Melvin the Mev Mevster

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Phaeton

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Earliest retest is 12th May at 12:30 so paid & booked, hopefully they will have fixed the brake rollers by then
 

Phaeton

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One of the things I discovered at IVA was the radiator fan didn't kick in, so had a look tonight & some moron appears to have not connected it up!!



Another issue was the wheel guards, here are the requirements

1. The vehicle must be fitted with wheel guards.
2. The wheel guard must extend at least 30 degrees from the centre of the wheel to the front (Figure 1).
3. The wheel guard must extend at least 50 degrees from the centre of the wheel to the rear (Figure 1).
4. The wheel guard must cover the full breadth of the tyre throughout the required dimensions (see Note 2 and Figure 1).
5. The rear of the wheel guard must not terminate above a horizontal plane of 150mm above the wheel centre (see Note1 and Figure 1).
6. The distance between the lower edges of the wheel guards and the axis passing through the centre of the wheels must not exceed 2r, where 'r' being the radius of the tyre (Figure 1 Dimension C.



1 to 5 make sense, but does anyone understand 6?
 

Phaeton

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Took me over well over an hour to cut the incorrect screen out, there was me concerned it would come out whilst driving, not a fudging chance, anyway new one now installed.



Still doesn't look perfect but a bit neater than the last twice, Tiger sealed it yesterday, going to leave it till Tuesday before I refit give it time to cure.

Ordered a new Lambda sensor, which of course came with the wrong connector, so not fitted, I removed the EVAP/Charcoal canister & all the instructions said to blank off the pipes, but there is very little information about the 1.6NB it mainly relates to the 1.8NB, on the 1.6 is a fuel damper/regulator which I think needs to have a vacuum connected to it, which I have now done, I'm hoping this was the cause of the overfuelling Co2



But I also pulled the injectors out, pushed some cleaner through them by using a pressure can of cleaner & tapping the electrical coil on them to allow the fluid through. The seals were quite stiff & damaged so ordered a new set, spoke to a mate of my sons who works in a garage & has agreed to put it on the emissions tester when I'm ready.

Had another look at the handbrake & made some adjustments, all seems a lot better.
 

Phaeton

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Just an update probably more for my benefit, screen is now refitted, fan has been re-wired, seat belt mounts have been welded up, I have all the bits to modify the arches. But the BIG problem is still the emissions, took it to the garage yesterday & the Co2 is still high, it was all over the place, we did manage to get it below the required required level but only with wrapping a rag around the air filter. I'm coming from a cheap & nasty fleecebay special straight into the AFM. We're wondering it that is causing the issue, so the plan this afternoon is to extend the inlet & move the air filter away from the AFM to see if it's causing turbulence. Grasping at straws in a way, the only other issue we think is it's a brand new Cat it could be it's not a Cat at all & a straight through pipe!
 

Phaeton

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For those who may have some pearls of wisdom.

Things I have done yesterday & today.

Removed the air temp sender, connected to multimeter, warmed it up with a hairdryer the resistance changed, tried the air temp sender in front of the MAF where it is as stock & also after MAF where I am running it, the readings were consistent in both positions with the engine running.

MAF, ran the engine at 1k, 1.5k, 2k, 2,5k & 3k & took the voltage at each step, plotted them on a graph & got an almost perfect straight line, which should indicate it's working as expected.

TPS, connected multimeter & then as the TPS was opened it was a steady increase in resistance & decrease as it was closed, tapping it gently at any given point doesn't make any difference.

Water temperature sender, as the water got hotter the voltage decreased, if the connector is removed the engine note changes & switches on the fan if the engine gets hot is also switches on the fan.

Fitted a new Lambda, even though I'm convinced there was nothing wrong with the last one, checked the wiring multiple times, I'm sure it's wired correctly

I've also continuity tested all the wires from the senders back to the ECU, I am now at my wits end, I have no further thoughts, I'm going to see the guy to who I've taken my carburettor cars to , he has a dyno etc. he works on programmable ECU's but as this is a sealed ECU I'm not sure he will be able to do anything.
 

Phaeton

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Took Melvin to a RR session yesterday to see if the guy could find anything wrong, but with the new Cat that I fitted Tuesday everything was fine, so it proves that I've waste countless hours on a brand new Cat that was useless. Only thing he did suggest was replacing the Bosch Lamdba with a Denso one, he claims the MX5's much prefer the Denso ones, so one on order.
 

Phaeton

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Went back for the retest on Wednesday,

Windscreen tick
Seatbelt mountings tick
Wheel arches tick
Emissions tick
Service brakes tick
Emergency/Handbrake FAIL!!!!

I had shortened the cable & tried to hold the 2 halfs together using clamps, it held when I was testing it & held for the first test on the passenger side, but the clamps slipped he the strong armed it again for the drivers side.

What is even more annoying is I've contacted Speedy Cables who will do a proper shortening job 40mm for £10 plus postage, why did I try to bodge it?
 

