done the FD swap!
I'm hoping after the tuneup, there will be an additional increase in fuel mileage (yeah right) but who knows...I was getting like 10 to 11km a litre before I started having problems with the FD!
Thanks stevebfl, arthur dalton,sbourg,cap'n carageous, and everyone who chipped in on this post.
Hopefully the information here will prove helpful for others with a similar predicament.
Cheers.