Ran out of time and mental energy before finishing an update yesterday, so here's yesterday and today bundled into one.
Didn't have much time to dedicate to the work on the Beige Wonder, but when the new fuel pump arrived almost perfectly in sync with me getting back from running several errands I decided to take a few minutes out to at least get that fitted.
That took a little under seven minutes from setting foot outside the front door to having the vehicle running.
Knowing these cars I'm sure I will pay a heavy price for that going so smoothly later on at some point...
Today's main task was to have a look at the carb to see if we could figure out what was up with the accelerator pump (and to retrieve the little ball and hopefully figure out where it's meant to be).
Ten minutes and the carb was off.
The correct home for the mystery ball bearing has been found, there should be one at the end of a spring on the choke mechanism...there's a distinct lack of ball on the end of the spring.
That has now been reinstated in the correct place.
It didn't take long to spot what was wrong with the accelerator pump..This is what was facing me when I took the pump cover plate off.
That spring should be pushing the diaphragm out (so up in the photo, the carb is sitting on its side). It was never going to work like that! I think we've all been there at some point haven't we? Especially when you're not used to playing with carburettors. If you're not able to get everything done in one sitting it's so easy to wind up making mistakes like that, especially if you don't have a nice clear diagram in front of you.
Sadly when reassembled it still didn't work. It just pulls a vacuum - there's a hard blockage between the float bowl and the pump cavity it seems. No amount of blasting with carb cleaner or compressed air will seem to shift it. I guess I'll try giving it an overnight soak and a couple of hour run in the ultrasonic cleaner...but I'm not holding my breath.
For now I've put everything back together while I consider my options.
At least this keeps the car mobile and makes running other tests and such easier. If I can't clear it I may just need to drive around the lack of an accelerator jet (which I've done before...the Lada didn't have one until I did the injection conversion) initially. Once the car is driving and (hopefully!) has an MOT, it might be easier to justify splashing out on a new carb for it. I still don't really have any idea if she will end up being a long term fleet member or not yet...Though it wouldn't surprise me. The driving position is absolutely spot on for me, which is something I often struggle with...and I don't know. Just the moment I sat in it for the first time it was kind of like with the Saabs...just felt somehow "right" for me. Though I do keep telling myself I have two cars too many already! Time will tell.
This evening I decided it was time to do something about this thing.
Which I still has to be one of the most brilliant yet bonkers instrument panel designs out there - Though it doesn't quite make it to the same level as the madness of the one in the GSA. I'll be really curious to see how it works in the real world. However it needs to light up to get the full effect...and as the car arrived none of the illumination worked at all and at least half the warning lights were also on the blink.
Immediately finding evidence of prior repair work to the flex-PCB doesn't fill me with confidence that this is going to be an easy one.
I found a grand total one one blown bulb...in the glow plug light so I'm guessing that's been swapped from somewhere else at some point. However what I did find that the most widespread case of scratchy, oxidised contacts I think I've ever come across in one device. After cleaning a dozen or so slide contacts and then what felt like somewhere around five thousand lamp holders...
I had no idea that the little diagram of the car and the Citroen name/logo were illuminated!
Obviously it goes without saying that it will need to be completely dismantled at some point to be properly cleaned. That will probably be the best part of a full day's worth of work though so is very much on the "once she has an MOT" list.
It's a shame that in quite a few places on the left hand cluster the mask has failed. You can see the light from the backlight bleeding through.
When I have it apart for cleaning I reckon some (very) careful application of black paint to the back of the filter gel will be the way to go to sort that out. There is a similar issue on a couple of the main warning lights on the right too - but it's far less obvious and unless you were actively looking for it you'd not see it. Plus none of those lights should be on while you're driving anyway - whereas the actual panel backlighting is on whenever the ignition is unless I'm mistaken.
Sadly back in the car...no backlighting. So I'll need to do some further digging to see if we've got a missing supply or if there's just problems with the harness connectors. The fuel gauge I *think* gets its feed from one pin over from the panel lighting too...so given that doesn't work that could well be a clue.
We have victory in other areas though. All the lights which the handbook says should now light when the test button is pressed - we were missing the overheat warning light before.
The lighting cluster is now fully functional, the side light, main beam and rear fog light indicators were missing before.
You can see what I was saying about light showing through the areas which should be black. Being a humble RE spec car she doesn't have anything in the door/bonnet/boot open locations.
I was intrigued to find that there are two temperature lights - an amber one which is the overheat warning, but also a blue one (not used by the looks of it), which I assume is an indicator on some models/in some markets to show you that the engine is still cold. First car I ever saw that on was in 2010...never realised Citroen had done it back this far.