Phaeton

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Sorry just an update which I missed to do, went back for the reretest on the 2nd, no issues with the replacement cable & calliper, I actually think the bodged cable would have been fine & the issue was the calliper, although the 'proper' cable is far better.

So onto the next problem, when I took it for the initial IVA I was very pleased at the way it filled up the tank, the other lads who have Mevsters tell me they are a real pain to fill, 20+ minutes to get full. I had no such issue, it filled or at least went up to 3/4 quickly. Although not done a lot of running it's had a bit & a good rolling road session so on the way to the test I thought I'd best full it back up. But really struggled to get any fuel in, no matter what angle I held the handle at, it was a very vert slow filling of 10L. I wondered if I had put the bleed valve in the wrong way around, it didn't seem logical the way it filled the first time, but you never know, so yesterday I took the whole back end off again to find the fuel filler pipe looking like this






No they are not images of
@Danny's colonoscopy but what the fuel has done to the inner pipe, contacted the seller who gave me the spiel about being very sorry, they thought they had contacted all the customers & it was a faulty reel they got & offered a refund, which I have taken.

I've ordered some more from a Chandliers, but this time it's not flexible to have had to buy some 50mm exhaust bends, hopefully the right ones, at least I'm not on the road yet.

Although this leads me to my next rant, I have to pay for the insurance & the VED from the 1st June although it might be July before I get on the road, which leads me into another rant, don't stop me I'm on a roll.

Adrian Flux tried to auto-renew my insurance on the Robin Hood although I sold it ages ago, I never cancelled the policy as there was nothing to come back from it, but it gave me cover to drive other vehicles 3rd party (currently don't have another car) The renewal was £110, so I informed them not to renew, it ran out on the 1st, asked for a quote for Melvin, they came back at £160, to which I said No Thanks, that's too expensive compared with the RH I'll ring Graham Sykes, to which they replied "Let me see if the underwriter can do anything else" 5 minutes later the same policy was only £120 at which point I couldn't be bothered to argue anymore & paid it, but it shows you have to argue with them on the legalised theft policies.
 

Phaeton

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Sent all the paperwork off to DVLA week last Friday, it was signed for on Saturday which I thought was good, but they weer on industrial action last so I know nothing got done. Received an email yesterday to say that I had not put the V5C into the envelope & that if I wanted it to go onto a private plate they needed it. I argued that as they already knew I was the keeper & I had included a letter from them about it not being on SORN they shouldn't need it, but they insisted they did, so that was sent 1st class last night, hopefully I maybe registered for the weekend, fingers crossed with an assisting wind.
 

Phaeton

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Had another email yesterday to advise that if I wanted to go straight to the Private plate that the request would have to go to another department to be processed & would take further days, however if I accepted an age related plate that would we issued later that day. I advised go with the age related & I would sort out the retention stuff when the certificate came back, this was agreed, unfortunately the age related plate wasn't issued, or at least if it was I wasn't advised which was promised.
 

Phaeton

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We are REGISTERED!! just need a plate now, might leave it on the normal plate for now to see if I get on with it :eek:
 

Phaeton

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Well bit of a let down, first run out & got some serious vibration coming from somewhere, had all the rims balanced & was advised at the 2 of the alloys went every healthy one was buckled the other oval. Went & bought another set of MX5 rims & swapped some tyres over but still not much better, on checking with the DTI one of them was 5mm out of true.

Next we looked at the spacers, & found that one of them the spigot was damaged & that the studs appeared to be at 98mm PCD not 100mm PCD, which meant as the spigot was damaged & if you didn't tighten the rim up gently you could pull it off to one side.

So ordered a new set of alloys & tonight had the tyre swapped over & balanced, managed to get them all fitted before the rain so hopefully tomorrow we should have trouble free running 👏

 

Phaeton

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Not been any updates as Melvin has not been anywhere really, in fact I think he's been parked up since September & only moved around the front a couple of times.

Son asked if he could take Britney on a track day on Saturday, as IVA is 2 weeks on Tuesday I felt it was a bit close incase something went wrong, or worse still bang, so said he could take Melvin if he wanted.

I've never been too happy with the brakes since building him, in fact at the IVA it was mentioned that the numbers without servo were virtually the same as with the servo, they still worked but did take a lot of effort. Tonight I started Melvin & drove him up & back down the road, I then did the same with Britney & the brakes were like night & day, I therefore wondered just wonder if there had been a DoH! moment on Melvin's build.

I started his engine & unplugged the servo vacuum pipe from the manifold & the engine stopped exactly as it should, put it back on, started again & disconnected it from the servo, the same should have happened but it didn't the engine kept running. OMG I had installed the servo vacuum pipe which has a one way valve in it the wrong way around, spun it around, shortened it & went back up & down the road, he now has great brakes :ROFLMAO:

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Phaeton

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Was checking Melvin over this morning ready for his trashing tomorrow, I was also looking at how to fit a heater, despite only being a fair weather driver there were a couple of times last year when a little bit of heat inside the cockpit would have been nice. I have a heater matrix & a heater valve not sure what they are off possibly MGF either way I figured I had a plan.

