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The Car Thread


MadManMike

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Car forum, I have a question for you!

 

After spinning my golf off the road and killing the poor little bugger, I've got my hands on a little 05 Fiesta runabout.

Obligatory awful phone photo:

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Question is, I feel like the headlights are being a bit funny. When dipped, you pull the stalk back halfway to hold the high beams on, and then pull all the way to toggle the high beams on. When the high beams are held, both the dipped and high beams are on, but when toggled, the dipped beams turn off and the high beams stay on.

 

Is that normal? It seems to me that every other car I've been in, both the dipped and high beams will be on. Either that, or these high beams are quite narrow and don't illuminate much vertically.

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Just now, dann2707 said:

I'm fairly certain that's normal dude.

 

Yeah, thinking about it, I can mentally see every time I've switched to high beams, and can picture the dipped turning off. I just think these are the narrowest high beams I've used; when I hold both high and dipped lights on, it's the kind of illumination I'm used, to so it had me questioning their normal behaviour!

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Pulled the oil pump off the engine I'm rebuilding and although the pump, chain and pickup are in good shape (the pickup pipe has a very small amount of crap in the pickup but nothing I'm too concerned about), the chain tensioner is looking a little worn.

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The part itself is only a few quid (I already have a new one ready to rock) but to get to the single bolt to replace it I'm going to have to pull the front sealing flange off the block, replace it along with the main crank bolt (effort!) and may as well do the main crank bearings while I'm there. Yay for unwanted cost and effort haha.

Related: Pulled one rod/piston out to have a little look at things. New rods haven't arrived yet so I'll leave the others in place until they're here but very happy with how things look on the one I've removed.

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Edit; Annoyingly Photobucket seem to be messing about with their servers and the one photo not working is the one of the tensioner. Typical! :lol:
Reupped using TF attachment.

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6 minutes ago, Luke Rainbird said:

 may as well do the main crank bearings while I'm there. Yay for unwanted cost and effort haha.
 

Just check the clearances with Plastigauge and inspect the surfaces (like you've done for that rod bearing) - no point replacing them if the clearance and condition is good. They never actually touch anything (or shouldn't), that's what oil pressure is for :)

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A good point well made, I guess I'm just covering my ass a little whilst I have the thing in bits. Will have a measure if I get that involved and see how things look (Y)

Having had a bit of a think about it, I may well be able to leave the crank in place to remove the front flange and get to this tensioner. That'd minimise the extra cost by negating the need for new main bolts etc too which is favourable. As much as I'd love to pull every last part off and do a bare-block rebuild (would make honing etc a little nicer too) I need to draw the line somewhere.

This crank bolt is an absolute bitch, may just grind the b*****d off since it'll be replaced anyway.

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If you are honing the bores, the crank 100% needs to come out. You won't get everything clean enough while the crank is in situ.

Bugger about that socket! Get a properly sized (can't imagine the Krauts using any imperial bolts?) impact socket on there, it will come...

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3/4" = 19.05mm = good enough for government work :P
Only had a 3/8" drive 19mm where as that was 1/2" so gave it a whirl. Clearly not worth it haha.

It's just a particularly stubborn b*****d though, as hanging off it with a 3' bar on the 19mm socket hasn't touched it. Most folk seem to say sticking a wooden block between the crank and block to lock it in place as you try to undo the bolt is the way to go, but it's not doing a thing so may just grab the grinder and remove the head of the bolt if it comes to it.

Crank out would be nice and easy to hone, but most people leave it in situ and stuff the hell out of the bottom of the bores with rags, shaving foam etc to catch the crud. Whilst I don't agree with that methodology too much, the lack of bottom end here should help keep things relatively easy to clean out in comparison. Just need to go over things repeatedly with surgical precision when checking it all out before building anything back up. That said, looks like I'll be almost there with the crank out at this rate so might be a non-issue!

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Engine out of the TT today. A lot more involved than the Golf, the bay is really crammed, and with the 4wd box, access to the turbo and downpipe bolts is a real pain...but got there in the end!

image.thumb.jpeg.90b79c7511562078bc71fdc

 

Got a nice pile of K04 bits to post out for a 1.8t A3 conversion, should recoup some costs (actually pays for both cars, they were that cheap!):

image.thumb.jpeg.7b0b0d840fbaf7a7662b09c 

 

As usual, I forgot to take pictures of the important stages, haha. 

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You're absolutely flying through that lot, George! Speedy progress is speedy, and very good to hear it's paid for itself already. I'm hoping that once I'm done with this lot I can sell the AMK from my car to recover a healthy proportion of the costs, which should make for a pretty cheap upgrade. Have sold my 023 hybrid, mani and exhaust to a chap near Glasgow (typical, since I'm no longer going to be based up there!) which should free up the funds for some more 064 type goodies, perhaps.

Made a little more progress with the engine today.

Pulled the rest of the pistons out of the block so I could move things around a little more and start cleaning them up before they get fitted to new rods.

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Separated the piston from the rod on #1 so I can start cleaning off all the carbon prior to refit. Bit of carb cleaner has proven to be pretty reasonable for getting rid of the slightly less baked in stuff, though I think a soft brass wire wheel on the Dremel might be the way to go. Need to be pretty careful though as the pistons are alu and don't want to make a mess of them. Is brass soft enough to use for this sort of thing, or would some kind of Nylon be a better bet?

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Looking at the cylinders themselves they're all in decent shape (albeit shiny and glazed). The only real mark I could spot was this on #3, though I can't feel it with a fingernail so I'm content that it'll be gone with a hone.

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With that sorted, I started to pull everything else off the block. My thinking is that the easiest way to get this crank bolt out is going to be to take it to a garage/machine shop and bribe them with Hobnobs, since it's sure as hell not going anywhere here! Pretty much removed everything now, though the 'stat housing had obviously leaked a tad previously as there was a fair bit of silicone around it

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Left things stripped down in a fairly tidy state. Once the crankshaft is out, I'll set about fully stripping the tatty paint from the block and give it a fresh coat (I have a load of VHT black/silver engine paint in the garage, likely use the former for the block again and latter for the head, maybe some wrinkle black for the rocker cover and inlet mani if I can be fecked...

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I say "Oh f**k", then "Sorry about that" a few times.  Then hammers, extension bars and screwdrivers get involved.

Then we fix the car.

EDIT:  Fun to go out in my road car again too at Three Sisters.  Bit of a different setup to Cadwell yesterday, namely with it being wet the whole time at Three Sisters.  I drove my MX5 (bought from Adam), Mauricio drove his MX5 (bought from Adam) and Adam drove his MX5 so it was a fun reunion for them.  Good to see Mauricio put it sideways everywhere too.  I'm sure some photos will emerge in the next few days.

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A 'before' and 'after' - 'before' is me driving Adam at what I think is the same spot I binned it a few laps later, with Alex Richardson (of TrialandError fame) taking the photo.  

before.jpg

'After' is Adam driving Alex just after scaling the Mountain.

after.jpg

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