Right chaps, today's daily update.
- God, this might as well turn into a 0-60 thread
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Turned her over, struggled to start and then... knocked her off after barely 30 seconds running. I then conducted an experiment... I then fired her up again, she started instantly. Engine still stone cold, remember, and with a large volume of charge taken out the battery seconds ago.
I would suggest
if the issue is entirely the battery not being charged / poor earth, etc, the engine shouldn't fire up straight away 2nd time. However, if the issue is down to a drained fuel line, then the first laboured start primed it, the second of course was instant, because the fuel line/rail was already primed. That's my opinion, anyway
The stalling does feel very 'ECU dying' and related to the electric side of things, though I agree.
Went underneath, cleaned the ground lead both ends with wet n dry, gave the block a good clean up, too. I visually examined the connections at the alternator and to be honest they looked fine, grey and dry, no dusty corrosion or anything (though didn't actually undo any as it's so cramped to get at them, I'll admit)
Main wire to starter looked a bit rusty, to be honest. Worth giving that a clean? or is that not affecting anything here?
Finally can anyone confirm there's another ground connection at the rear, behind a panel in the boot. Found a reference by Kevin Wood from years ago, but I couldn't see one anywhere. I thought it worth checking as I recently had a rear end respray and it's not beyond the realms of impossibility that they snapped/removed it during the job. But I can't see one.
So, more evidence, what do we think?