|
|
Jul 26, 2021 21:42:34 GMT
|
Points to remember about master cylinder sizes. Bigger bore = more fluid movement but at less pressure and pedal travel smaller bore = less fluid movement but at far higher pressure and more pedal travel. Higher pressure = better brakes. Master cylinders MUST be matched to the slave cylinder volumes, if they are not matched correctly then you will never have good brakes I understand how they work or how to supposed to, and the physics behind it. And this is my issue because what I know should happen, isn’t happening. But one of the main reasons for upping the rear master cylinder was when I did a Google search for the rear calipers. And the master cylinder used on the original car was 25.4 mm, equivalent to 1 inch. My idea was to fit 1 inch cylinder and everything should be fine and dandy. As the brakes would have the correct MC for each pair of calipers. I must admit I was expecting an almost rockhard pedal from the start. But nothing is how I thought it would be and is pretty much totally the opposite, of the physics, reality and what blackpopracing has said. And I know this should be true. Once again I’ve left the brake pedal depressed ( just like me now) overnight, well until I get back from work tomorrow. With the idea this should show any slight weeps or leaks, and it may also let any trapped air make it way out up to the MC. Then up to the res. It also might, sort of, reset the brake pistons as this does with my bike after I’ve change the pads.
|
|
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
|
Jul 26, 2021 18:32:48 GMT
|
Brakes can be annoying if there's air stuck somewhere, which sounds like it could be the cause of your issues. Are you pressure/vacuum bleeding (Gunson Eezibleed or similar) or just manually bleeding? Apologies if I've missed it but do you have a line lock or load sensing valve in the rear brake circuit that could be stopping all the air coming out? Are the Mondeo calipers mounted so that the bleed nipples are at the highest point on the caliper? I don’t like pressure bleeding as I’ve seen too many reservoirs go bang, and coat the engine bay and surrounding area with brake fluid. I was using a vacuum bleeder and a electric pump. The same things I’ve used for last few years with on the issues on the car, in fact on many cars. But these didn’t seem to work properly on the Stag this time, so I was just using the normal way of bleeding. Also I just let it flow through the bleed nipple and it seems to flow nicely taking any air out with it. The bleed nipples are at highest point as it would be on the Ford. I did have a line lock but removed it as I thought this could be the issue, but there’s no other bit apart from the line splitter/divider which has the brake light switch. I know in the past I’ve had a system that seems to be completely bleed with no air at all coming out but still being slightly spongy. Then after a couple of days of driving re-done them and yeah a lot of air has been trapped somewhere. Otherwise I’m at bit of a loss because it’s got new calipers almost all the lines have been changed. I took the time doing them to make sure all the ends with flaired properly. There’s been 4 different master cylinders fitted, each time going bigger bore. The flexi hoses are braided, the only bits I’ve not done is the lines from the splitter to the flexi hoses.
|
|
Last Edit: Jul 26, 2021 21:59:03 GMT by Bullstarz
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
Jul 26, 2021 18:16:28 GMT
|
In for a possible solution to my own similar problems with the X1/9 brakes (same sort of long travel soft brake feeling). What pads do you have? I've been told the greenstuff ones I have aren't amazing for having a firm pedal, but not tried an alternative. Fronts are EBC blue stuff that haven’t been bedded in yet. When I did take the car out, with them fitted, the brakes are so poor I didn’t think it was that safe to go any further. The rears are a standard mintex pad, they have been on there for a couple of years. they might be fine once being driven, I know with my bike the brakes feel spongy has, well a sponge, when not moving. But when you’re out riding yeah quite good so maybe the colder the same. It’s so long since I’ve driven the car properly I can’t member what the brakes were like when I first fitted and everything worked fine.
Saying that the don’t feel like I should do.
|
|
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
Jul 25, 2021 22:22:29 GMT
|
Rears are disc and the mechanical hand brake is solid after a few clicks. It almost like the pistons retract further than normal, but don’t seem to. The brake light switch is on the rear brake line.and comes on but only after you can feel “ moderate” pressure.
|
|
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
Jul 25, 2021 21:37:00 GMT
|
When I finished with the car yesterday I left the brake pedal depressed so to pressurise the system overnight. As this would show any leaks or weeps that I’ve got in the system. When I got back this afternoon there was a couple of non-dry unions so I tighten them all up and try to re-bleed them, again. Was weird the way some of the bubbles kept coming from nowhere. Eventually I managed to get two reservoir full of fluid out of a bleed nipple that a was bubble free, which was nice.
