Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[lozzzzzz]

I had pretty much a whole day on the car yesterday, and I'm definately getting slower

Maybe its cos all the major miles stones have been reached, the body now sits on the redone chassis, the engine is it, and it now runs.  Now I need to buckle down and get the hell on with the mass of little jobs left to get it finished. 

I did lots yesterday but have little to show for it.  Firstly, acting on your advise (thanks folks) I got hold a "cool-stat" that starts opening at a much more resonable 82C and spent yesterday morning fitting it.

So I pulled the inlet off and inlet runners needed moving to get this new thermostat in.



You can see the handsome shape of the V6 so much better without the inlet manifold on it.


The other thing I finally got round to doing yesterday was the crank sensor.  Its the bain of every after market ECU installer, its the thing that most often causes trouble with an aftermarket installation and I too have been bitten.  There is an intermittent fault that shows up as a major but infrequent misfire.  There is an LED on the ECU that changes fro green to red if it looses the Crank signal, and thats exactly what happens when it misfires.  The ECU looses the signal so can't fire the sparks. 

After reading up on it it seems the signal in the wire is very weak so can be lost in the "noise" of the surrounding wire even though its a shielded wire. 

So I spent a long time taking this particular wire out of the engine loom, (the one that had taken ages to make neat by having all the sire go through one connector) and routing it away from all other wires and through a different area in the bulkhead.  I resoldered the wires really close to the ECU so the sheild was in tact as far as possible.  Here's the sensor wire going back from the engine to a point low in the bulkhead. 


The result of my work......   It misfires more now AAAAGGGHHHHH

I did have the sensor out of the block to see if it was covered in metal deposite.  So now I'm not sure if it is my meddling with the wires of the sensor itself thats messed it up. 

Next port of call is to buy a brand new sensor, if that doesn't cure it the ECU will need to go back so they can adjust the "sensitivity something or other".  I really hope the new sensor cures it. 

I had to fix the lathe yesterday too, the inverter had started messing up the garage circiut breaker.  With that now working my brother is sailing through his Capri brake upgrade, and my project has slowed accordingly to help. 
 
My christmas holiday is evaporating with little to show for it

I might get one more day on it hopefully. 

More to come

[jonnycool]

You've read this thread I take it mate? Might be relevant, might not:

http://www.omegaowners.com/forum/index.php?topic=96562.msg1197584;boardseen#new

Jon

[Kevin Wood]

If it's the old sensor from the donor, I'd get a new one. The wire gets brittle and a bit of bending it around will soon kill it. Also, worth making sure you have the right sensor as described in the link. If the sensor doesn't have enough reach it will give a weak signal. Otherwise, the signal shouldn't be that susceptible to noise. It's a few volts at idle and increases with RPM from there.

[lozzzzzz]

I've had a good read of that thread, and am I right in thinking the correct one for the x30xe is the bosch sensor? 

I hadn't realised there was a length difference in the two sensors.  I'm guessing the aftermarket ECU isn't going to be that bothered which sensor I get aside from the strength of signal.

I did get the calipers in there and measure that there is a 3mm gap between the sensor and the trigger wheel.  will the seimens sensor reduce that gap. 

Thanks for all your help with this folks. 

[lozzzzzz]

A little on my brothers Capri brake upgrade for those that are interested

It was meant to be a simple bolt on job. We found a kit for the rear but it turns out the weld on bracket (which is very well made) falls in totally the wrong place so some massive strong extensions have had to be made to get the bracket to a suitable place for welding to the axle tube.

And the front was based on the capri sport kits you can get but we did it ourselves. Thing is I found the wrong discs totally, we've got focus discs that will fit behind his 13" wheels, but they're not "tall" enough so we've had to make a large bracket to go between the Mondeo caliper and the mounts on the strut. So we talked it through and bought a whole load of different drill bits, a tap, some bolts, and some chunky 40x40mm steel bar.  I had to go visiting down south so left my brother to it.  He's done a cracking job, I'm full of brotherly pride

Here's the bar cut into two lengths


He then skimmed 6mm off on the lathe, taking them down to 40x36mm, the right size for the gap between the caliper and the mounts. 


Then just as I do, he got all carried away as things started moving and didn't take any more photos till it was done.  But hopefully you get the idea from the finished item.  The steel block is bolted to the caliper, there are section ground out of the block to clear the hub and to clear the piston of the caliper. 

The main problem that made it difficult is that the caliper can't be rotated up the disc as the mounting points on the strut foul on the caliper (see photos), so it can only be moved up or down from the intended position by a few degrees.  For this reason the caliper bolts and the strut bolts, end up nearly on top of each other.  To get round this he turned a little off the caliper bolts to fit them into a counter bore, if you know what I mean (picture speaks a thousand words). 




More to come on the scim soon. 

[lozzzzzz]

Yeah   a productive morning on the lathe. 

To recap, I've fitted a PAS rack to the car for its quick ratio but don't want the Assistance so I've got loads of feel.  Thing is I might change my mind so I'm retaining the original pump, and butchering another one to make a free wheel pulley so that the belt still takes the correct path over all the pulleys. 

The cir-clip thingy wasn't coming out at all, so I got the dye grinder out and hacked away till I could pull the pump apart. 


Interesting internals, I think its called a vein (sp?) type pump but its got little paddles thats ride round an odd shaped bore.  Anyway thats all on the bin



I pressed the solid bearing out and started making an arrangement to get the new pulley mounted. 



