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BlankFrank

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  1. For those who are comparing meerkats; moneysupermarkets car insurance compare feature seems to give me cheaper offers than the comparethemarket one. So I suppose we now have to compare the comparison sites too.. 🙃
  2. I assume driving the hell out of london for the sake of it has its own appeal.😁 Once you're out of the M25's reach you can actually enjoy the journey.
  3. [wishful thinking] Will probably end up on a new MST Escort shell rather than a stolen car. [/wishful thinking.]
  4. You're a machine, man. Bloody inspirational. Sounds like overstatement, probably because it is, but it definitely encourages me to get the welder out on my old heaps.✌️
  5. Coulda' fooled me; the dimes on that last picture looked superb. Good stuff, looking forward to seeing it back on the road.👍
  6. You've got arms, eyes and a brain, thats all you need to get the job done really. 👍 Have trust that you can do it, even if it takes x5 the time compared to whats expected. Once you've done it once you'll level up your skillset and if it all goes catastrophically wrong then you'll have a legit excuse to buy another engine. Just go into the job knowing that everything rusty will snap and that it will need new studs and you wont get disappointed when they do snap or round-off. Do the old oil down the bores trick. Compression test, write down readings. Dob of oil in the cylinder bores to fill up the rings, compression test again. Compare the 2 and that'll tell you if the rings are sealing badly vs valves. If it's valve stem seals then you'll see next to no change between the test before and the test after oiling the bores. (oil in the bores will never reach the valve stem seals, naturally) Edit: Would it be possible to remove the head from the engine and leave the exhaust manifold connected? I did that with a polo breadvan when changing the head gasket 'cos i knew the mani was trouble.
  7. For what it's worth: The '89 323 carb rebuild you did is still going strong, not sure if that was with home made gaskets or not though. (Car is currently hibernating to keep it off of winter salt/snow)
  8. Another thing to keep in mind; If the welder has previously been set up for flux core wire then the polarity will need to be set differently for solid-core-gas-sheilded wire. (behind the flap, 2 chunky wires that can be unscrewed and swapped around) With sheilding gas the torch should be + positive & the ground clamp will be - negative. Edit: This probably all feels like an avalanche of information, the trick i've found to learning welding is just bashing your head against it repetedly until you fail better and better, before you know it you'll be welding up old bangers like its nothing. 👍
  9. Some random suggestions/bodge idea: Find a vacuum line that connects to the intake manifold (after the throttle plate) and get a smoker friend to blow smoke/vape down the exposed vac line so smoke pressurises the intake manifold to rule out any vac leaks (clamp/tie a rubber glove over the throttle opening so it's sealed, any smoke will be visible at the sources of any vac leaks). Or rent a vac leak-test smoke machine if a smoker/vapist is unavailable. Use an OBD2 scanner to make sure the exhaust o2 sensor is doing its thing properly (voltage fluctuating between the proper values as the mixture is adjusted back and forth by the ecu for optimum cat performance) Check you've got correct fuel pressure at the injectors/fuel rail - low fuel pressure can still allow the engine to run but won't pressurise the injectors sufficiently for the correct spray charicteristics and that will make the ecu change the injector pulse duration and can cause rich running, as backwards as that sounds. Could be sticky/stuck injector(s) causing the same ecu/injector pulse adaption malarky. If you still have a spare idle air control valve , you could modify it to be jammed somewhere around %70 closed and keep it electrically unplugged to see if it gives you a static idle around where you want it. (Btw, cars often open the idle air control valve fully when shutting off so that if the valve fails to actuate when starting up next time then at least the car runs with the idle air valve open at maximum. That would probably be why the valve looked max-open when you removed it) Ofcourse it won't idle when cold with this mega-bodge but if your aim is to pass the emissions test and worry about the proper fix later then that might work. (you'd probably have to tweak the opening amount to get the correct idle ~800 RPM, do it while engine is warm) Do you have a multimeter and do you have the ability to check continuity of the various wires between their connectors and the ecu plugs? Could just be a wire causing it. You can also use the multimeter to read the voltage that the exhaust o2 sensor is outputting to get an idea of what the o2 sensor thinks is going on, could be the o2 sensor is duff. Also, the cat could be bad, if it's a cheap non-oem one they sometimes only last 1 or 2 years. Oh, and another idea - use a timing light to see if the ecu/coil pack/crank sensor/cam sensor/knock sensor is messing around with the ignition timing, that'd make the idle fluctuate. (any pro mechanics here, if anything i've suggested is bollocks then please correct me, i'd rather know than not know)
  10. Same, he even mentioned that he used an F40 diff so he's already got the appropriate drive shafts for it. A redtop vauxhall engine or B204 would drop right in (with some slight reprofileing of the chassis leg). Cracking great project none-the-less, the bike engine must weigh a hell of a lot less than any VX/SAAB engine so that combined with the plastic windows must make it fun to drive and better around corners than the traditional swap. Edit: I misheard F15 as F40 diff, ignore the driveshaft waffle.
  11. The trick with cutting disks is to buy them 50 at a time, then you get them for about 30p Great stuff, always nice to see some deep-dive welding going on.
  12. MX5s can burn off the coolant unless bled with their nose jacked about 70 feet into the air, been there. Maybe an air lock similar to what happens when the coolant is filled without the nose up caused the aforementioned symptoms, not sure though.
  13. Is it possible to turn the injection pump up on these? If so, that might help the slugishness a little bit. Can't help but hope that you got a handfull of cash along with the '96 after parting with the '06 one though.😄
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