The pedal still a bit weird but I know it’s gonna be different because it’s a pedal box and not a normal braking system, it’s similar to how it was. The thing is the bias bar doesn’t act or position how I thought it would do. The bar is “cocked” to start with, then when under moderate pressure it’s still in the same position. Then when you press harder the rear keeps on depressing. Almost as if it still needed bleeding.
It might be completely different when driving the car but I still can’t understand why the rear master cylinder is still being depressed after moderate break force, when you expect it to be fully pressurised as it is a 1 inch for Master cylinder. It doesn’t act how are expected it to or when you apply the laws of physics. Still that nothing new.
|
|
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2021 16:58:00 GMT
|
It seems like an age while trying to sort the brakes out. It took ages to bleed, still wasn’t happy with the footbrake or the hydraulic handbrake. So I changed the rear master to a .75 bore, didnt make a lot of difference, so I upped it again to a 0.831. That improved things very slightly, with the slight improvement I went the whole hog and put in the 1 inch for Master cylinder.
Even with that it was taking a while to bleed and I still get in bubbles even though everything was tight, and no leaks at all. This meant I would have to replaced all the rear brake lines just in case one of them was letting Air in on the recuperation. Sourcing all the correct brake unions was a bit of a pain as there were imperial and metric. Once everything was fitted it was a bit easier to bleed but still not hundred percent happy with my travel on the brake pedal. Although I’ve not a car out so things may be different on the move.
All the advice I’ve been given about setting up the bias bar/pedal box has been incorporated, but not fully, as other things need to go back on the car before I can drive it, or even attempt to move it out the garage. This will then allow me to see if the brakes are working and how they do need adjusting or if it’s completely poo still.
Once again something that should’ve took a minutes/hours has dragged on for a matter of weeks. The car still needs to be put back together, all the coolant pipes put back on along with the inlet manifold etc. but I have fitted the extra pipework to enable both ports of the EWP to be used. That should increase the flow and allow better cooling of the engine.
Oh yes hanging upside down in the foot well of the car trying to attach the clevis pin to the pushrod with limited room, while in a hot garage on the hottest day of the year was great fun.
|
|
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
Jul 19, 2021 21:22:16 GMT
|
Thanks for the advise, I’ll give it a go and see what happens. I’ve never seen that way of adjusting before. The adjuster knob isn’t fitted yet but I’m sure the tread is 7/16 unf which I think is 20tpi. So that would be 2 1/2 turns anti-clockwise to get the 1/8” towards the front.
|
|
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
Jul 18, 2021 22:46:04 GMT
|
I can’t get a photo of it but it’s set as in this; The biases bar is centred in the housing.
|
|
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
Jul 18, 2021 19:24:52 GMT
|
Your bias bar is set up wrong. Well I had the same issue before I took it all the pieces, and when I looked at it on the bench the bias bar wasn’t set up correctly. So this time I spent quite awhile get it set up right. By screw in the pushrods all the Way in, then back a few threads so not to impede the movement of the clevis. Locking off the rear then winding out the front by 1/4” to get the bias bar cocked in favour to the front. All the centre and measurements were done using a digital caliper check a few times. The basis bar was set to be bang in the middle. I could have made a mistake but I’m sure it correct. I followed what Wilwood and tilton both suggested but still have the problem. Wilwood did mention, when I emailed them, that I might have to test and adjust rear master cylinders to get everything to work correctly, as the front and the rears brakes are totally different. www.streetmusclemag.com/news/adjusting-brake-bias-using-balance-bar-tilton-engineering/if the the biases bar was set up wrong I would have either all front or rear brakes. The fronts work but don’t get enough force to work correctly un less you wind the biased adjuster to the maximum front loading. don’t think there’s anymore air in the system but there may be some hiding away, which would cause the same issue. But any help or advice is always welcome. I’ll look at it again in the week and make sure I’ve not made a glaringly big error but otherwise I’ll just have to wait until the new bits come. But still got loads to do in the meantime.
|
|
Last Edit: Jul 18, 2021 22:33:39 GMT by Bullstarz
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
Jul 18, 2021 12:43:33 GMT
|
Just so you know for future reference (if you don't already), the Mondeo ST220 calipers are shared with all Mondeo MK3 models - at least the fronts 100% are, which I know as I have them on both of my MK6 Fiestas and my Puma as well. You can often find working but used pairs for £25 on eBay, although like you say rebuild kits are a further £20ish per side if you do run into any issues. Yeah these are the rear calipers, apparently the Mondeos have different ones where is a saloon, hatchback or estate. There’s also different ones up to 2005 then from 2004 2007, also a different one from 2006. Add to that some have vented disc.