Nipped out for a couple of hours to fetch some tyres for the Shogun to come back to find

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100% sure it wasn't like that when I left & for that matter for the last 6 months, jacked him up & took off the rim, checked the surface & couldn't see any nails/screws or anything like that. Laid it down & put some water into the bead to see if it was that, nothing, no bubbles. I then put a little bit of water into the valve, only find it was leaking @Danny I wasn't able to embed the video from Youtube here is the link https://youtube.com/shorts/ypXn4ES9u3A?feature=share I tried to tighten the valve but it was tight, so I loosened it a couple of turns & then retightened it which then sealed it, I had put some air in last night all I can assume is it must have taken a little bit of dirt in with it.
 

Phaeton

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Son took Melvin to Blyton today, had a good time, said it handled better than Britney, but it does have good tyres, VLSD & coil overs. Went over to have a watch & was quite impressed he had to pull over to the side to let a Nissan 350 & a BMW past, but once they were in front they didn't really leave him, he was just a bit short on legs down the straight, but he caught them back up in the twisties.

He was going to come off & then as he's just overtaken a Clio 182 he thought he'd put one more lap in, went round the first corner & lost drive, managed to pull over off the circuit at a marshals post which brought out the Red flag. As it's the VLSD he managed to limp it back up the circuit the wrong way & off the track. On inspection the drive shaft was spinning just not turning the wheel, so luckily his mate had the flatbed so he was loaded up & brought home.

Stripped down we found

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It's on the side where a new CV joint has been fitted, there was no evidence of the circlip, so either it chewed up the clip allowing the shaft to come out & only engage on the very end, or more likely I never seated it in the first place. Problem is they are MK1 bolt on shaft which are a bit hard to get hold of, so I've found somebody selling a diff & shafts which I'm collecting tomorrow.
 

Phaeton

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Today started at 9:30 let the neighbours have a lie in as it's Sunday before I get out the tools, by 11:15 both hubs had been removed, both driveshafts (well one as one was already off) exhaust removed, PPF unbolted & diff removed.

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Then this afternoon went & fetched the new (to me) Torsen diff & driveshafts, the seller didn't drain the oil, I had some plastic sheets but still managed to still a little but in the back of the wife's car, she wasn't impressed. No idea what car or mileage but it seems okay if a little corroded, but he swears it's fine, so then I spent another hour, or what seemed like another hour going

From


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To

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The other side only took me about 20 minutes but I knew what I was doing that time, although I did it on the original diff 18 months ago.

But I am now fubar'd I keep saying I'm getting too old for this lark, but I still enjoy it that's the trouble, not sure I'll do much tomorrow may have to see what the body says, but it would be good to get it back in whilst the sun shines.

I've also located a bolt on driveshaft, about 20 miles from Stoneleigh so I've agreed with the seller to pick it up the BH weekend,
 

Phaeton

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2nd day of the repair, started first thing fitting the polybushes which went smoothly, then fitted the diif to the subframe, attached the PPF & then the PPF to the gearbox all went well. Then the problems started, first issue was when I went to try to fit the propshaft, it was too long, the new one has a damper the old one doesn't, the seller offered me another shaft yesterday which I should have picked up. Luckily the spare one that I had was the correct one, but I didn't think of that until later on.

Tried to fit a driveshaft on the OS & it was too long, so fitted the other shaft easily, then tried to fit the first shaft on the NS again too long, so swapped the OS to the NS & that fitted as well. At this point I was convinced I'd been given the wrong shaft, spoke to the seller who was adamant it was right & suggested that possibly the spline needed knocking down which worked.

In the end it all went back together apart from needing oil which ended a very frustrating day.


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Phaeton

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Is it just me or as I get older I always fear something is going to go wrong, all the way through this diff swap there was this nagging feeling at the back of my mind that I'd been conned, that this wasn't a LSD, didn't help when somebody posted on FB exactly that they'd been sold a diff last November as a LSD but it turns out it's an open!!!!! I got the vibe from the guy who sold it me that he was genuine, but you never know.

Anyway managed to actually get out today, first thing to notice was that I was only doing an indicated 32 when I went through the 30 speed trap, before it was indicated 35, although it does mean that potentially acceleration might be a little slower, but I have to give Danny a chance some times.

Then I did the test.

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Granted this is on gravel, but it's easier to see than on tarmac, so happy days I think.
 

Phaeton

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Went out to Melvin over the weekend with the Supercharger & the parts of the bracket to see how the bits fit together, unfortunately it's not going to fit, not without to cut a large hole in the bonnet which isn't going to happen. On looking for other ways to get extra power, I came across an FB advert for a stripped MX5, it's had most of the stuff taken off it which for my purposes is quite handy as I have nowhere to store them.

But what it does have is a 1.8 VVT (supposed 143bhp) engine with full wiring harness & ECU, it also has gearbox, diff, suspension etc.

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Busy time ahead, down to Stoneleigh this weekend, IVA on Tuesday then pick this up Wednesday,
 
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