Sold Stanky's Geep - fire sale

[Stanky]

I'll take a good look at that certainly - annoying that I'm back at work today and its lovely and sunny outside - I could be out fixing it in this weather!

[PhilA]

I don't usually say this but the best washer nozzle I've had to date was fitted to my Dodge Challenger.

 

Single unit, unobtrusive with two different size rectangular nozzle holes in. One put a wide smattering of water on the lower half of the screen, the top one a thin wide jet at the top.

Didn't change pattern much at speed, covered the whole screen and you can get them with heaters in too. Go rummage the newer Mercedes stuff at the scrappy, they should have them too, seems to be a common Jeep/Dodge/Mercedes (Daimler Chrysler) part.

 

Else just get one of those horrible screw-with-a-hole in ones and spend forever adjusting it with a pair of pliers

 

Phil

[Stanky]

Ethylene Glycol (Blue) Coolant is what I need for this isn't it?

[mercrocker]

Yep.  Blue Ethylene Glycol.

[Stanky]

Bloody hell, its easier to get hold of crack than ethylene glycol coolant! Finally tracked some down at a reasonable price but bloody hell, what a kerfuffle

[anonymous user]

Ethylene Glycol (Blue) Coolant is what I need for this isn't it?

Everything will need to be blue for it, especially the driver and passengers. If it's not cold you will have to dress up as a Smurf

[3VOM]

Bloody hell, its easier to get hold of crack than ethylene glycol coolant! Finally tracked some down at a reasonable price but bloody hell, what a kerfuffle

GSF with discount code.

[Stanky]

Right, time for another update!

 

I set out to do a few things today, most re-assembling stuff. Last weekend I removed and cleaned the fuel tank then dried it out. During the week I put some red enamel spray paint onto the leading edge of the tank where the old paint had chipped/flaked off. When i picked the tank up I noticed a noise inside which on close inspection seemed to be very fine black sand. Goodness knows what this is but I managed to hoover it out yesterday.

 

 

With the tank as ready as it could be, I set about refitting it

 

 

Removal was a piece of cake, but getting it back on was a bit more fiddly as it needed to be wedged in position then the bolts pushed through from above and bolted on underneath with a washer. I gave them all a splodge of copper grease and wedged the tank on my chest and eventually managed to get two bolts done up. With it held in place I could do up the rest

 

 

And re-fit the filler neck

 

 

with this in place I could refit the fuel pickup, however after pulling the filter off the end, the pipe was entirely blocked by some grim black gunk. This is a terrible picture but it was basically tarry skank.

 

 

I removed the fuel line from the sender thing and took it to the shed for inspection

 

 

It was completely blocked so I used a series of drill bits between my thumb and index finger to 'drill' it out. it ended up being about 3cms long but did eventually come out. I gave it a good seeing to with carb cleaner and it seems happier now. The filter end was also full of lumps of this stuff which I was able to break up with a bit of wire and bang out on the bench. I then blew it through with my foot pump to clear any remaining gunge out

 

 

I refitted the filter to the pickup pipe and then refitted the sender unit to the tank and connected up the gauge and fuel line

 

 

So, thats the tank sorted out. Next up was to have a look at the engine to see if we could get it started. Hopes were high.

 

I removed the old battery since it was clearly shot to bits

 

 

Its held in with a bar which was a bit fiddly to remove but I got it out in the end. Doing it back up would be a 2-person job, as you have to get under the dash to do up the nut that holds it tight.

 

I nicked the battery from the Toyota (I'll have to remember to reset the radio tomorrow so domestic management doesn't notice) and mole-gripped the terminals to it as I'm still waiting for my adapters to arrive from ebay. I put the key in and turned the ignition on

 

 

turned it to 'start' and CLICK...

 

CLICK...

 

CLICK...

 

Balls. Its still not working. This is annoying.

 

Right, sod this, i'll do something else. First up is to add the coolant I got this morning

 

 

Nice and easy, one-and-a-half bottles of coolant and 2 bottles of water from the tap (yeah i know) and it was about full. I jumped up and down on the front bumper to try and mix it up a bit. So now its got coolant in it.