But the ones I’ve got fit the carrier from the old calipers, so they do fit but still don’t work properly. Handbrake is completely awesome, that’s the mechanical one. The brakes still are not working correctly even with all the new bits, and being bled completely over and over again. Now wondering if the 0.7 master cylinder, even though it’s a brand-new Wilwood, isn’t big enough for these calipers. You can see when you put the brakes on the bias bar Pushes the rear master cylinder before the front, and this shouldn’t happen.
Also the hydraulic handbrake isn’t much use , that’s 0.625bore, which doesn’t really push the pistons out that far. I did look at the Ford Mondeo original master cylinder and it appears that is 25.4 mm. Which in school terms that is 1 inch, and the One I’ve got is 0.7 of an inch. Which could be the issue, as the 1” master cylinder will be pushing more than twice as much brake fluid as the 0.7 bore. But it still doesn’t add up why the issue is only just happened, when a year ago the brakes are fine. Unless the calipers have always had an issue but only just made it noticeable. They old ones where knackered though, so needed replacing.
I had a look round for a bigger master cylinders , I do rely a lot on the Wilwood stuff. Unfortunately the biggest they do is 0.813 bore size, while APS do a 1”. Even more money thrown at the brakes, I’ve ordered both sizes in the vain hope this will sort out the issue finally. Will need a load more brake fluid too but that the cheap part.
So after putting EBC blue stuff pads on the front, taking out the pedal box and replacing all the master cylinders with Willwood ones, changing the brake lines, getting new calipers it seems the issues was/maybe something I overlooked from the very start. curse word.
|
|
Last Edit: Jul 18, 2021 12:48:51 GMT by Bullstarz
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
|
Jul 16, 2021 21:24:09 GMT
|
For the last, well for this time, three weeks the car is been in bits trying to sort out the brakes. Took a while to get the pedal box back in, so that was sorted out. I’ve not tried it but it seems like the new master cylinder for the clutch, 0.7 rather than 0.75, is give me a bit of a clutch. I decided to fit a hydraulic handbrake as well, due to the fact that pulling off from a standing start, especially if there’s any sort of uphill gradient, can be a right pain in the asre. Hopefully the hydro handbrake will make things a little bit easier. Putting hydraulic handbrake in I tried the normal handbrake and course it didn’t work properly, what a surprise. So it’s was a case of having to take the prop off reconnect the handbrake cables. Also make the system a little better as it was a while back it was done ( bodged). But even after that and bleeding the brakes though still quite poor, so I took the calipers off I found they weren’t the best. I looked into getting some new calipers from the local motor factors. They weren’t a great deal of help, as the only information I had was, “Ford Mondeo ST 220 mate”. They needed the year, body shape and registration number. I said anything would do, providing they fit the 125 mm carrier, but they’ve said there’s over 15 different types of calipers to choose from. They did mention sending mine off and getting them overhauled, at a cost of £70, didn’t think was that bad, then they mentioned plus carriage and that was it per calliper. So using the wind it in and out tool, plus alot of lubricating oil managed to free them off so they sort of worked. Took ages to bleed them, and the hydraulic handbrake did sort of work as well. The proper handbrake worked well, better than it had them before so the little modification was worth doing. I still wasn’t happy with the rear brakes, so after a lot of looking on eBay and the various different Mondeo calipers I ordered a pair. They were £63 including delivery for the pair, which I didn’t think was too bad compared to how much it cost to get them rebuilt. I did look into getting a rebuild kit but they were knocking on 20 quid apiece, and from past experience I don’t always work, also I didn’t know exactly which calipers I had. As normal the front brakes took an age to bleed, as there’s two bleed nipples per caliper. It’s one of those cases yes all the air must’ve gone, and then you get a big stream of bubbles. A complete waste of about 2 L of brake fluid, mental when the reservoir hold about a thimble full. Once all that curse word was done, the brakes still didn’t seem brilliant, as there wasn’t much of a pedal. Looking at the bias bar the rear master cylinder was getting more movement than the front. Which, as the bias bar was set up correctly, shouldn’t of happened, so this has led me to believe that the issue wasn’t anything to do with the rear master cylinder going tits up, it was the rear calipers all the