Tamber

This running lean situation appears to be a different problem to my earlier no-start. The no-start seems to have turned out to be excessive resistance in the spark-plug leads (that lead to excessive erosion at the terminals inside the dizzy cap, I guess, since they looked a bit melted.); sorted that, then a few weeks after that, started having it losing power and running lean. I figured it'd be a melted cat due to all the unburnt fuel. Nope, that'd be too easy. So, a few days ago, my "what did I do" was to swap the fuel pump relay (The original one -- and it really did look like it was the original one from 1994! -- came apart as I pulled it apart; and the internal switch contacts were discoloured from heat and showed signs of arc damage.), which seemed to improve things significantly. (Though it hasn't cured it entirely) I'm just about to go wield contact-cleaner with extreme prejudice.

That's the problem, though! It's not delivering enough fuel, just going full lean (pegging the gauge at 22.4), and then falling on its face. (Now I've calmed down from being cold and wet, I've added some more things to my list to check. Hoping it now turns out to be either a dying fuel pump relay, or bad contacts in that awkward little fusebox.)

Stared and cussed at it, considered setting the ****** thing on fire. Decided against it. ...it wouldn't bloody burn. Too wet. Don't you just love problems you can't figure out, when nobody (EDIT: nobody nearby, that is. Every sod at work thinks they're a comedian, but they've all got the exact same two lines.) can/is willing to help. (I would post for help in the Classic Skoda forum, but it'll only get me a shouting at from the Lord Almighty of Classic Skodas, because I didn't fix it with the power of my mind, in the freezing dark. )

True enough. But you might be surprised at just how far outside the ideal you can go, and still have it show some signs of life, as long as it's got fuel and spark -- even if the compression is low and the timing is wrong. Not in every item. The spark plug caps on the 'factory' leads did not have resistors; they were just plain metal connectors just like the ones I have now fitted. However, the 'factory' leads were graphite core, which supposedly have a rough resistance of about 1kOhm/foot; and I was replacing them with copper-cored leads, so I figured that I should perhaps use resistive plug caps to reintroduce that resistance, in the sake of noise suppression. It certainly seemed to run fine, albeit rather rich; which I attributed to the cold weather of this time of year, but was probably due to a weak spark not fully igniting the fuel-air mix in the chamber. There was some oxidation/erosion on the terminals inside the cap, which might've been a steady build-up over time; but cleaning that back didn't change the no-start, and I didn't take any pictures of it, so *shrug* It still has resistor spark plugs in it; I merely changed the spark plug terminals to ones without resistors. (I had also changed the rotor arm and distributor cap prior to this, but without any apparent change; so I hadn't mentioned it. Didn't realise I was going to be answering to the Dominican Inquisition.) As for why I changed the leads: The ones that were on, were falling to pieces; the terminals were corroding quite badly and were coming off the ends; and it works out about the same, price-wise, for me to make leads than it does to go buy another ****ty set online. (Yes, yes, I know; only if my time is worth nothing.)

Well, it runs again. Just so you can all have a laugh at what turned out to be my screw-up: Not only had the rotor arm got a resistor in it, and the plug-caps I'd added after the change to copper-core wire, but the spark plugs have resistors in them too. I'm surprised it ran as well as it did -- hell, that it ran at all -- since I changed the HT leads. After going through all those resistors, there'd be next to no spark energy left at all. The fix was relatively simple, ish: Change the plug-caps to non-resistive ones. (Simple and easy for me, anyway, since I've got spark plug crimp tools, terminals, etc. )

