There's Good News & There's Bad News

First the good news. The Zetec has run .

 

It was all going so well, just a couple of minor leaks & an electrical problem or two, nothing big. I did need to strengthen the idler wheel bracket after it threw the belt a couple of times. So I decided to clear away the tools & take it up the road.

It wouln’t move .

When the engine is off the gearbox goes easily into any gear, with the engine running, the lever won’t pass through the gates, but the car creeps forward as pressure is applied. At first I swore at the release bearing thinking I must’ve been supplied with something that wasn’t a CT133 Capri bearing. But the clutch pedal feels normal, so now I’m inclined to believe the clutch plate is corroded to the flywheel.

 

Disheartened now.

Never Underestimate Your Own Capacity For Stupidity

So, I'd been having problems getting the ECU to talk with the laptop. I dislike electronics, I prefer things to look broken when they break.
After speaking to a couple of folks who are interested in wiggly amps, I established that the connector I'd bought for £2 off Ebay was unlikly to be fully USB compliant, so I bought a much more expensive one (though why doesn't the ECU come with one?) & this evening I repaired the the garage to test out my new purchase. It worked! it actually worked! Overjoyed I set about setting up the sensors, beginning with the Throttle Position Sensor (TPS).
This proved worrisome. The reading, according to the big blue book of words from Omex, the raw output from the TPS should range between about 20 & 255. Mine varied from 170ish to 255, so the ECU thought the throttle was permanently open.
I broke out the multi meter & rechecked the outputs - they were as they were when I'd tested it before, I took the TPS off the Focus manifold that came with the engine - that yielded broadly similar results, I crossed checked all this data with the big blue book of words, everything seemed good. I carefully transcribed all my results into a chart ready to send to Omex in the morning, then as one final check - I compared the wires each side of the connector. Grey went to grey, but pink went to orange & orange to pink. I thought I'd wired it up so carefully. Tomorrow, I shall swap the two errant wires & try again.

Under Pressure.........

........for more reasons than one.
Firstly having worked in the garage all day Friday, I now have oil AND fuel pressure, these are two good things. I did a great deal of finishing off, as a result of which the car just needs the map fed into the ECU & I can attempt to start it. it also needs another fuel rail banjo bolt after the one I modified broke, seems I drilled the bore size out rather too much, but there's an alloy one on it's way from Ebay.

I also decided to raise the engine, as there didn't seem to be a lot of ground clearance, so on one side I raised the mounting with a couple of 5mm plates temporarily fitted. The other side's more difficult to get at, so in my wisdom I fitted the only 50mm engine mount I could find to that side, so when it was done, it was done. It looked good, the engine seemed more level, there was 90mm under the sump, there were no problems with the hoses - result! I tidied up the tools  closed the bonnet - tried to close the bonnet - it seemed "springy" as if something was in the way. Ah, I see what I've done here. The following day I lowered the engine back down, & now the bonnet closes.

The second reason for the "under pressure" tag, is the MoT which is due on the 1st April, so I really should have the car in being tested about now. I really NEED it sorted in the next week.

There's Good News & There's Bad News.

Good news first, The ECU wiring is just about complete. I've wired up the injectors, though I didn’t put the pins in the connectors until I’ve confirmed they don’t have a “way-round-ness” (polarity – that’s the word). Then the coolant temp sensor, cooling fan, fuel pump & then bundled & sleeved the wires. Electrickery done, I moved on to the fuel system, finished off a pipe from the pump to the fuel filter, found a route for the return line, then went indoors for a rest. What all this means is that I’m almost ready to try & start it (ish).

 On Saturday I did the last of the tidying up behind the dash, & re-fitted the transmission tunnel side panel, then mostly re-fitted the dash. Today I finished off fitting the dash, took the cam cover off, dribbled the cams with pre-lube, took the spark plugs out & turned it over in an attempt to get oil pressure, BUT the oil light remained resolutely on & the gauge didn’t move a millimetre, so it looks like I’ll have to take the sump off & see what’s going on in there (sigh). In amongst all this I also fixed the two parts of the NACA intake mould together & put the first layer of filler on it.

Having got all disheartened by the lack of oil pressure I went indoors but returned to the garage later & made up the heat shields for the top of the pod & the tailpipe outlet. Again these didn’t go as well as they could, obviously not having a good today.

Dull, Dull, Dull.

What have I been doing for the last couple of weeks then? A lot of it was spent mopping my wife's fevered brow as she's been really quite poorly. However I have still got out to the garage once or twice & on these occasions I've managed very little that you could actually see. It's not all bad news, I've installed the Lambda sensor, & completed the wiring for it, more or less completed the wiring behind the dash, routed the ECU wiring in the engine bay that sort of thing. It's deathly dull both to do & to describe but it has to be done & once complete there really is very little stopping me from testing the engine - which could be quite exciting or very disheartening depending on wether it fires up or not.

A Game of Two Halves

Today I took a day off to look after a poorly wife. So not much Garage time BUT the temperature climbed to a heady +5deg, the first time it was over freezing for about 3 weeks. So that was too good an opportunity to miss & having mopped her fevered brow, I disappeared for an hour or so & wired up the power supply to the ECU, the earth, the tacho feed & ran the wire for the shift light.
On the other side of the bulkhead (the engine bay) I took off the thermostat housing ready to put a thread in it for the temp sender adaptor. I also took a plug out of the engine block just behind the oil pump & fitted the sump plug adaptor & temp sender from the crossflow, so hopefully the oil temp gauge will work now. And hopefully it won’t leak.

After tea, a bunch of callow youths allegedly acquainted with the elder daughter turned up for something that “wasn’t a party”, but seemed to involve a great deal of unpleasant loud music, shrieking & wine. So as I will on these occasions I repaired to the garage & set about the car. I re-attached the battery & wired a fuse into the ECU live, Sikaflexed a strip of wood to the bulkhead & screwed on relays for the ECU functions & high pressure fuel pump, then started wiring up the fused relay for the ECU functions. I shall have to try to get out to do a little wiring each evening or I'll forgrt where I've got to on the wiring plan.

Red Shift

I'm afraid I've been thinking again - this time the focus of my musings was the shift light. The ECU can drive one, so it seems daft not to make use of the facility. Ideally the light should be right in front of the driver's face, just below the eye line, BUT that means that it's dazzling at night. So what's to be done? The solution I fell upon was to fit self adhesive LEDs to the underside of the glare shield, they won't show up in daylight, but that's what the main shift light is for. There's a switch adjacent to the pod that turns off the upper light.

I think that podded shift light looks good - for a £1 LED light pushed into the end of a £4 cigar tube (yes really).

Hopefully it'll soon be warm enough to get out to the garage & do some propper car building soon - it's been below zero all week & is currently snowing heavily.