It's been a while since I updated this Life has been busy! but I have been getting on with those finishing touches on the Lancia. The big news is she is provisional sold, based upon me completing the paint work and a few other issues. As ever when the reality of selling a car hits home, there's mixed emotions but I think I'm more pleased than sad so hopefully it's the right thing to do.
Anyway, enough emotions time to fix stuff! First up the boot lid got a lick of paint.
I'm sure once it's been flattened and polished it'll look as good as the rest of the car The weather really helped the painting, coats of paint that were taking an hour to dry when I painted the rest of the body in spring, were touch dry in 10 mins in the heat of summer. I've also resprayed the wheel arch, where I'd damaged the paint trying to make more room for the rear tyre. Unfortunately I kinda just went at it, and didn't think to take any pictures till too late really.
This picture was taken just after the last coat of lacquer went on. As part of painting a much smaller area of the car I was experimenting with the settings on the spray gun, and seem to have ended up with a much better finish straight from the gun than I've been getting previously, so thats good More experimentation is needed I think. The painted arch just needs the lacquer flatting and blending into the rest of the paint now.
And so onto a couple of mechanical fixes. I mentioned a few posts back about a misfire, which I thought I'd traced down to a poor earth, well it re-appeared. With the help of the data logging from Megasquirt I traced it down to the crank position sensor missing some of the teeth on my trigger wheel when the engine was hot. A quick googling found lots of people having similar issues with the same sensor as me and complaining that a sensor with a max working temp of 85°c doesn't belong in an engine bay. Undeterred I set about trying every trick in the book to reduce interference and improve signal quality on the way into the Megasquirt, alas I couldn't beat the problem so earlier this week I bit the bullet and ordered a different sensor. This one is happy up to 125°c, and if the engine bay hits those kinda temps then a slight misfire will be the least of my worries I think! Old on the left, new on the right.
As you can see they are a different size, so I needed to make up a new bracket to hold it in the correct position to the trigger wheel. With a little more time on my hands for these small jobs, I did a much neater better job of making up the bracket.
New on the left that time,and old on the right. It got a lick of black paint then bolted up and wired in.
…. and the good news is so far so good. The old sensor would play up most obviously on the motorway, on hot days. Today I went out in the midday sun and blasted up and down the motorway for a good few miles and it was solid as a rock.
The second mechanical update was some new front dampers. I had said I'd replace the leaking damper as part of the deal on selling it but getting hold of a single damper, proved tough. Seeing as it's generally better practice to replace dampers in pairs too, that kinda sealed the deal. Old vs new here, I don't think there's any need to say which is which
Didn't take much to get them fitted up.
I'm really pleased with them, should have bought them a while ago. They are stiffer than the standard ones, but not uncomfortably stiff, and they ride the big bumps better than standard as with my lowered suspension it hits the bump stops less.
Anyway, enough emotions time to fix stuff! First up the boot lid got a lick of paint.
I'm sure once it's been flattened and polished it'll look as good as the rest of the car The weather really helped the painting, coats of paint that were taking an hour to dry when I painted the rest of the body in spring, were touch dry in 10 mins in the heat of summer. I've also resprayed the wheel arch, where I'd damaged the paint trying to make more room for the rear tyre. Unfortunately I kinda just went at it, and didn't think to take any pictures till too late really.
This picture was taken just after the last coat of lacquer went on. As part of painting a much smaller area of the car I was experimenting with the settings on the spray gun, and seem to have ended up with a much better finish straight from the gun than I've been getting previously, so thats good More experimentation is needed I think. The painted arch just needs the lacquer flatting and blending into the rest of the paint now.
And so onto a couple of mechanical fixes. I mentioned a few posts back about a misfire, which I thought I'd traced down to a poor earth, well it re-appeared. With the help of the data logging from Megasquirt I traced it down to the crank position sensor missing some of the teeth on my trigger wheel when the engine was hot. A quick googling found lots of people having similar issues with the same sensor as me and complaining that a sensor with a max working temp of 85°c doesn't belong in an engine bay. Undeterred I set about trying every trick in the book to reduce interference and improve signal quality on the way into the Megasquirt, alas I couldn't beat the problem so earlier this week I bit the bullet and ordered a different sensor. This one is happy up to 125°c, and if the engine bay hits those kinda temps then a slight misfire will be the least of my worries I think! Old on the left, new on the right.
As you can see they are a different size, so I needed to make up a new bracket to hold it in the correct position to the trigger wheel. With a little more time on my hands for these small jobs, I did a much neater better job of making up the bracket.
New on the left that time,and old on the right. It got a lick of black paint then bolted up and wired in.
…. and the good news is so far so good. The old sensor would play up most obviously on the motorway, on hot days. Today I went out in the midday sun and blasted up and down the motorway for a good few miles and it was solid as a rock.
The second mechanical update was some new front dampers. I had said I'd replace the leaking damper as part of the deal on selling it but getting hold of a single damper, proved tough. Seeing as it's generally better practice to replace dampers in pairs too, that kinda sealed the deal. Old vs new here, I don't think there's any need to say which is which
Didn't take much to get them fitted up.
I'm really pleased with them, should have bought them a while ago. They are stiffer than the standard ones, but not uncomfortably stiff, and they ride the big bumps better than standard as with my lowered suspension it hits the bump stops less.