MOTOR CHAT

[jonthefish]

Re:

Ha! Finally plucked up the courage to get rid of the bl--dy alarm immobilizer off the Falco. It had decided i was a thief and stopped me going out for a ride last night. Wouldn't stop screeching.

What a guddle of wires and I'm terrified of electrics - black magic as far as I'm concerned.

But now it's gone and the bike started first prod. Beer time!

 

[highlandsflyer]

First thing I do with most of my vehicles is remove any after market alarm/immobiliser systems. Don't need them up here, and sod's law the darn thing will prevent you getting it going in a hazardous situation.

Well done for tackling that with a fear of electricals! At 46 and decades of messing with them I am only just getting confident with auto electrics!

 

[mattr]

Re: Re:

Fantastic. Who says french cars are made of cheese?

Most of the industry. We've got some French engines in our range, I bet that's a decision the purchase department are proud of. Except we probably spend twice the savings over using a decent engine on warranty.

 

[jimihendrix]

Re:

Finally got the breaking down issue sorted with the Lotus, turned out to be the New FACET fuel pump, made the classic mistake of assuming because something was new (and expensive) it must be ok :roll: , went through the whole ignition system, even converted it to electronic, still it broke down, another mistake i made was assuming that the carbs were getting fuel as when i cracked the banjo bolts fuel came out (and the pump was running), finally when it done it the last time i lifted the lids off the carbs and the chambers were empty, assumed a tank blockage, tank and breathers tested fine, removed the FACET pump, bench tested it, it would run for five minutes then die (still turning but fuel dribbling out), so FACET pumps are crap.

£70 wasted not counting the time spent looking for faults elsewhere.

F*ck you FACET :evil:, apt name, GOLD FLOW = PISH

New £12 Chinese fuel pump fitted and working great.

So car is now running great, had it out today, got stuck in heavy traffic in town and it behaved impeccably, just running a bit rough when the fans cut in but thats forgivable.

Got the new Mazda MX5 seats fitted

 

[zigzag]

Coming along Mark! MX-5 seats look spot on, wouldn't know they weren't standard to look at them.

 

[jimihendrix]

Coming along Mark! MX-5 seats look spot on, wouldn't know they weren't standard to look at them.

Aye, really pleased with them Aaron, lucky find too, my mate spotted them in the scrappy, i dismissed them as i didn't think they tilted forward (my car being a four seater) but he lifted the side lever and the back sprang forward.

Would have cost a hell of a lot more than £70 to get the original seats re-built.

 

[old_coyote_pedaller]

Re:

I had a problem with the fuel pump, well I thought it was, on my kitcar with the 2l Fiat Twincam with twin Dellortos.

It would randomly run badly then cut out, would start after a few minutes only for fault to re-occur and soon realised it was fuel delivery. Checked the pump and found the guy who built it had fitted a high pressure fuel injection pump without a fuel pressure regulator. So I replaced it with a SU electric pump I got from my brother. Same fault kept on happening but I then wrongly thought because it was an old pump it was the pump. Tried several but then eventually bought a brand new Facet solid state pump. Same effin problem.

Had already, at start of problem, looked in petrol tank through the fuel level sensor hole but couldn't see anything that could be blocking fuel pick-up pipe. Couldn't see the actual pick-up pipe as there was a baffle, to prevent fuel surge, at end of tank. So, in desperation, drilled a circle of holes in top of tank above fuel pick-up pipe so that I could see inside.

What did I find? Several bits of brown card that when retrieved and put back together was a label/ticket 30mm by 60mm with a name written on it. The name of the guy who'd welded the tank together. Wanker. It had been in there for about 5 years before it gradually broke up to be sucked against fuel pick-up pipe stopping fuel delivery.

 

[ajm]

Re:

Won't you now have metal swarf from your drilling floating about in there too? Or have you taken the tank right out to have a look and swilled it out since?

 

[jimihendrix]

Re:

Got the old Lotus going pretty well, or as well as an old Lotus can be expected.

Water pump was noisy though, didn't want to risk driving it too much as the bearings could colapse, send the fan belt into the timing belt and wreck the motor so made the decision to take the car off the road.

A specialist in Devon had a new Lotus pump for £360 or an exchange pump for £90, no brainer really so i removed my pump and sent it off for exchange, trouble is my pump was in too bad a state for exchange (a bit missing from the impeller and the shaft had been welded) so he had to send mine off to be recond, cost an extra £50.

Took three weeks from removing the pump from the car to getting the new one, in that time i removed the radiator, flushed it, made up some new top brackets as these had been lost in the past (only thing stopping the rad from flopping about was the top hose), checked all the hoses, fitted new hose clips, tidied up the wiring, replaced the cam belt and removed the remains of the redundant air conditioning.

Couldn't resist cleaning up some of the removed bits while waiting on the pump.

Built back up, fresh anti-freeze etc,

Scrap air-con parts, surprising amount of weight in this lot alone, pump and other parts were already missing from the car when i got it, not worth restoring the AC system.

So the Elite has been back on the road a few weeks and behaving itself pretty well, been using it most days and leaving it sitting in the street/drive as it's my only working car (Discovery is still off the road), pretty entertaining to drive (i'd say even better than a 3.0 Capri), sounds glorious at full chat and it's reasonably comfortable.

Celibrated my new found roadworthyness by fitting the period GB sticker i bought a while ago.

Still needs work of course, drivers door is sagging due to a worn hinge pin/bushes, rear wheel bearings are needing done (not noisy just play in them) and i'm still wanting a set of fresh tyres for it (Falkens at £340 a set)

 

[ajm]

Re:

Looking much healthier now than when you got it... definitely a good move getting rid of the superfluous A/C bits. Was the A/C factory fit?