 

Next up was a bit of a frippery. Break out the old skool drill

 

 

Earlier in the week I bought a chrome double washer jet, I had a washer bottle with a workling pump but needed the jet and the pipework. So I measured up and drilled a hole in the middle of the trailing edge of the bonnet. plastic cars are gr8 for this sort of thing.

 

 

I lifted the bonnet and did up the nut to keep it in place. On reflection, fitting this right on top of the battery wasn't a great idea but there, it's done now.

 

 

I test fitted the washer hose which was nice and snug on the fitting bit.

 

 

Then I ran the hose around the fusebox, along the chassis, past the suspension turret and over to the washer bottle. I snipped off the excess hose and connected up the washer bottle end

 

 

I'll cable tie this on in due course. Next up, testing. I'm not sure if this will work but here goes:

 

w00p w00p check out my three wipers mutha_funka's! It took a bit of tuning to get the jets to actually hit the screen, and the wiper blades are totally shot but check this out. This restored a lot of previously lost mojo. Its pointless but it is better than it was previously. Also it didn't leak onto anything which is also a good thing.

 

With restored faith, I had another look at the wiring to see what might be wrong. The yellow and black wire here is labelled 'coil low-T' and isn't connected to anything. What should this be connected to?

 

 

the clicking seemed to be coming from the starter motor. I;ve had this before with sticky motors so I gave it a bit of a seeing to with a hammer. Still the same afterwards though. bumhats.

 

So, next I tried getting a jump lead straight onto the positive terminal of the battery. This elicited sparks and movement, the starter was turning the engine over. Right, lets see about getting some fuel shall we?

 

I pulled the fuel pipe from the tank to the pump off and connected up a spare mower fuel tank with a small amount of pez to the inlet of the fuel pump. I got my wife to stand by with a fire extinguisher and I crawled back underneath with the jump lead. It turned over, the float bowl filled with fuel - showing the pump was working - but still it didn't fire. You can't really see here but the float bowl is 3/4 full with pez

 

 

So, the pump worked. Next I pulled a plug, this was wet and smelled of pez so I think fuel was getting to the plugs.

 

Then I noticed it had pissed fuel out of some orifice all over the rocker cover

 

 

hmmm. not going well.

 

I mopped this up with a rag and disconnected the fuel supply.

 

Next up I had a look at the starter motor, it didn't seem hugely enthusiastic so I wondered if it might be all rusted up. I undid the three bolts that hold it in place and hefted it out

 

 

Seem, clean

 

I undid the screws to get at the brushes

 

 

Again, clean in here.

 

 

And here

 

Hmmm. Maybe the gears weren't engaging with the flywheel? I put it back together, took it to the garage and tested it with a battery - it seems to spin over fine, the gear extends on the shaft when you apply current, presumably engaging with the flywheel when its on the car? I'm a bit stumped.

 

By this point it was getting dark so I packed up and came inside to type this up. I'll put it back together tomorrow and see how things look. I may be being a massive idiot as i can't recall if i had the ignition on when i was applying 12v to the starter, if that wasn't switched on then that'd explain the non-starting wouldn't it?

 

I have more work to do tomorrow so further updates to follow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dollywobbler]

If the starter is just going click, could well be a poor earth between engine and battery/chassis. Use a jump lead as a makeshift earth lead and see if that improves things.

 

Also, nice wiper video, but the wipers don't seem to be doing much clearing! Are they actually touching the screen?

[Stanky]

Ah thanks - so jump lead from engine to chassis?

[Soap Distant]

Or straight to the negative on the battery.

[Clanger]

Bloody hell, its easier to get hold of crack than ethylene glycol coolant! Finally tracked some down at a reasonable price but bloody hell, what a kerfuffle

Crack or coolant?

[Pillock]

Aye, with a good battery if it's just clicking then you're losing some volts somewhere. Wires with crappy ends on, rusted terminals etc.

