Bugrat returns to Phaeton
- Thread starter Phaeton
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Bit more done today still having difficulty in getting it to tick over nicely, one thing I have noticed is that when it's warming up that the small pipe that comes off the top of the thermostat housing gets warm quickly, also noticed that the pipe going into the inlet manifold wasn't even though they are connected to the same please.
Took off one side of the pipe off at the inlet manifold to find.
Then as it goes into the manifold
Ended up having to get a drill out to clear out the connectors, did both ends of the manifold, put it back together & started up again it seemed to idle better, never realised a warm manifold would have made that much difference.
Always also thought that the tacho was a bit optimistic, bought a cheap digital tacho meter off fleecebay which confirmed it's reading about 50% high.
Took off one side of the pipe off at the inlet manifold to find.
Then as it goes into the manifold
Ended up having to get a drill out to clear out the connectors, did both ends of the manifold, put it back together & started up again it seemed to idle better, never realised a warm manifold would have made that much difference.
Always also thought that the tacho was a bit optimistic, bought a cheap digital tacho meter off fleecebay which confirmed it's reading about 50% high.
Went up & down the road a few times this morning to try to get the rear brakes to auto-adjust a bit better, after a couple of runs stamping on the brakes multiple times it was clear that at least one of them was binding. Having lifted the rear it wasn't one of them, lifting the front it was the front offside. Split the calipers & removed all the pistons, wasn't too bad & took less than an hour for all eight once I sorted the method out.
None of the pistons look bad, no scoring but a little bit of surface rust which I'm sure will wet & dry off, so the question is do I spend £84.95 on new pistons & seals, or just £24.95 on the seals alone. They aren't the originals, or at least somebody has been in before as I can see witness marks where the pistons have been tapped out in the past.
None of the pistons look bad, no scoring but a little bit of surface rust which I'm sure will wet & dry off, so the question is do I spend £84.95 on new pistons & seals, or just £24.95 on the seals alone. They aren't the originals, or at least somebody has been in before as I can see witness marks where the pistons have been tapped out in the past.
New pistons arrived the other day, straight forward job to rebuild the, I've had arguments with new pistons into calipers in the past but these went in nice & easy.
1 piston in each pack was different but but that won't make any difference, but just a bit strange
Fitted them back onto the car & used an Ezibleed to to get the air out, then took it back up the road only to find although they worked the pedal was looooong & didn't instil confidence. Something still wasn't right, I did wonder if it was rear brakes, so I took the drums off & put a jubilee clip around the cylinder to stop them coming out, put the wheels back on & drove again, it was still the same.
Then I got to thinking about the servo & master cylinder, I wondered if there was an issue there, took the master cylinder off & measured how far the servo pushrod was sticking out, 13mm, then measured how deep the recess was in the master cylinder which was roughly 23mm which mean the rod had to move 10mm's before it started to push the piston. As temporary solution is to out a nut into the master cylinder but that was too much, so I made a plate up to go between the master cylinder & the servo out of 3mm plate, this seems to be the correct depth. The pedal only moves a tiny bit now before the brakes start to have effect so it appears to work,
I see this as a temporary solution, that is unless it works, then it may stay.
Last thing on the list for today was the handbrake, this also does the auto adjuster, the OS rear was not self adjusting, in the end I found that the cable wasn't moving freely as it came in to the drum, so WD40 & copperslip later all was working as it should. I will put 2 new cables on when the weather gets better, unless of course they work fine
1 piston in each pack was different but but that won't make any difference, but just a bit strange
Fitted them back onto the car & used an Ezibleed to to get the air out, then took it back up the road only to find although they worked the pedal was looooong & didn't instil confidence. Something still wasn't right, I did wonder if it was rear brakes, so I took the drums off & put a jubilee clip around the cylinder to stop them coming out, put the wheels back on & drove again, it was still the same.
Then I got to thinking about the servo & master cylinder, I wondered if there was an issue there, took the master cylinder off & measured how far the servo pushrod was sticking out, 13mm, then measured how deep the recess was in the master cylinder which was roughly 23mm which mean the rod had to move 10mm's before it started to push the piston. As temporary solution is to out a nut into the master cylinder but that was too much, so I made a plate up to go between the master cylinder & the servo out of 3mm plate, this seems to be the correct depth. The pedal only moves a tiny bit now before the brakes start to have effect so it appears to work,
I see this as a temporary solution, that is unless it works, then it may stay.
Last thing on the list for today was the handbrake, this also does the auto adjuster, the OS rear was not self adjusting, in the end I found that the cable wasn't moving freely as it came in to the drum, so WD40 & copperslip later all was working as it should. I will put 2 new cables on when the weather gets better, unless of course they work fine
Not a lot has happened, well not with the BugRat but I did decide to try to install a wind deflector just to try to get some of the wind over the top of my head. I used to have one on the Freestyle to good effect, but that managed to curve & the curve held the screen rigid. Couldn't do that on the BugRat & because of that it went in straight & flopped around all over the place, didn't even need to take it for a drive to know it was a fail. I used some 3mm sheet, but as soon as I took it out of the packaging I had my doubts it was soft & flimsy whereas the stuff I'd used on the Freestyle was a far more rigid material.
Shame as it didn't look too bad
Shame as it didn't look too bad
Bee a little while since an update, so you can see in the image above it's still running the old air filter which came with the car, I tried all over the place to get a replacement to no avail so ended up ordering one for another Weber which as it happened the base plate did not fit. But I made up a new bracket for the one above out of some mild steel strip, welded it to my old baseplate with a captive nut & it all fits togther quite nicely, you wouldn't know it wasn't made for it, well it is in a way.
