charlie_pank

I'm sure they're standard parts. why not take the old ones with you to check? when you're there, get some easi-start, your experiment with the fuel lines has proved the fuel pump is running, but not that the pressure is high enough or the injectors are delivering enough fuel...

Bel, a diff swap is a couple of hours work for me, nothing complicated involved

In the tech-spec it's down as a 1:3.92 It'll presumably be a clutch-type.

Sounds like 2 separate problems to me: 1. Your clutch cable needs to be adjusted to stop it dragging. Engine speed shouldn't affect how easy it is to get into gear 2. Your idle should settle down once the engine warms up. I presume it hasn't always worked the way it does now. Problem with a coolant sensor? Can you reset the TPS?

I had this a while ago. Got the wheels balanced several times before I finally got them done by someone who did their job properly and eliminated it. Might be worth checking other aspects of suspension geometry and looking for any play too though.

The stat is in the out, not the return so even if it's stuck you could find the bottom hose getting hot through conduction from the engine. Check it by taking it out of its housing and dropping it in a pan of hot water with a thermometer. Put the pan on the stove and heat it until the stat opens. If it doesn't, there's your problem! You can check the fan thermoswitch the same way: put a multimeter on the terminals then drop it in a pan of water and see the resistance drop to 0 at the correct temperature as you heat the pan. You can check the fan just by shorting the terminals on the thermoswitch Then you can test the fan and thermoswitch together by running the engine whilst standing until the fan cuts in. Do the radiator and the top AND bottom hoses get hot? The fan should then cut in and out to hold temperature fairly stable, does this happen? So far you have instructions for testing: 1) The temp gauges 2) The thermostat 3) The fan thermoswitch 4) The fan If it's none of these things, we assume that the cooling system is specified well enough to do the job, so you must have a blockage/airlock?

Check gauge and sensor by removing sensor from water rail and dropping in to a pan of hot water with a thermometer. Switch on ignition and compare gauge reading with thermometer.

Airlock? Sticky thermostat? Misreading temp gauge? The fan cutting in at 100 sounds far too high. Don't know your car but in mine I'd check the water level in the read was right up to the bleed screw at the top of the rad...

Guess, you'll have to rely on the sniff-test then. Oil smells like oil, antifreeze smells sweet. If it's condensation/rain doesn't smell of anything.

wibble

BLACK smoke: overfueling, BLUE smoke: burning oil, WHITE smoke: moisture in the cylinders. Your described symptoms are not related to oil level. Perhaps the 'using oil' you've noticed is just because you're not checking it while hot and running? The smell of the white puff will help too: if it's sweet, it's coolant, if it's not, it's not! The blue smoke will smell distinctively of burning oil too. Edited by - charlie_pank on 21 Jun 2012 09:24:46

BLACK smoke: overfueling, BLUE smoke: burning oil, WHITE smoke: moisture in the cylinders. Your described symptoms are not related to oil level. Perhaps the 'using oil' you've noticed is just because you're not checking it while hot and running? The smell of the white puff will help too: if it's sweet, it's coolant, if it's not, it's not! The blue smoke will smell distinctively of burning oil too.

It might be rubbing on the chassis tube when fully UN-loaded. I can't think of anything above that it could rub on. If you jack up the car and rest the chassis on axle-stands, where do the half-shafts come to rest? What to do about it though, shorter dampers? More droop, less bump travel? Droop-stops?

What do you mean by the 'bottom'? Which end of the half-shaft - diff or wheel? What's it rubbing on?

Because the slicks stick better, so you go around corners faster, causing more lateral-G which pulls the oil away from the pickup inside your sump.

Is the battery not holding a charge, or is it a problem with the starter or the connections? Will the battery power the lights and do they dim when you try to turn it over - this will give you some hints. If the battery IS dead, you still need to figure out why, so that you don't just kill the new one the same way!

Might some of it be down to weight distribution?

You can test your TPS, someone here will be able to tell you what range the output should run between, ISTR that it's 0-5V?

Does it stop abruptly or fade away? Can you reproduce it by running at idle with heated screen, main beam lights, wipers and heater fan on in your driveway?

Quoting AshleyBanks: The only thing I can think of here and has been playing on my mind is that the MEMS ECU is from the original 1.6 and not the 1.8. I can't see how that would cause the symptoms you're seeing, but it might be a long-term issue you need to deal with - did you update the map for a 1.8, change the injectors or just increase the fuel pressure? As you limped home, was it down on power in a way that it wasn't when you departed? - that would suggest a weak spark... I wonder how it would have behaved if you'd swapped out the battery for a known good one at that point... Edited by - charlie_pank on 19 Jun 2012 10:15:28

Neither had anyone else!

Asbestos tunnel cover? A blanking plate to go around the gearbox and stop the air running down the tunnel?

It sounds electrical to me. It is possible that the re-wiring of your alternator was too-late and it had already been killed by running with the wrong wiring. :( You can check by measuring the voltage across the battery **without** the engine running, and then again **with** the engine running. **With** should be higher as the alternator is providing charge. If it's not that, then you need to start being analytical about it... Your engine needs 3 things to run: Spark (strong enough and at the right time in the right cylinder!) Fuel (the right amount for the conditions) Air (in the right mixture with the fuel) Which is it not getting when it fails? Do any of the symptoms give away which one is missing? What tests can you do to narrow it down? Can you reproduce the failure if you just rev it on the driveway?

If the battery is going flat, why? - if it's not a problem with the battery itself, you'll kill a new one too!

Quoting Abbot: What did you take it out of, might give a clue. Normally I'd agree, but nothing's really like that on my car any more! I just sent the propshaft off to Bailey Morris to have a TRT put in. The bolts attach the output flange (used to be a sprocket) of the R1 gearbox to the flange of the propshaft. They were done up v. tight and loctited in. I got them all out, but some of the hex heads aren't as hexagonal as they used to be (there's not a lot of space in there what with bits of the UJ getting in the way), so I thought it best to replace them. After a bit of research I'm pretty sure they're 12.9 high-tensile M8, but it reminded me that I don't really know how to fully define a bolt in order to find a new one. I'd like to know how to do it for future reference! Edited by - charlie_pank on 18 Jun 2012 12:59:07