I'm having a little headache with my '94 Favorit, with the MonoMotronic fuel injection, in that it refused to start yesterday evening. It had started fine in the morning and behaved as normal on the drive to work, it started and ran fine over my lunch break. 4 hours later, it cranked just fine but refused to fire up at all. I've puzzled and prodded over it (2 hours of that in the dark, with it raining sideways), so I'm asking here for a little sanity check, in case I've missed something in my frustration. I've tried wiggling/jiggling the wiring harness, unplugging/inspecting/reconnecting plugs, in case I have a broken or corroded wire or connector terminal somewhere that I might've dislodged while I was trying to neaten up my O2 sensor wiring; but that has had no discernible effect. (As for why futzing about with the sensor wiring: I'm running an LC-2 Wideband O2 so I can run an AFR gauge, have the secondary output of that set to emulate the original narrowband O2 sensor, and am feeding that signal to the original O2 sensor wiring. It's been running this way for 5 months or so with no signs of problem, I just hadn't gotten around to connecting it properly rather than twist&tape joints, so I was redoing those joins with adhesive-lined heat-shrink crimps. You know how it goes; there's nothing quite so permanent as a temporary fix that works. ) It cranks over just as it always has, with no funny noises, and without struggling. I'll check the battery voltage when I'm next poking at it, perhaps put it on charge for a bit; it did seem a little low, at approx 12.5v, but... I have a strong spark from the coil; the spark is weaker at the plug (I hadn't realised the rotor arm has a suppression resistor inside it, so I had fitted resistive spark-plug caps when I made the new copper-cored leads. Will have to fix that.) but it's run with that combination of rotor arm, distributor cap, leads, and plugs for the better part of two months with little in the way of a hiccup. I even tried tightening the plug gaps up a little, in case it was struggling with that. I'm fairly sure that fuel is getting into the cylinder; the plugs are getting wet with fuel. (And, while I was trying in the dark, I tried with ether; not even the barest hint of a pop or sputter.) I have, I note, wiped them dry and tried again to no avail. So I'm a little stumped. As far as I can see, I have air, fuel, and spark; I should at least be getting pops and bangs. Thankfully(!), at least it's doing this within easy reach of my toolbox...

Yeah, part-way through doing that, I was remembering why I hated doing drum brakes. :peek: (But the ones on the truck are significantly easier; they're just a pain due to the weight of everything...)

Went to attack the brakes. Started with the rears, because I knew they were bad... :o And it took me about 3 hours to get to this point on one side. Mostly because I forgot how to put the murderous bloody heap of springs and sharp bits back together, but also because I struggled like hell to get the handbrake cable back on. Ended up having to make a pair of pliers to spread the cable... Thankfully, the other side was done in 45 minutes, including changing the wheel bearing, because I knew how it went together and had the tool from the first side. By the time I got to the point I could bleed the brakes, it had started to go dark... which is not very much fun when you're working on an industrial estate with no lighting. Then, to add further insult, my vacuum bleeder stopped working; the O-ring on the piston came off. :dull: The brakes are better, now (The handbrake, infinitely so! Three clicks of the ratchet, rather than 8-ish and still creaking alarmingly); but I didn't get around to doing the pads on the front, nor completely flushing the whole system because the fluid is black. That might be tomorrows cursing-laden struggle.

\o/ Apparently I've done about 7100 miles since I bought the car, if my back-of-the-envelope calculations are correct. Parked up after a weekend of driving to the wrong end of the country and back, and spotted that.

And furthermore, this morning, the rearmost section of pipe fell off completely; just after the bend that takes it over the rear axle. (oo-er missus) Thankfully, it hung on until just as I was parking up at work; rather than plunking itself down on the main road. I hate welding exhaust tubing.

Exhauster hanger decided it wasn't going to, any more. Cue loud and awkward scraping noises down the end of the dual carriageway, around the roundabout, and up into a quiet side-street. (Sod the exhaust pipe, I'm not stopping where some dozy git is going to run into the back of me at 40mph because they're too busy staring at their phone. )

Hail in the morning; hail in the evening. Plodded to work, and home again, sans incident. Much to the apparent irritation of the driver of the shiny new BMW behind me on the homeward trip, through icy slush and driving hail; where I was clearly impeding his progress by not treating the speed limit as mere suggestion.

(Well, it's what I did yesterday, but nyeh~) Took the wheels off one corner to see if the sticking brakes had caused any damage to the drum, and to see if I could dismantle the brakes without taking the hub off like the manual says. Moment of truth... Lots of effort expended to get to that point; 3-piece wheels with 9.00-20s on them are heavy! Oh. Well. I guess the hub needs to come off after-all. At least it turns out the drum is in pretty good condition; no grooving, heat damage, etc. Linings on the shoes are shot, though; heavily contaminated with grease/sludge, which is probably what saved the drum. Yummy!

Fixed the fuel gauge! Pin had worked its way out of the connector, making occasional contact as I went over bumps. I don't have any replacement pins, so I clipped the corresponding wire at the other plug, and fitted it with a spade terminal joint. Gauge now functions normally, which is a relief. Yeeeees, my passenger footwell is a tip. Axle stands, wheel chocks, bits of wire, a set of old spark-plugs from the truck...

