me & my dad....

[Tahrey1043]

...when we next meet, are going to have a sit down, cup of tea, and a nice chat.... involving a gunsons time-lite, a 12,500 volt step-up transformer and contact breaker, some missing insulation in a non-obvious place (besides the obviously knackered plugs), and my recent near-death experience.

i think i may take the "lite" along and give him a forcible try-it-yourself demonstration.

hand's still tingling.



other than that............. not sure what to report.

the engine runs. well... thats as accurately as i can describe it. no... "jogs" might be a far more appropriate word. it might be feeling better in the morning. sure know im not going to be able to adjust the basic timing much better than i have.

it was able to power the beast thirty yards up the road in first gear with the lid down, do a 3 point turn, and come back at a similar karl-benz-rivalling pace to park in the same spot, just t'other way round.

(yes, i checked out the cooling system etc properly before i did it... THIS time*... it swallowed an amazing amount of antifreeze and deionised water - in fact some of it had to be boiled'n'cooled water instead, and the antifreeze mixture a bit weaker than it should be - on top of what was recovered from the system when it was emptied a coupla-three months back, before no more bubbles could be got out of the system and liquid flowed smoothly from the bleeder. theres still a bubble in there somewhere, but it doesnt seem to be affecting anything... yet... and i cant for the life of me shift it)

it aint happy tho.

consequently im not entirely plussed either

f***ing made up that ive got it all back together and it, y'know, fires and clatters along under its own power once again (after being given a hefty leg-up from someone elses battery - its own is categorically shagged out, and is fit pretty much for maintaining the ignition and nowt else... in fact maybe not even that??)

not too pleased that its not running smooth below about 1750rpm, has given off occasional palls of smoke from the engine bay, and the various possibilities these things entail. at best, and what i hope for, is that its JUST splashed & spilt coolant taking an age to burn off the catalyser, and the ECU hasnt yet figured out the proper settings (as i could feel the idle adjust going mental under my foot's gentle pressure at one point... up down turn around, please dont let me hit the ground...)
(and my my, its difficult to keep the revs out of the anaemic labouring zone even in 1st on a flat road, when youre not giving it any throttle or revving it high, aint it!)

hence not leaping around in joy as i had planned to.

but, i am going to mix myself a nice stiff drink of whatevers available, finish off putting things away and the rubbish bag where it belongs, and maybe a bath or shower if im still awake by then

night night


* in reference to earlier msn sesh ... i was naughty, overexcited boy and took it almost up to the end of the road (50 yards... wow!) before panicking at rocketing temperature and killing the ignition. and having to push it all the way home again. backwards. D'oh!

[GroovyCarrot]

Yep, running without coolant is very much A Bad Thing

Ignition timing should be easy enough to sort out. Just loosen the distributor bolts, fire it up and twist the distributor until it's running alright. Not perfect but it'll do for the time being. I think the ECU controls the fine tuning of the ignition in a mk3 anyway, doesn't it?

Bear in mind that it will probably run a little rough for a while anyway as it's been sitting around doing nothing for months. Once you've got the power to take it over 3mph take it out for a good ragging and it'll soon be back to normal. Congrats on getting it fired up anyway

[Tahrey1043]

hey... thanks

a good ragging? lol noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! hehehehe thats exactly NOT what im going to do dude!

it went all the way up to about 8mph i think? (~2000 in 1st... eventually)

wasnt exactly without coolant, and it wasnt enough to open the thermo or anything, so its about the same as it would have been sitting at a fast idle waiting for that to happen so i could top up and bleed it. i hope?

i sorted the timing out best i could (hence the gunson light), but im not sure if the cam & crank are properly in sync. Can't actually get the two marks perfectly lined up (less than, say, 2 degrees?) because of the length of the belt and the gapping of the teeth meaning the sprockets wont mesh in that position (erk!). so maybe i need to take it from where it is at the moment, misaligned on one side, and loosen water pump, take belt off cam sprocket, and slip it one tooth so the misalign is on the other side? (right now its so that it can be the alt pulley notch is in line with the Z rather than the O when the cam sprocket indent is lined up with it's mark... its a bit variable.. always on that side of the equation though)

plus i may well have disturbed the dizzy putting the no.1 lead back on as i hadnt bolted it as tight as i thought. cant be sure though, as the time lite is very firmly in the dustbin.

the ECU does control things (you can see the timing mark move around when you tweak the throttle, but theres no vacuum tube), but at idle / low revs without much throttle its still on basic timing, which is controlled by the hall sender on the distributor body - so rotating it still affects this.
Plus of course its still finding its feet there. It's hand/eye coordination on the ICV is a bit iffy and it revs up quite deliciously (or it would be, if you wanted it to do that...) when turning the key even without any throttle, before settling back.