charlie_pank

Just got gas bill for last 3 months - it's up by about 100% over last year! Went and had a look at the boiler and discovered that the CH Danfoss valve wasn't closing properly. As a result the CH was on all the time - I had been thinking the house had been unusually warm - don't know how long it has been like that, but fixed it now...

 

I had a further rummage around and started looking at its gas consumption generally. It's an old boiler which has 2 circuits each controlled by a Danfoss valve - one for CH and one for the HW cylinder. There's a bypass valve controlled by a tap for allowing some flow around a short-circuit when the boiler is cooling down.

 

For the last 6 months.I've had the HW off most of the time because we don't use much of it (electric shower). I noticed last night that the boiler was switching on/off every couple of minutes to keep the CH at the right temp - which really doesn't seem like an efficient way to behave. I think that it might actually be more efficient to remove the motorized part of the Danfoss valve from the HW circuit and leave it in the loop all the time. That way when the CH comes on, it heats the water in the cylinder too, which will act as a heat store, so the boiler shouldn't switch on/off so much thus using less gas. It also means I can close the short-circuit tap which I think was allowing the hot water to recirculate back to the boiler very quickly causing it to shut off again before it should.

 

I've implemented this plan and I'll be watching the gas consumption over the next few days. Any advice on whether I've done a good thing/bad thing. Anything else I should look out for?

 

 

Sit stationary and pump the brake a few times, check all the slaves thoroughly for fluid, then check the lines and the floor. Check the reservoir - has level gone down? Your described symptoms are only attributable to Mcyl failure if you're not losing fluid...

So, in order to make sure there's no salt or dishwasher powder residue in it, you'd need to give the dishwasher a very thorough emptying and cleaning first. I imagine, never having done it myself that that would be as much effort as giving the head a good scrub with degreaser by hand...

Quoting Dave Jackson: 

 

why - does the water boil hotter in the dishwasher ?

 

No but it has its own salt-reservoir and the dishwasher powder is abrasive

I wouldn't put a soft ally head in the dishwasher.

Paul, I live in Edinburgh, and have sent 3 diffs to R&R so far. UPS is quite reasonable.

Downgrade to what the rest of us have: I click for slow, 2 clicks for fast.

Quoting Jerry: 

 

Was your system unable to attain the thermostat's set temperature beforehand?

Quoting zetec: 

 

 

R1: £900 engine - stick on the original TBs and ECU and you have 180bhp.

Cheap for an r400 plus machine! And probably engine and gearbox are half the weight of the zetec engine alone.

It's a vibration problem with having the sender screwed to the block. I would expect it to affect the sigma too. It's definitely worth fixing when it breaks so you can keep an eye on OP, but it is neither difficult, time-consuming, messy nor expensive to fix when it does die...

Plastic softer than metal so the clip wears rather than the brake line.

Hmmm, I wonder if the previous owner was aware of looming problems.

 

Water in oil - definitely HG failure is your best case scenario.

 

No reason you shouldn't fix it yourself. It's all part of the learning process, just make sure you get the upgraded gasket and fill it properly (eliminating all air-locks) with the right type of coolant (not water).

You might need to think about why there was so much extra in there - is it to combat surge in cornering? The alternative would be to fit a windage plate above the pickup so that even though the oil was being 'frothed' above the plate, it would be fine below it - this is the method used in my BEC to 'avoid' the 'need' for a dry-sump.

You: spare wheel, half hood, grumpy face

Me: Leather jacket, dreadlocks, hound, big grin

That's the same one Brad

Now now, nothing to cry about, I'm sure you'll get it sorted.

 

This is all from memory, I don't have a K-series any more:

There are 2 temp senders, both are on the water rail on the passenger side of the engine. One is for the gauge on the dashboard, one is for the ECU. One of them has 2 wires coming out of it, one has only one. I can't remember which one it is, run the engine up to temp, then kill it but turn the ignition on again without starting the engine, then pull the plug off one of them and see if the dashboard gauge is affected, if it is, it's the other one!

 

Once you've established which one it is, measure its resistance - resistance to earth if it's the single wire one, or resistance across the terminals if it's the 2-wire one.