 

Got a multimeter? Do a resistance check between negative on starter and chassis, chassis and battery -ve terminal etc. Anywhere a cable runs, check between each end. Sounds promising if it works with a jump lead to the starter though.

[Stanky]

I'll use the jump lead to run from the engine to the battery negative terminal tomorrow and see if that brings any progress - a lot of the wiring is a bit haphazard and quite old.

 

Electricity confuses and scares me in roughly equal measures.

 

the starter has no negative - it grounds through the body of the starter to the chassis or engine I think. Mitsisigma had a look and deduced as much. There is just one extrusion which the fat +ve cable goes to. this could do with a clean up too tbh.

 

Hopefully I can get it turning over on the key - if its just a bad earth then I have some spare earth cable in one of the boxes which would be a simple and free fix.

[dollywobbler]

Yup. Try an HT lead from neg terminal to anywhere on the engine.

[Stanky]

Oh and re the wipers, the blades are totally knackered and most of the grot is actually stuck to the inside of the screen, so I smeared it about with a different manky rag and made it at least 3% better. The screen is laminated though, or at least there is a sticker on it saying that whatever it was originally stuck to was made of laminated glass.

[mk2_craig]

Yellow and black wire - is that not the 12v feed from the ignition switch to the coil positive terminal? Low tension as opposed to the high tension "king lead" you have going between coil and dizzy cap. Come to think of it, have you any wire(s) going from the engine bay loom to the distributor itself?

[Timewaster]

Yup. Try an HT lead from neg terminal to anywhere on the engine.

Jump lead Shirley?

[danthecapriman]

If the starter works with a direct feed to it then that surely means your practically there. The starter also bench tested ok?

If you can try a new earth lead back to the battery, as suggested, see if that helps.

Failing that, the fault must be between the battery and starter (given the starter does work). It sounds like your losing volts somewhere down that run to the starter. Is the solenoid on the inner wing working ok?

[twosmoke300]

Jump lead Shirley?

Beat me to it

[greengartside]

Does the battery light come on? On the pictures you've got the oil light but no battery light. Not sure if that would affect anything but may be something to check?

[meggersdog]

Could be a bad earth on the solenoid .With the ignition on have you tried bridging the solenoid terminals with a screwdriver  to see if the starter turns ?

[Stanky]

Further Exciting Updates!

 

Thanks to those who suggested a bad earth, I arose late this morning, chugged down a cheap Aldi energy drink and went out to carry on where I got up to yesterday. First up I refitted the starter motor, we know that with 12v applied to it, it works fine so I refitted it with its 3 bolts. Next up I tried the suggestion of connecting the engine to the battery negative terminal with a jump lead

 

 

Since the starter was spinning happily on my questionable freecycle battery yesterday, and it had been on trickle charge overnight I thought I'd have a go with this one, especially as getting the toyota battery would be more effort. I put it in the little house it goes in, and turned the key to P1.

 

CLICK

 

CLICK

 

FFS. Right, there must be a bad earth somewhere. I got out my multimeter to see how far electricity was getting. Battery +ve to solenoid thing was good - 12.53v measured there. there was also 12.5v across the solenoid, so why wasn't anything happening? This meant that 12.5v was getting to the starter, but nothing was happening.

 

So I went and got a wire brush and a socket set. I went through each contact in turn, removing them, giving them a good seeing to with the wire brush and then putting them back together. Then, more in hope than expectation, I reconnected the battery to the terminals with mole grips and turned the key...

 

It flipping worked! the engine turned over on the key! I tried it again, same result.

 

PROGRESS.

 

Next I tried a squirt of carb cleaner down the carb barrel and the choke fully on - it almost caught (I think) after about 10 seconds but then the battery was getting weak so I stopped that for a bit and went to do something else while the battery went back on trickle charge.

 

I didn't get around to this yesterday, but I bought some bonnet straps in the week so thought I'd fit them.

 

 

Plastic cars are GR8 for this sort of thing - no worrying about rust, just drill holes where you need them. I found some dome-headed bolts in my mower spares drawer and drilled holes for the 'handle' bit in the front wings, about 20cm back from the leading edge of the bonnet.