Checked all the dimensions out to make sure it'll be in the same possition as the original


Ground the hell out of the casing to lose a bit of weight, but hopefully not too much strength


Made a few more bits on the lathe and its all done   Starting from the left, there are the big washers that clamp the bearing in the pulley centre.  There is the spacer that goes between them (still in the bearing), obviously this is a little too small to allow the washers to clamp down on the bearing.  Then there's the T shaped thingy that goes into the PAS Pump casing, and again is slighty too short to allow the washer and nut to clamp down on the casing. 


Used an old pinto head bolt to hold the whole thing together.  And voila:


Might be just a bit more to come before my holiday draws to a close.

[lozzzzzz]

All done and back on, there are a whole load of parts that can go back on to pretty much finish the car forward of the A pillar, but they're all waiting on the new CPS to arrive.  I think this is a good place to be before work starts again: easy weekend progress to keep the project ticking over week by week. 

For now heres a pic of the new item installed with no bulky tank circulating oil, you can't see any wobbling due to out of alignment


Thanks all for following.

[Shackeng]

Still brilliant. HNY Lozzz

[lozzzzzz]

Thanks Shackeng,  HNY to you and all!

[lozzzzzz]

Hi folks, I've had a little go in the garage today, misserably slow progress this morning, just cleaning up all the s**t that my brother has left in his despirate attempt to get his capri road worthy, I found so many broked tools, anyway! 

This afternoon, I spent several hours chasing the CPS/ECU issue that prevents the engine from running properly and from starting sometimes.  I've tried everything and reached the point that most aftermarket customers eventually reach:  I think might be one of the very few unlucky ones where the ECU might perhaps be at fault.......  but probably not

Then I set about making another water hose.  I've previous made the radiator top hose from aluminium with a screw type car tyre valve T-peice.  But it was always very slightly leaked, not at the valve as you'd expect but as the connection with the rubber radiator hose.  the ali hose is slightly oval'd so the jubilee clamp didn't squeeze it tight enough, you can just see in the photo, whitness marks.



I got some SS tube instead so I could weld a T-piece on. 


And now the hose is neatly (ish) tied to the top of the fan cowling.


Then I changed both top ball joint rubbers that had already perished and cracked through even though the car hasn't even left the garage (ebay quality)


More to come

[aaronjb]

Still making progress, then

Are you going to bead the SS tube at all? Might help sealing - bead formers are kinda hard to come by, admittedly! Although there is this gadget: http://crendonreplicas.com/tools.html - works very well (I found it better than a proper bead roller, certainly easier to use!)

[lozzzzzz]

Aaron, thats a very cool tool!  I'd rerally like one, but its quite a lot of money.  I'm happy that the tight fit and the serious SS jubilees should hold it suitably. 

I wish my progress was a lot faster, this is the first time I've spent more than an hour in the garage since christmas very depressing! 

I'll probably get one more day at best before work starts again. 

Thanks for your help.

[aaronjb]

Aaron, thats a very cool tool!  I'd rerally like one, but its quite a lot of money.  I'm happy that the tight fit and the serious SS jubilees should hold it suitably. 

It is kinda expensive - usually I'd balk at that price for a tool like that .. if it weren't for the fact that I know it's made by a bloke called John who's at least 65 and still works (as far as I can tell!) 7 days a week in a draughty old ex-RAF workshop - great bloke and makes some beautiful cars (the chassis is a work of art).. anyway, I digress


Now get back out in that garage! I hope yours is warmer than mine - just about lost my finger to frost bite in there last week 

[lozzzzzz]

I had a cheaky little evening session on the car this evening.  I'm by no means down in the dumps, I'm far too busy with work to be, but in terms of the project, it has reached a new low! 

I'm been fighting with this running problem for months now.  I've been emailing the very helpful folk at Canems for ages, suggestions have been going back and forth to no avail, to the point where the ECU was connected only to power, earth (straight to battery) and the brand new CPS, nothing else, there could be no earthing issues, it didn't even involve the car at all. 

David at Canems eventually threw in the towel and admitted it was a bit odd, so suggested sending it back for testing.  I got it back in the post today there is nothing wrong with it, its been running a real engine for a length of time, I'm so gutted, I was really hoping there would be something wrong with it

So I fitted it, with nothing else at all connected as before and it seemed to work the first 20 ish starts of the engine (just turning over on the starter), so I started connecting sensors and then...    back to its old tricks!  Took all the sensors back off again, right back to how I started again and the fault is still there. 

So once again, I tried a mirriad of different things, there is so little interferrence its unbelieveable, nothing that could possible make (electrical) noise is on, (accept the starter) nothing that could posssibly pick up any electrical noise is connected to the ECU, even the alternator is fully disconected, not even turning (belt is off).  Its so annoying. 



SO....

Back to the other plan, I'll look though that thread on here about the difference between the 2.5 and 3.0 CPS and see if the 2.5 will end up any closer to the trigger wheel, its got to be worth a try, its made by a different manufacturer apparently so could well make a stronger signal. 

Here's  a little reminder of how the car looks (yep exactly the same for now) taken with my new SLR (retail therapy helps)


More to come

[Kevin Wood]

Have you got an Oscilloscope? Just thinking it might be worth a look at the crank sensor volts?

Odd that it worked for a while then started acting up, though.

Battery voltage falling perhaps?

A new, correct, crank sensor would be a good move, IMHO. They are pretty unreliable and appear to have several failure modes.