lavena

Edited - RJ got there first and was far more eloquent! Edited by - lavena on 3 May 2013 18:44:15

RJ - never thought about it like that, however.... Surely. when the engine has been nicely warmed up - to an even 100degs then the expansions are different anyway? Isn't the problem more differential temperatures and the torque settings allow for the differential expansions? Or am I missing something?

If the light goes on and off as the toothed wheel passes by the sensor then that end is working. If the light goes on an off, but the speedo isn't working I would suspect a wiring fault between the sensor and the speedo or a fault with the speedo. Does the light go on in the speedo? Does the oddometer work? Andy

Very neat! Any chance of a photo of the steering wheel - really interested in seeing what that looks like.

As I said, I had a similar issue with my speedo - speed was fine but tripmeter was under reading. If the gap between the sensor and the teeth is too much and the teeth is not perfectly circular then the sensor doesn't pick up all the teeth. The odometer counts the pulses so if it drops some it under-reads. The speedo is analogue (a needle) and if it misses one it will start to reduce speed but as it drops it gets another series of pulses so you don't notice the reduction. I would suggest checking the gap and reducing it to see if it improves the situation. Andy

As said above depends upon electronic or mechanical. The electronic one can have a disconnect between the two - the odometer counts each pulse from the sensor and uses the number entered in the meter to calculate distance. The needle is effectively analouge and it can miss a few pulses but the needles just "jitters" a bit or drops very slightly. I had an issue where is was about 20% low in the distance, but accurate on the speed. The sensor was a little too far away and was missing 20% of the teeth so 20% less pulses. Andy

At the start of the post you said: I am not the most knowledgeable mechanic in the world but in an effort to get my starter motor singing like a normal car ie get rid of the click of death, I have wired a separate relay which means the car now starts every time but on the first turn of the engine, it turns as though the battery is virtually flat (which it's not) before firing up the engine. I'm still not confident of it starting every time. Before you added the separate relay did the engine start well or not - just want to check as its not 100% clear? On batteries - my experience is that when a battery is failing you can do all sorts of things that seem to improve it (ie convincing yourself that the battery is ok). Ultimately the easiest thing to do is check using another battery which you know is ok and if that works properly - buy a new battery! Andy

Fantastic - roughly 20 mins from post to solution. Better response time than the AA? Well done POBC!

OOps - just realised you said "before fillup" - must go back to school! Andy

This may seem to be obvious (so apologise up front) - have you tried filling the tank up - the level may simply be very low on the pickup. When you stop it pulls in just enough for a few miles - then you run out of fuel and it repeats.

Richard - you are quite correct. Must think more before replying! Thanks.

Ouch - so it deforms lengthways but not easily - glad you were OK! So does that mean the ply is there simply because it is cheap!

Still don't understand why the two pieces and why aluminium and ply. As the other thread said the ply will not collapse in a rear-end collision. For the honeycomb aluminimum - isnt the strength vertical (that's how it acts in side panel protection and that's the orientation of the cells). But if so, how does it then "protect" the fuel tank? Need an engineer of some kind!

Sorted. Spent a bunch of time cleaning connectors and tracking the flow back up the fuel supply to the fuel tank. Looks like there was something blocking the pick-up from the fuel pump and preventing the fuel from actually flowing into the rail and onto the injectors. When I switched the ignition on with the fuel pipe disconnected from the rail - because there was no restriction I comes out as a gush and I switched the ignition off. Had I left it originally the flow would have then stopped and subsequent attempts would have no fuel coming out. Leaving it for a couple of hours and it would then fuel would again come out. So I pulled out the fuel pump and made sure that was working and then put everything back together - after a couple of turns it all now runs happily. Thanks to everyone for their advice - it was all really helpful.

Whilst they are electrical, I presume something mechanical provides the ECU a reference against which it opens the inectors? With regards rhe petrol in the air intake trick - no I haven't. Surely though this just gets it going but won't keep it going? If the injectors aren't woring won't it just fire once or twice and then die? If the injectors stopped working that would explain why it dies. I now need to find out why they are not workin. However, I will try the petrol in the intake - just in case!