time, the utter bastards. But they turned up today……but couldn’t be arsed to fit them. The problem with the car ditching coolant, I was hoping, well not hoping as you don’t want it to ditch coolant, but I thought I had an idea what it could be. This was no quick fix as the inlet manifold has to come off. But before you can do that a lot of other stuff that’s come up first. It’s quite a big V, so that is possibly why no leaks were visible for quite awhile and I thought all was well. And it was what I thought it gone wrong after doing the cam belt and waterpump. On the one 1uz engine there’s a couple of O-rings replace one of these had failed. Getting to this stage again wasn’t easy, unless you want to take a lot more parts off and replace more gaskets afterwards. So I hacksawed the pipe off as I started to lose patience. The O-ring size didn’t surprise me as it wasn’t a generic size, nothing even similar to the 2 o ring kits I’ve got. So I had to use the O-ring from a new water pump. I did look at the car with the inlet manifold off and think, shtie I’m at the same stage about a year ago, in fact I'm probably even further behind, what complete utter Cnut. I think the only thing that keeps me battling on, to get the stag done, is the thought that is in a better state than the car, and i use that term extremely loosely, that I’m repairing at work.
|
|
Last Edit: Jul 16, 2021 21:33:25 GMT by Bullstarz
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
|
Still in the process of sorting the brakes out, the pedal box is becoming a bit of pain set up correctly. It’s an 0BP one, but have now fitted wilwood master cylinders all round. I’ve also put a 0.7 Master cylinder for the clutch, hopefully this will make the it a bit more controllable. Its very odd, either a poor design or I’ve fcuked it up each time I’ve fitted it. The bias bar would foul in some way, and on some occasions kept the brake on. I also found that it would flex slightly. I’ve done a fair bit to it now both strengthening and machining. With a bit of luck this will be the last time it has to come off. Until the next time. I’ve now got a car part stripped down, but more to take off. There again I’ve got 2 boxes of stuff to put on. Some to sort of the cooling system. The supplier of the electric water pump gave me some wrong info, according to the manufacturer . So I have to re-do the ECU settings, as apparently the pump starts working @8v +, not 25% PMW. Also the pump has two outlets, both AN-16, but I used one one. I was told that this would only slightly reduce the flow. This was not actually true, with the fact the pump is at the rear of the car there might not be enough flow to do the job. The advice was to use both and channel them into one for the inlet. Was a bit of a search to get a steel, alloy or silicone “Y” or swept “T”.
|
|
Last Edit: Jul 1, 2021 21:59:01 GMT by Bullstarz
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
|
In the past Ive found price can vary considerably, even from the same engineer. It mainly depends if the valves have been taken out or not. Other considerations are if the heads have been skimmed before. I had one V8 that the heads had been skimmed different number of times, that’s between the two of them. They had to get both the same, which took a bit more time. As a lady friend once said “ time is money baby, time is money. How much you got to spend, depends on how much time I have”.
|
|
Last Edit: Jul 1, 2021 22:06:25 GMT by Bullstarz
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
Jun 27, 2021 21:36:29 GMT
|
Where you've removed the impeller from the water pump what is setting the thrust position on the shaft? The impeller was just pressed onto the shaft, it doesn’t have any other purpose than spinning. It doesn’t stop the any lateral movement of the shaft . The idler is rock solid, no end float. The impeller just sits on the shaft the main load is the Cambelt.
|
|
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
Jun 27, 2021 14:36:18 GMT
|
Grippy seals or a grippy bore on either the master or the slave would stop the pistons on the rear retracting properly. Either that or if they get too hot just the expanded fluid can hold the brakes on and make things worse. Oh, what do you have for rear brakes? Been looking up options for rear discs on my T2000 which has nearly the spare rear as your Stag (mine's a mk1 so wishbones slightly different). The calipers are off a Ford Mondeo, not too sure what the disk were off I believe it was something like a Nissan 200 SX.The adapter plate for the calipers I did a CAD drawing, then got them waterjet cut. Didn’t cost a great deal only about £30 and they were made out of 10 mm aircraft grade aluminium. There is a picture of them on the second page of this thread. Posse still got the CAD drawing knocking out somewhere if you need it.