I have a parking/auxiliary heater that I still need to bloody fit to the Fav. It'll be pretty cush when I finally do get a sufficiently circular tuit... though that'll probably be the middle of summer 2017.

Forecast calls for snow tomorrow evening, into the early hours of Wednesday. So that'll just be miserable half-frozen slush everywhere, then...

Definitely hit winter-ish; on its way to dark at half four, so no tinkering time after work due to receding light... not that I'd be able to do much with my fingers getting frozen stiff anyway! Checked the antifreeze strength in the truck -- paranoid about that big copper&brass radiator core -- good to -12°C; might strengthen it up a little bit more anyway. Not long before co-workers start the gentle ribbing about when it's going to be on the road to start pulling people out of slush-drifts.

t'was an Audi. Exactly which one, I don't know.

Well, what leads me to think it's not the sender -- or at least, not the resistance track on it -- is that it reads about what it should, when it works; and the rest of the time, it's dropped well and truly below the red on the gauge, as if it's got no connection. (With my luck, though, it will turn out to be the sender... ) And, back onto topic; Yes, I'm easily amused

Andy from the Barley Pickers was adjusting the fuelling (to "Ludicrous", no doubt) when the nut just "came off in me 'and", and that was the end of that engine. But they found a bigger one to replace it, so there's that.

Yeah, first thing I did was poke and prod at the sender (made all the more fun by the fuel level being right at the top of the port in the top of the tank that the sender drops in through, so any sudden movements caused fuel to slop everywhere. I hate the smell of petrol.), and that seems to be responding reasonably (Resistance changes as I push the float down, and smoothly at that..) I also dismantled the instrument panel to give all the contacts a good cleaning up (contact cleaner and a bit of rubbing), which didn't fix my original issue. (Gauge worked one day, then not the next. It occasionally sometimes works, but then usually dies again before I've finished even the trip to work. Only once, so far, has it had an attack of the flails...) I'll get it figured out at some point; until then, I'm going off estimations and occasional random confirmations. Until then, I guess neither of the vehicles in my fleet will have a working fuel gauge.

Whatever broken wire that's causing my fuel gauge to sometimes -- but mostly not -- work, just barely making contact; so needle slamming between below empty to full, then back again, about twenty times a second. XD

Fell off it, and landed with one elbow on the cab roof, and the other on the body -- both elbows thus brought about level with my earholes. Something went crunch. I think it was me. Other than that, I cut a hole in the roof, and put some more metal in; thus reducing some of the holey-ness. Also discovered the O/S cab mount has delaminated; this was discovered by the whole cab tipping over alarmingly as I heaved myself up by the grab-handle above the N/S door. (This same thing also claimed another victim; my co-workers' iPhone, which fell out of his pocket and landed screen-down on the carpark... popped the whole front off it, cracked the screen, launched the home-button off to realms unknown.) (Even fairly small patches are pretty time-consuming.) I did apply some body-filler just to soften those ridges where the welds were; it was overheating alarmingly quickly trying to take them down with a sanding disc, even being careful, and I didn't want to thin it out too much. It'll look significantly less-ugly when I can sand it smooth. It still hadn't set by the time I needed to vacate the workshop.

Ayup! I use a £30 chinese special, it's got a display that's something like 7" diagonal; absolutely huge... nice and clear, though. I've got it set with different vehicle profiles (One for the Fav, one for the work's Sprinter van, and there'll be one for the Bedford when I get that on the road again), since it picks different routes based on your weight/size, to avoid weight/height/width limits. Nice to be able to take it with me whenever I swap vehicles, since I get to take all my way-points and bookmarked destinations. (Mostly work sites.) (It'll also let you do route/road avoidances, but I've never really played with that much.)

Me bloody fuel gauge has decided it's had enough! It was working on the 19th, when I was haring around back and forth between Manchester and home; then I went to go drive to the shops yesterday evening, and it's pegged right at the bottom of the gauge. (Not even at the red bit. It's even below that, like it's not even getting switched on; but the low fuel warning like comes on like it would if the tank was empty.) It was so sudden, I spent half an hour crawling around trying to see if someone had drilled my tank to steal the fuel or something. I even tried putting more fuel in, just in case that would make it respond, but no. Aaaaargh.