Hmm, they might just work Ron. Can I try them please. If they don't work out I'll post them back to you. I'll email you my address. Thanks.
Right. I know I've said it several times before, but I'd just like to publicly state it once more, Mssrs Terry T & Kapri are officially the toppest top diamond geezers in all of Mankydom. They've both gone far above & w-a-y beyond the call of duty in the last couple of weeks on this project. I really, genuinely appreciate all you've done guys. Thank you.
So. Today's chapter of the continuing saga-
Loony's still recovering from his neck injury, so didn't appear at the workshop till mid afternoon & I was stuck in a traffic jam caused by roadworks on the M3. So by the time I'd picked up the keys from Loony's place & driven out there, both T & K had been waiting at the workshop for some time. Sorry.
A quick cuppa & Terry got to work, hooking up the last of the wiring, while Kev clambered under the truck to check out the brakes. Meanwhile I mixed up the sealant & coated the inside of the fuel tank with it.
The electrics were causing some confusion, but Terry used the Phone a Friend option to consult with Mr TBone & between the two of them, they eventually diagnosed the problem. The pre-wired fuse board we've used had seperate flasher relays for the indicators & hazards, but refused to work when wired that way. Throwing the hazard relay away & routing everything through the indicator relay finally fixed it. Good work chaps! The only thing left to sort now is the wiper motor, but that's not needed for the SVA test.
Kev spent ages measuring & checking the brake pedal & cylinder & writing jolly clever stuff down on paper & expecting me to understand it. Basically, (he tells me), we need a bigger bore master cylinder. On the first push, the brake pedal goes almost to the floor, but on the second push the brakes work fine. Not air in the system, so it has to be the cylinder. Our old forum friend, pedal ratios, also plays a part. Our brake pedal has a ratio of around 3 to 1, when ideally it should be 5 to 1. Once the test is over, we need to shorten the lower arm of the pedal & fit a cylinder from something like a VW camper van, rather than the Beetle one we have.
Moving on, we hooked up a temporary fuel can & tried to fire the beast up. Which is when the real fun began.
Fuel, spark, ignition ...bruummmm. Great! Cough, splutter. Silence. Oh.
No spark. A bit of a spark. No spark. Enough spark to give Terry a big ol' jolt. No spark.
It was all over the place. We're running a Mallory dual points distributor but only one set of points seemed to have any life in them. The magic multimeter was brought out, (I've never understood those things). Hours crept by with Kev, Terry & a couple of passing workshop visitors all peering at the distributor & suggesting different remedies. I know nuffink about electrics at all, so could only stand & watch while they wracked their collective brainses. A replacement coil was fetched from Loony's stash of spare vehicles. No difference. The plugs were changed. The timing was checked, moved, & put back where it started. Nope. Eventually I ferretted through the boxes of bits in the back of my car & came up with 2 sets of new points that had come with the dizzy. Seems the iffy set of points had a much weaker spring to them than the other set, though I'm not sure if that was the only cause.
By this time the battery was getting weak from the constant turning of the engine & the starter solenoid was sticking again. I was given a hammer & told to bash it -yeah, they've realised my level of mechanical competence. They stripped & cleaned the distributor & fitted the new points. They hooked up the fuel line again. They jumped the battery from Terry's spare one. I bashed stuff.
Bruummmm! Hurrah! Finally the motor burst into life, though "burst" implies far more enthusiasm than it actually had. It runs. Not perfectly, but not bad.
A quick detune of the mixture to try & meet the emmisions regulations & we decided to call it a day.
Thank you guys. I know you'd both had enough of the thing by mid afternoon & I applaud your determination to stick at it until it ran. You is both top Monkeys. Mr T, I hope your good lady will forgive your constant jaunts up to Basingstoke & Mr K, I'm praying we haven't permanently crippled you -we need you again on Monday!