|
|
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
Jun 26, 2021 13:51:09 GMT
|
Don’t you just love classic, modified cars. Who, is there to entertain you, take up every bit of spare time. In fact they don’t really give you any spare time for any other hobbies, or anything else in your life. You can always guarantee they will constantly throw their teddies out the pram, attempt to break you, financially, emotionally and mentally. Once more the car is in bits, as the problem I had with the brakes is still there. After quite a bit of hanging upside down in the foot well of the car it seems like the rear master cylinder is somehow failed. I think seals must’ve gone. At least Hope is that or it’s something I’m not too sure of. As the rear brakes are working more than the front, having said that there not working by much. It seems like they’re letting fluid seep past the master cylinder seals but enough to applying the breaks slightly. Then when you release the brakes, there’s not enough fluid being drawn back to take the brakes fully off. Which is possibly the reason, hopefully, the last time I took it out the rears were really hot, yet the fronts where ambient temperature. Now in the process of taking the pedal box out of fit new master cylinders is all round. which should also give us a chance to fit a smaller clutch master cylinder, to see that makes a difference to the clutch operation. Not what I wanted to do. Then to make matters even, worse when I turn the car round to reverse into the garage it got hot. And I noticed coolant curse word out into the V, so the seals or gaskets fitted last week as Let go. Even more work to do, as I noticed that the drop in coolant meant the water pump wasn’t pumping any coolant. Hopefully this is not damaged anything, but the pump manufacturer mentioned/advise to do a few changes to try and get a little bit more flow from the pump. Which is a more work which I don’t really need or want. Brilliant.
|
|
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
Jun 26, 2021 11:46:03 GMT
|
If it’s any consolation mine is now playing up and ditching coolant. Thought everything was fine after the Cambelt, waterpump and all that. But then the fans came on within a couple minutes of it running. It appears that water is running to the V so one of the gaskets or O-rings has failed. Hopefully it’s not cooked my engine as I didn’t realise that so much coolent had been lost my water pump didn’t having sufficient coolant to pump.
So mine is once again sat in the garage on its own, in a pool of his own wee.
|
|
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
Jun 24, 2021 17:32:07 GMT
|
As a pump is coming off might as well do the timing belt, all the tensioners/idlers. Just replaced all mine, also a1uz turbocharged engine, as the water pump/idler was making some weird noises. They can be hard engines to bleed as most of them sit higher than the radiator. I had to plumb into the heater outlet, put a bottle of coolant above the roof and gravity feed in. This allowed an extra 5 L a few of coolant to go in.
If the hose burst when the engine was off its unlikely to be the head gasket failed. More like loads of air or a release/rad cap not doing the releasing. Mine did dump a load of coolant out of the catch can when the fans came on. So I’ve got a larger one, just need to find some room to fit.
|
|
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
Jun 21, 2021 20:18:50 GMT
|
So is the car finally finished.
Already for the summer, shows and driving. Oh how I laughed.
It will definitely be ready for the summer, but not gonna say which one.
Took the car out for its first drive, shakedown, after the cam belt and all that stuff was replaced. It was only a short test, 10 to 15 miles but it got up to temperature. Now I’m hoping one of the gauges is slightly faulty, as a lot of the time it was over 100°. But I know/think the PLX gauges read hi, well it’s either that or the main one is reading low. The fans didn’t come on so the ECU didn’t see high temps.
The rear brakes were hot, even though I didn’t really touch the brakes, I could tell while driving and the heat gun showed they were hot when I got back. I’ve checked now the cars cooled down and there no binding at all, even after the handbrake has been on, weird.
The fans did come on when it was left running while I adjusted a few things, it also did a little wee. So I’ve ordered a overflow tank.
One of the things I’m not too sure of is the controlling of the electric water pump. Now my ECU does this, I think it’s on for 10 seconds and off for 30 seconds when it below 30°. Then on for 10 off for 10 seconds from 31° until about 72°. Then it’s on permanently but with a reduced/variable voltage until it’s a bout 85°, then it’s on permanent full power.
