Kris
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,631
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Feb 16, 2005 17:54:44 GMT
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What stupid little things have you spent ages trying to sort out on your car and finally realising that it was the most obvious thing to look at first?
I couldn`t get the Mini started today. I whipped the dizzy cap on and off, checked it over for, cleaned up terminals, crimped them and so on.
I then looked at the rotor arm position inside the dizzy, the gap between the contacts was about 5mm, no way is a spark going to jump that.
I must have put a 998 item in by mistake when I changed the dizzy.
45 minute job could have taken 5 minutes.
<slaps forehead over and over>
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Feb 16, 2005 18:37:53 GMT
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maybe youre fired ;D ;D ;D
the simplest things are usually the hardest to find lol
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2001 HONDA CT110 (NOT RCV)
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Nathan
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 5,649
Club RR Member Number: 1
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StupidNathan
@bgtmidget7476
Club Retro Rides Member 1
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Feb 16, 2005 18:54:26 GMT
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Car would not start for a month after the restoration she would turn over and spark but make a funny noise and die, turned out a too long bolt was in the starter motor and it was just stopping her from firing, curse word me off so much after i found out what it was
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Kris
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,631
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Feb 16, 2005 19:24:07 GMT
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I did a similar thing.
I mixed the bolts front the starter motor and the bolts from the clutch slave cylinder.
The slightly longer bolts from the starter locked the flywheel in place while the clutch bolts held the stater in fine.
Confused me for a whole afternoon.
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StupidBenzBoy
@benzboy
Club Retro Rides Member 7
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Feb 16, 2005 19:48:21 GMT
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My brother spent ages (days!) trying to get his 1600 Escort to start. I came to see what was going on, checking everything over... turns out he forgot to hook a wire on the coil up. Fired straight away after that!
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Feb 16, 2005 19:59:00 GMT
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bought my 1976 b series manta as a bump starter.the guy told me it was the starter motor.got one from the scrapyard,fitted it and it still wouldnt start.got another one, same story.this got me thinking it was something else.many changed electrical items only to find there was no engine earth.put a jump lead on and brmm started with the key.doh.
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Feb 16, 2005 21:05:06 GMT
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When I swapped the engine in the Sceptre I spent ages trying to start it..... I discovered that the ignition feed had been wired through a toggle switch which normaly lived it the centre console, which I'd removed. The switch was hanging in the footwell, and guess who'd caught it with his big fat foot and switched it off.... Done the 'leaving the rotor arm out' trick a few times as well....
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... the only injury I sustained was a bumped head when I let the seatbelt of without realizing the car was upside down and that's not really the car's fault.
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I boutght an old maestro off the local garage a few years ago, it had been in for non-starting. It spluttered and banged and coughed but would not run. They decided it was the engine management, and told the feller it would be v. expensive to repair, charging him for a few hours 'investigative' labour while they were on. I bought it off them, and when looking at it noticed the dizzy cap was wet inside. piece of kitchen roll and some WD-40 and off she went. Wahey!
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1972 Fiat 130 1985 Talbot Alpine 1974 Lancia Beta Saloon 1975 + 1986 Mazda 929 Koop + Wagon 1982 Fiat Argenta 2.0 iniezione elettronica 1977 Toyota Carina TA14 BEST CAR EVER!!!!!!!! 1979 Datsun B310 Sunny 4-dr 1984 Audi 200 Quattro Turbo 1983 Honda Accord 1.6 DX GONE1989 Alfa 75 2.0 TS Mr T says: TREAT YO MOTHER RIGHT!
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I was doing some work on my camper engine (trying to track down why it was only firing on 3 cylinders) ,.. spent an hour or so working on it,... then I couldn't get it started again,.. a few hours later I call out RAC home start ( ) ,.. turns out I'd plugged up the dizzy in the right order, but all one plug further clockwise than it should have been (if that makes sense),.. DOH! ALSO! In a related incident,.. I spent about 2 hours trying to get the spark plugs out, on a type 4 engine with the tinware in the engine bacy this is a nightmare. Numerous cracked and scraped knuckles later I haven't got any of them off, too diffuclt to get to too, to hard to turn when I have got to them etc. etc. My dad arrives the next day (up for the weekend, helping track down 3 cylinder thing), pops out the leads, drops in the plug spanner, spin spin spin, out comes the plug. .... ... I compare his spark plug spanner to mine, I was using one that was too small. ARGH!!!! ,... no more tinware for me thankyouverymuch!
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Think my mate did the best one.
He inherited a race car, and he was over the moon. He and his mates built a serious engine for it and literally killed themselves to get it all together to bring down to the Pod and test before the first meeting.
I met up with them there as I had agreed to show them round and explain some basics. It took us about 30 minutes to get this thing off the trailer and them another 30 to get ready to fire up.
Nothing
Not a dicky bird. They started ripping everything apart, checking it, and they couldn't find a thing. It's getting on by this point and I want them to have at least 1 run before they have to head back up to Tatton way and not being stupidly super smart with engines I thought I'd keep it simple and go over the basics.
You did put fuel in it didn't you?
Ah ................
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Last Edit: Feb 17, 2005 8:37:24 GMT by Peaches
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A mate and I built a Westfield in 1989, beautifully put together, well built.....when it came time to fire it up. Bear in mind that everything was new. Even the fuel tank.........guess what we forgot!
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Peugeot 307sw - Suzuki SV650S - MX5.
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Smiler
Posted a lot
I no longer own anything FWD! Or with less than 6 cylinders, or 2.5ltrs! :)
Posts: 2,492
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Feb 17, 2005 12:30:14 GMT
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I had a phone call from a fellow Camper owning mate. He had got hi engine running beutifully, even the occaisional fourth cylinder was on full song! Except for whenever he try'd to reverse out of the drive. The engine would just die. He didn't even have time to engage the clutch. VW being the comical folk they are for some reason decided it would be a fantastic idea to wire the reversing light through the coil and all he'd done was connect the light up to the wrong side of the coil so everytime he selected reverse he was effectively sending the coil L.T. feed straight to earth hence stopping the engine! ;D
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www.Auto-tat.co.uk'96 Range Rover P38 DSE (daily driver) '71 Reliant Scimitar SE5 GTE 3.0ltr Jag V6 Conversion '79 Reliant Scimitar SE6A 3.0ltr 24valve Omega Conversion '85 Escort Cabrio 2.0 Zetec - Sold '91 BMW 525i - Sold '82 Cortina 2.9i Ghia Cosworth - Sold '72 VW Campervan - Sold '65 LandRover 88" - Sold
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