Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Messages - Kevin Wood

Pages: 1 ... 2194 2195 2196 2197 2198 2199 2200 [2201] 2202 2203 2204 2205 2206 2207 2208 ... 2354

33001

General Discussion Area / Re: Air compressors - what to get

« on: 31 January 2008, 09:25:11 »

Worth checking out Machine Mart too. They have a good range. Have just invested in one of the Tiger ones myself.

As to couplings I'm still working that out. All I can say it that it's easy top buy incompatible ones!

I find the coiley hose that came with mine a pain and will probably ditch that in favour of some normal hose. Oil was supplied with my compressor and, whilst you can buy compressor oil I don't see why VX semi wouldn't do the job. I can't imagine any special properties are required. It's a piston engine that runs without fuel after all.

Kevin

33002

General Discussion Area / Re: New diagnostic cable

« on: 31 January 2008, 22:30:32 »

Feel free.

Kevin

33003

General Discussion Area / Re: New diagnostic cable

« on: 31 January 2008, 22:00:12 »

Quote

Quote
Quote
KW - I have a rather naff Dell that is yours if you want it. Needs new HDD (nicked it for another Dell for a mate).

CPi PII around 350Mhz as a guess, 128Mb RAM, no HDD.

Thanks very much for the offer. Is that powerful enough for a cheapo Tech 2? I have tried it on a circa 300 MHz machine with real serial port and it didn't play - perhaps for other reasons though. Will bear in mind. I have a couple of laptop HDDs kicking around...
No idea, never tried it tbh. Might be one of those that may work under Win95 etc, but possible not NT based? If I can find a HDD, I will give vagcom a go (I dont have a cheapo tech2 to test)

Tunnie has my cheapo Tech 2 AFAIK, so if you fancy having a play... If not, don't worry. I'll have a dig around for a hard drive and get it ready for next time we meet up if you like?

BTW: I think you meant 3.0 won't work with ELM. 3.2 certainly will.

Kevin

33004

General Discussion Area / Re: New diagnostic cable

« on: 31 January 2008, 21:03:10 »

There are cheaper ones on E-bay, but shipped from the far east. :-/

Decided to go for one at least in the same continent. It took 4 days to arrive.

Kevin

33005

General Discussion Area / Re: New diagnostic cable

« on: 31 January 2008, 20:53:10 »

Quote

Quote
Quote
Would it be any good for my Traktor?

No. Unfortunately they only supported the OBDII standards on later vehicles.

Quote
And this worked with the USB connection straight out of the box?

Yep. From discovering it on my doorstep to reading codes in 10 minutes, at a guess.

Because the time critical processing is farmed out to a chip in the interface the connection to the PC is much less critical.

Kevin

That sounds like real progress on the code reader front then.

From what I can gather you ordered one of these:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250208955409

And they sent you one of these:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250211239648&ih=015&category=30921

The USB one is advertised for £22 plus £6 postage. Have I got it right?

Martin

What actually turned up looks identical to this:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110217069895

.. and I paid 29.95 + 6.00

The second link you posted is based on the ELM323 not the ELM327. I think the ELM 323 doesn't do CAN. I went for the 327 because it will cover the maximum number of cars, and figured I might as well. A 323 would likely work OK on the Omega but I figured for a few quid extra...

Unfortunately it will only work on 2.2/2.6/3.2 (I have seen reference to it working on 2.0 Vauxhalls as well, so maybe... :-/) It won't work on a 2.5 / 3.0 though.

Kevin

33006

General Discussion Area / Re: New diagnostic cable

« on: 31 January 2008, 20:16:41 »

Quote

Would it be any good for my Traktor?

No. Unfortunately they only supported the OBDII standards on later vehicles.

Quote

And this worked with the USB connection straight out of the box?

Yep. From discovering it on my doorstep to reading codes in 10 minutes, at a guess.

Because the time critical processing is farmed out to a chip in the interface the connection to the PC is much less critical.

Kevin

33007

General Discussion Area / Re: New diagnostic cable

« on: 31 January 2008, 20:12:50 »

Quote

KW - I have a rather naff Dell that is yours if you want it. Needs new HDD (nicked it for another Dell for a mate).

CPi PII around 350Mhz as a guess, 128Mb RAM, no HDD.

Thanks very much for the offer. Is that powerful enough for a cheapo Tech 2? I have tried it on a circa 300 MHz machine with real serial port and it didn't play - perhaps for other reasons though. Will bear in mind. I have a couple of laptop HDDs kicking around...

I also have it in mind to try a PCMCIA serial card containing a real 16550 UART with the cheapo too.