Which then only left the crankcase breather which used to feed into the bottom of the baseplate, but I went with just a filter on the outlet, it seems to be slightly better running, now whether that's because the all the air is getting filtered now not 100% sure
Which then only left the crankcase breather which used to feed into the bottom of the baseplate, but I went with just a filter on the outlet, it seems to be slightly better running, now whether that's because the all the air is getting filtered now not 100% sure
Found a couple of small water leaks today whilst looking for something else, one was fixed by a tightening of the worm clip, the other was fixed with a new clip.
The issue I was looking for was that the ignition warning light had stopped working, found it was a bad crimp onto a relay, then another where the wire had pulled out of another, they were both a batch of blue crimps I stopped using, clearly not early enough. This cured the problem but I am still experiencing problems, the alternator & external regulator have been checked but the I'm not convinced they are working right. When driving at low revs or stopped at junctions the voltmeter I have only shows 11.6V, lifting the revs only take it to around 12.8V But it causes the temperature & fuel gauge to jump around all over the place.
I'm thinking of fitting one of these https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/407062871388 but will 50A be enough? There is another https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/366430442402 which is 60A but another £30 is it worth spending the extra, afterall I effectively only have lights & ignition to run on the car.
Anyone know how to find out what the 2 pin connector is & where to buy one from?
The issue I was looking for was that the ignition warning light had stopped working, found it was a bad crimp onto a relay, then another where the wire had pulled out of another, they were both a batch of blue crimps I stopped using, clearly not early enough. This cured the problem but I am still experiencing problems, the alternator & external regulator have been checked but the I'm not convinced they are working right. When driving at low revs or stopped at junctions the voltmeter I have only shows 11.6V, lifting the revs only take it to around 12.8V But it causes the temperature & fuel gauge to jump around all over the place.
I'm thinking of fitting one of these https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/407062871388 but will 50A be enough? There is another https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/366430442402 which is 60A but another £30 is it worth spending the extra, afterall I effectively only have lights & ignition to run on the car.
Anyone know how to find out what the 2 pin connector is & where to buy one from?
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Went out to GBS https://www.greatbritishsportscars.com/ for their coffee & cars this morning, when I got there I found that the oil filler off the rocker cover was missing, just by amazing luck it was still in the engine bay, but I wasn't risking it on the way home.
So I'm still experiencing weird electrical issues, the volt gauge is all over the place whilst driving, I convinced myself it's the old external voltage regulator so ordered a new alternator with an internal regulator/rectifier the cheapest I could find was a small one designed for garden 4x4's or a kit car.
Ideally I would have been able to get a spare alternator bracket after being promised a few off the FB Skoda group but as usual with FB nothing materialised, so rather than butchering mine & not being able to put it back to stock (if needed) I spent an hour or so making a bracket to bolt to the existing bracket. All was going well until I came to actually fit the actual alternator it lined up with the other pulley's what I hadn't noticed was they had sent the wrong one, it was advertised as a 10mm but I got a 12mm which means the belt slides down too far.
So that is going back & a different one ordered so we'll see how we go in with that one.
Ideally I would have been able to get a spare alternator bracket after being promised a few off the FB Skoda group but as usual with FB nothing materialised, so rather than butchering mine & not being able to put it back to stock (if needed) I spent an hour or so making a bracket to bolt to the existing bracket. All was going well until I came to actually fit the actual alternator it lined up with the other pulley's what I hadn't noticed was they had sent the wrong one, it was advertised as a 10mm but I got a 12mm which means the belt slides down too far.
So that is going back & a different one ordered so we'll see how we go in with that one.
A few updates as I slowly work my way through the niggling issues, but I did get side tracked with the wife's Rav4, it's had a bad injector for a while now, sometimes when it's really cold it doesn't run on all 4 when you first start it, it's on 3 & there is a big black cloud out the back, only for a10 seconds or so, maybe not even that long. I've been going to do it for ages, but the injectors were just under £1K for the 4, or £3.6K if you bought them from Toyota.
Autodoc were doing a sale a few months ago & I go all 4 for £685 quite a big saving, only problem when they arrived 3 of them had been opened & out of the packaging, but to be fair to Autodoc, no issues, they were returned at their expense & a refund given. I then had to contact them again to put a new order on as the price had gone up.
Anyway the day came to fit them, No4 came out easy, No3 out up a fight, but by twisting it one way & another it finally gave up, No2 came out as easy as No4, which made me quite smug, but that was a mistake, No1 proved to be an absolute barstool. I tried everything I could think of but I could not get more than 1/8 of a turn at most & the more I tried it the less it moved or so it seemed.
Luckily I know a couple of lads who run their own garage & have plenty of favours stored up with them so went & borrowed their pneumatic injector remover, TBH if I hadn't of had it I'm not sure I could have got it out.
Autodoc were doing a sale a few months ago & I go all 4 for £685 quite a big saving, only problem when they arrived 3 of them had been opened & out of the packaging, but to be fair to Autodoc, no issues, they were returned at their expense & a refund given. I then had to contact them again to put a new order on as the price had gone up.
Anyway the day came to fit them, No4 came out easy, No3 out up a fight, but by twisting it one way & another it finally gave up, No2 came out as easy as No4, which made me quite smug, but that was a mistake, No1 proved to be an absolute barstool. I tried everything I could think of but I could not get more than 1/8 of a turn at most & the more I tried it the less it moved or so it seemed.
Luckily I know a couple of lads who run their own garage & have plenty of favours stored up with them so went & borrowed their pneumatic injector remover, TBH if I hadn't of had it I'm not sure I could have got it out.
Next fix was the radiator, I had just the single fan fitted, but on looking if I ground down the shroud slightly I worked out that I could fit 2x fans, then I changed the switch to a 2 temperature one, then wired 1 fan into the lower temp, but both on the higher temp via a couple of relay's
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