 

Let the engine cool right down (maybe overnight?) then measure the resistance again, you should see a significant difference. If you're lucky it might even say on the side of it what the resistance should be at a given temperature, or someone on here might be able to tell you what the resistance should be. If, having done this you suspect that the sender is at fault, then order another one from THINK, Redline or CC (shouldn't be more than a couple of £) and if you're quick you can swap them over without draining the system!

From your description it's not an idle problem (you have it when pulling away from junctions) but a startup enrichment problem (goes away when it's warmed up). You don't explicitly say, but I'm assuming it idles fine when engine is up to temp?

 

First candidate for inspection should therefore be the ECU temp sender - do you know where it is and how to test?

Bradders, if you have a rummage in the archive you'll find the wiring diagram for your car - this should tell you which pins to test. Personally I'd clamp the black wire of my multitester to the engine block, then, with the ignition on, touch each of the pins on the back of the TPS plug until I see something, then pull the throttle cable and see if it changes. When you find the one that changes, you've found the right wire. If you can't find one that changes, that's your problem! Once you know which wire to read from, you need to get the max and minimum readings and see if they are within the specified range for the TPS (is it 0-5v?).

 

If you got no problems there, then you'll need to widen your search, you're either getting the wrong AFR or spark timing. Do you know if it's too rich or too lean? What is the precise nature of the problem (engine runs away, engine struggles, engine dies, engine tickover too high/too low), does it only do it when cold, does it only do it when hot, does the exhaust smell of unburned fuel?

 

If you are getting the wrong AFR (air:fuel ratio) you're quite likely to fail the MOT on emissions, so it's worth getting it sorted.

 

AFR could be caused by things like:

- Air-leak on the intake side meaning too much air for the amount of fuel

- Low fuel-rail pressure meaning the injector opening times aren't delivering enough fuel

- Lambda-probe faulty leading to ECU getting wrong info about current AFR and trying to correct it

 

Spark timing (or weak spark) could be caused by things like:

- Low battery voltage at idle revs (is your alternator charging properly?)

- Cam sensor faulty leading to ECU getting wrong info about current spark angle and trying to correct it

 

 

etc...

 

Very happy to help if you provide more info, but that's probably enough to be getting on with - let us know how you get on with the TPS test and we'll go from there...

 

Edited by - charlie_pank on 9 Jan 2013 12:36:50

It's in the FAQs - if you call THINK and tell them that you want to make a mech opg system for a K-series Caterham, they'll know what you need.

Hi Paul, I spent quite a lot of time last year chasing faults around my central heating/hot water systems. Including swapping out the heads of the valves you're talking about, and replacing the expansion vessel.

 

After going through the hassle of draining and refilling, I decided to try out the freeze sprays instead. I have to say that they were excellent and saved me a lot of hassle. They're well priced - not quite expensive enough to stop you buying them and draining the system instead, but I'd use them again. It should be a doddle to swap over the valve after freezing.

 

Edited by - charlie_pank on 2 Jan 2013 15:14:45

Does it whistle? Does it produce any smoke?

I got a recon for the old shopping car (Pug 306) for about £350 on exchange, then fitted myself, but it's still a fair wedge, so wanted to know what the expected lifetime is and if there's any way to tell it's on the way out...

Shopping car is a 2004 Honda Accord turbo diesel. It has 160,000 miles on the clock, although it got a new short-engine at 100,000. It still pulls fine, makes a bit of black smoke, but doesn't seem to use any oil, so I've put it down to unburned fuel. The thing that's bothering me is the whistle that the turbo makes. The rest of the car is absolutely fine and I'm happy to keep driving it for the foreseeable future. In my mind I have this idea that it's time for a recon turbo, as the whistling suggests to me that the turbo bearing is on its way out and 160k is far enough for any turbo...

 

Thoughts?

Well, if we're going to deviate that far from the OP - then don't put in a zetec, put in a bike-engine. They're an order of magnitude lighter, more powerful, rev higher and cost less in tax 😬

Lots of stuff in the archives about this, it can be a number of things combined together to cause the symptoms, fixing any one of them can give results leading people to assert that they've identified the problem and assume it will be the same for everyone else:

 

 

1. Battery doesn't have enough charge

2. Alternator isn't charging proplerly

3. Wiring between starter and battery is too hot, or degraded

4. Connections to starter are 'dry'

5. Relay is 'cooked'

6. FIA switch has poor contacts

7. Starter solenoid full of gunk

8. Starter solenoid piston scored/sticky