One of the other reasons for getting this lead was to get to live fuel trim data for when I LPG it, and I can see that along with throttle position, load, rpm, speed, lambda voltagesx4, temperatures, etc.

I've also spotted this:

http://www.enginecheck.co.uk/vauxcheck/

Which appears to access some other VX ECUs via an ELM interface. Only does code reading at the moment but fills in some of the cheapo functionality. I'm not about to rush out and buy it but I will keep an eye on it in case it's developed further.

I think P0430 and P0440 should be renamed: "Owner thought about buying cataclean and then thought no, f**k it"

Kevin

33008

General Discussion Area / New diagnostic cable

« on: 31 January 2008, 19:48:25 »

Well, I got fed up with having to borrow the "Golden Laptop" from work every time I need to use my cheapo Tech 2 (quite often with a 3.2!) so I thought I'd investigate another possibility.

Got myself one of these, which arrived today: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250208955409

What turned up was actually slightly different to the picture, and had a USB rather than serial interface but it's a very nicely made unit. For the price, I'm impressed.

The first thing to say is that these only work on OBDII vehicles, so 2.2/2.6/3.2. However, they aren't specific to Vauxhall and should work with most OBDII and CAN vehicles. Without paying for more software they will only read the engine ECU too. However, since that is what normally gives grief I decided it would be useful.

Got it out of the box, installed the software on a laptop and set out to discover the reason for my emissions light being on (as if I didn't know!). It worked absolutely first time, reported things in english and is clearly much more stable and less fussy than a cheapo tech 2. P0420 and P0430 were showing (usual cat efficiency problem on a 3.2). The codes could be cleared no problem.

The supplied free software (scantool.net) http://www.scantool.net/ can do basic code reading and clearing from the engine ECU and also reports live data including all main parameters likely to be of interest.

I will probably investigate a few more software packages available in due course but, in my opinion, this is a good alternative to a cheapo Tech 2 for anyone who has a later Omega, for similar money. It took a lot less messing about to get it working!

Kevin

33009

General Discussion Area / Re: Has anyone been affected by the Snow?

« on: 01 February 2008, 23:11:56 »

Well, It's mrs. KW's birthday today so I've whisked her away to North Devon for the weekend. Great run down dere in the MV6 (won't post any timings just in case, but we left Hampshire at 6 and got here in time for dinner.)

.

Lovely hotel, just had a fantastic meal, bottle of wine, couple of beers, free wi-fi (can't say the same for the lodgings!) and getting back on topic there has been a little snow this evening. We're far enough off the beaten track that we're certainly stuck here if it decides to pound down. What a shame that'd be.

Kevin

33010

General Discussion Area / Re: Seen an estate I really want...

« on: 01 February 2008, 14:07:37 »

I'd give them a little while to settle down then. I can't believe running it for a little while on dirty oil was enough to clog them up. Most likely they are still working air out of them and you've introduced a bit more air by replacing the oil filter.

Either that or the engine has terminally low oil pressure, in which case cleaning the lifters won't help.

Kevin

33011

General Discussion Area / Re: Seen an estate I really want...

« on: 01 February 2008, 13:45:27 »

Were the lifters quiet when they were in the donor engine?

Kevin

33012

General Discussion Area / Re: Seen an estate I really want...

« on: 01 February 2008, 11:55:18 »

Quote

James you got a nice estate you just got with black leather i don't like that one much but its your choice

I was thinking the same, actually (sorry, James).

Yes, it's a facelift and slightly newer but none of the toys and not such a nice colour IMHO. 2.5 instead of 3.0 8-). Max's ex-car ought to be nicely sorted now. What am I missing?

As a project to make a quick buck on, it's tempting, but that's all... :-/

Kevin

33013

General Discussion Area / Re: bloody inland revenue

« on: 01 February 2008, 15:21:36 »

I hope they've pulled their "don't leave it too late" ad campaign cos otherwise I can see sammy educating a few TV sets.

Kevin

33014

General Discussion Area / Re: Project Estate - A Setback

« on: 01 February 2008, 12:48:35 »

Quote

Quote
Quote
Quote
After rebuilding the top end of that Estate and getting it perfect...

I did an oil change last night using 10/40, cos the old stuff was horrible.

I used the car at lunchtime today, and I now have a permanently very noisy lifter, just like Tunnies

I can't be bothered to strip the top end down AGAIN

Thats how i feel about project Elite! - Its a bloody shed that happens to have wheels!

I did'nt know that sheds had wheels lol i thought i would make you smile mark but i see your point

Have seen lots of sheds with wheels...