This idea was so the ECU mimics the Davis Craig controller, as this was the only one I could fine data on. Does anybody else have any experience with electric water pumps, and the best way of controlling both with temperature and pulse width modulation. Also the pulses while it warms up and the temperatures where things need to change. Is it best to keep a thermostat, as there’s them that say “yes” and them that say “nooooo”.
|
|
Last Edit: Jun 24, 2021 19:31:10 GMT by Bullstarz
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|
|
Jun 18, 2021 13:43:02 GMT
|
Finally got time to do the timing belt, idlers and a water pump. This was by no means an easy task, it’s took nearly 3 weeks. I was expecting about a week, but it took that long to get the car stripped down. I didn’t wanna take the engine and gearbox out as that is a proper nightmare.
One of the main issues was the fact that I’ve built the engine on a engine stand, then put it in the car. But the exhaust and turbo manifold left virtually no clearance to get the cam covers off, well get anything off if I’m being honest. Also had to take off the inlet manifold and coolant pipe (between the two heads) off to get enough room. But that wasn’t enough, as a result I had to cut one cam cover in half to get it off, and then use a mixture of pop rivets and rivet nuts to get them to fit together again.
A lot the assembly time was me putting parts on, thinking I’d almost finished, then had take it all off because of a part that needed to go on before the other parts. Which happened quite a few times I can tell you.
The actual part of fitting the belt and timing the engine up, was extremely easy this time. As the timing belt came with left, right cam and crank markers, which was nice. So is this was possibly the first time I’ve ever done a cam belt where the belt is fitted, tension is released, engine turned over twice and it is still perfectly timed.
As always when you reassemble an engine you always think I can do better. And yeah this was the same, the alternator bracket looked a bit thin and when examined it yeah it was cracked. I was also intending to fit a better alternator, as I had got a BMW 180 amp one. But there’s no way, with all the manifolds on, I was going to get the old alternator out, and the new one in. So that will have to wait until the next rebuild. Which possibly won’t be that long.
Fitting the top radiator pipe also didn’t want to happen, for some reason the inlet on the radiator was touching the bodywork. So getting this sorted took a long, long time. I had to remove a support bracket that ran across the front of the car, that just didn’t want to come off. Once again, when it was finally off, I found, as it was alloy, it was fractured. So that needed repairing and modifying to allow enough room the top hose to be fitted to the radiator.
Other than that is quite straightforward, flick of the switch for the accusump to work Oil pressure was good with no leaks (no more than normal). Then with ignition fuel pumps on it started, no visible fuel leaks.
Filled with coolant and only a couple of clips needed tightening. Car started fairly quickly. Kept it running til the fan’s came on. although the coolant wasn’t that hot but then you heard a massive rush of bubbles being drawn out by the water pump, fans went off and temperature dropped. So hopefully the removal of the impeller on the water pump and just really on the EWP will work.
The system needed to be bled, as each time the water pump went on you could hear the bubbles. So it was a new way to bleed the system. So I put a “T” piece on the heater outlet, which was highest point, then a pipe to a bottle of coolant above the roof.
Ran the EWP then opened up the bleed valves, on top of the throttle body, expansion tank then finally the valve on the rear radiator. Did this a few times and the coolant system took an extra 5 L.
Ran the engine, it warmed up quickly, worryingly quickly. Then the pump must have come on continuously ( but low) and the temp levelled out. It was running for over 1/2 an hour and the fans didn’t come on. Hopefully this has resolved the cooling issues, as it was a warm day, the fans would normally come on within 10 mins of static running.
Check the temperatures all over the engine and radiators with the old laser thermometer and everything was fine. The engine didn’t smell hot at all. All the temperature gauges, on both radiators, were how I expected it would be with the electric water pump, no thermostat and Impeller removed. Coolant leaving the front radiator lower pipe was at about 60° while the while the rear radiator was at around 40°.
So with three weeks of work on the car, its now in the same place it was three weeks ago, there is absolutely nothing extra to show for it. Other than the cam belt should be good till 2028 but it did fit a new Ramair filter. It was roughly the same size as the old one but was a bit more of a squeeze to get in. Nothing really wrong with the old one, but it was a cheap one that I’ve got to see if it fit. With the idea of fitting a decent one later, but the Ramair filter was good value, at £35 including delivery.
|
|
Last Edit: Jun 18, 2021 13:49:44 GMT by Bullstarz
“It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead!”
|
|
|