 

 

The drilling (and a bit of filing of the bracket to allow the bolt to go through) was OK, but getting the ping through the rubber handle was a right sod of a job. In the end I cut off a bit of the rubber with a stanley knife and then could just about force the pin through. Then I clamped it in place and put the retaining ping through.

 

 

next up was fitting the bracket to the bonnet, this secures with two bolts so out with the drill again and a bit of filing of the bracket to allow them to thread on and then do them up and ta-DAH

 

 

I then did the one of the other side which was a lot easier. The bonnet is now secure for the time being. I wish I'd bought the bigger straps though.

 

Next up, I measured the carb barrel diameter as i need a new air filter. As the Solent Shiters will attest the old one was very old and very manky so i'll see about getting a cheap ebay mushroom filter for it to begin with. This will add at least 5bhp, taking the total BHP to, ummm, 5?

 

 

I make that 70mm. Shouldn't be too hard to find one in that size.

 

With the battery charged at this point, I plumbed it back in and had a look to see what electrics worked. Indicators are a no-go, likewise the horn but the sidelights work, as do the headlights on full beam. You can't really see here but the sidelight on the right works, as do the little bulbs inside the headlights.

 

 

next I gave the carb another squirt of carb cleaner and tried turning it over again - it would turn over fine, but not fire. the carb smelled petrolly and the plugs were definitely wet with pez.

 

I think the issue is that the yellow and black wire should be attached to 12v somewhere - the coil isn't getting power so its not sparking. There is nowhere obvious for it to connect to though which is a bit confusing - where in the circuit should it plug in? Does it need a constant 12v? I assume so? I think I'll need to cut the end off and solder an eyelet on the end instead of the boot thing it has currently - the wire is quite fine so I assume it doesn't take much current and soldering will be ok?

 

The coil is currently wired up with a black and yellow wire on the +ve side with a tag saying 'unknown' on it, then the king lead to the dizzy cap plugged in, and a purple and green wire from the -ve which goes down to the dizzy. I'm thinking that we need the yellow and black wire attached to something to provide power and thats why its not sparking?

 

Any local-ish auto electricians fancy taking a look? From what i can deduce, we have rotation from the SM, compression (I hope) and fuel, what we're missing is a spark.

[Asimo]

With your multimeter, ignition on, measure from both terminals of the coil to earth/ engine block. One terminalshould be 12v ish, the other coil terminal will be the same voltage as well IF the points are open. When the points are closed that terminal will be zero volts.

 

With the engine cranking the 12v ish terminal should stay at the battery voltage. It will be a bit less than when you first measured it because of the voltage drop caused by the load of the starter motor.

 

Although the low voltage coil terminals are marked + / - it doesn't matter a lot which way around they are connected. One way is optimimum but if the engine will run at all with that coil, it will run with it connected either way.

 

As ever, check for a spark at the ht terminal of the coil (king lead) and the most likely component to fail is the condensor.

[eddyramrod]

Just a thought..... wouldn't a Haynes for ANY Kent-engined Ford have a wiring diagram that would show you what needs to be running to and from the coil?  And where the other end/s need to be?

[bezzabsa]

dont forget to put a smallplate ot large washers under the bonnet pins so they dont pull through the GRP

[Asimo]

This wiki diagram shows how all coil / contact breaker / distributor ignition systems are wired up. Just the same on any engine made between the era of magnetos and the age of electronic ignition.

no ballast resistor is shown but only a few cars had those and they can be ignored for now if there are volts on the coil in both start and run positions of the ignition switch.

[Stanky]

Thanks, where would the condensor live in the engine bay? Dan has kindly given me a known-good one but I don't know where it lives.

[Pillock]

Condensers are often on the side of the dizzy, are they not?

 

Disclaimer: the only cars with condensers I've ever owned were all VWs.

[dollywobbler]

Jump lead Shirley?

 

That's what I meant, but my fingers had other ideas.