Monday 11 February 2013

Knob!

Well the starter’s back on the car – what a palaver, I’ve never sworn at a car so much. When I built the car I fitted a new starter (thinking it was a fit-&-forget item), then laid in cooling pipes above it, the exhaust above them. The upshot of all this is that it's VERY near impossible to fit the starter. No matter how you move your head, you can't see the bolt holes & even if you could see them, no amount of twisting & turning will get a pair of fingers to the bolt heads to turn them. In the end I made a sling out of rag & held it one side of the pod, while the other arm went under the car to insert the lowest bolt. Having got that in, the other two were much easier as I didn't have to hold it in place AND insert the bolts.

So the starter was back on & it worked without shrieking - so Burghfield Starter and Alternator Centre had done an excellent job & in just over 24 hours of dropping it off. So I grabbed the laptop & set about loading the new map from Omex. That led to more fun. I had been sent the map by e-mail & had tried to file it under a different name. But when I tried to call it up - it wasn't there. I tried to look up the e-mail, but that was gone too. So I had no map, no e-mail & no-idea who'd sent it. I went back in the house. In a mood.

Then - I found the map. I put it in the right place, I loaded it to the ECU, pushed the starter & it failed to start. Then I remembered the fuel pump was switched off. This was not one of my better days in the garage.

Having sorted myself out, the engine started. It ran with a noticeably higher idle, one of he things I'd asked for help with was a high idle, but it was now higher, I read the e-mail & it said to reduce the idle with the idle screw, something that’s not worked before, it worked! So it’s looking good for a fix for the other problems but the weather has kept the car in the garage, so no testing yet.

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