- Thread Starter
- #26
I can give another lenghty update - not quite as good as I was hoping I could give but it's still not all bad news! (Also another without pictures, I know everyone loves pictures but they'd all look the same at this stage - I promise more pictures soon!)
I got a good evening working at the car on Tuesday and ticked off a lot of my 'To-Do before starting the engine' list. Bear in mind that up until this point the car had never even had a working battery fitted so I had never had the ignition on or checked anything electrical....
So on Tuesday I started in to sorting some of the wiring, I wasn't happy with some of the routing of the wires and it was needless long in places and made no sense to me the way it was done. So I stripped a lot of back, routed it the way I wanted and then set about cutting out large sections of wires that were just too long! I soldered them all back together, heat shrinked and left ready for covering and fixing in place. This was a job I wasn't looking forward to initially but once I'd stripped it back it became obvious how I could route it and make it a cleaner, simpler install.
Other jobs completed that evening were:
Diff refilled with oil
Engine filled with oil
Coolant filled
New plugs fitted
Intercooler temporarily fitted (needs to come off again to tidy up)
Exhaust fitted (also needs to come off again to heat wrap)
Finally I fitted a new battery and turned it on for the first time... a pretty big moment in the build! The ignition turned on and the dash lit up so that was a good start, up until this point I always wondered would it do anything when I turned the key! There was no attempt to start it at this stage as I had no fuel, I'd drained the tank and replaced the lines and wanted to buy fresh fuel so wasn't going to use what I had lying in the garage.
Of course turning the ignition on led me to discover other jobs that I now need to do...
Horn only made a slight sound (bad earth, already fixed)
Fuel gauge reads full (suspected bad earth, sender is fine so need to check gauge itself)
No full beam - side lights and dip work but not full - needs investigating.
Fan switch doesn't turn fan on - haven't a clue how this is wired. Need to test fan on it's own first then investigate the wiring
Bulb is blown on one half of rev counter so needs replaced
Back lights not working on oil pressure/fuel gauge so needs investigating
I'd no time to do anything on Wednesday but I had a few hours last night so I went and got 10 litres of super unleaded after work and headed into the garage with the intention of seeing if this thing would fire up.
It didn't.
It could be worse though, to look at the positives - it turns over, I have spark. I have no fuel. Two out of three ain't bad they say! They'd also be the two I would pick if I had to! Bike engines in cars can cause various issues with things like kickstand, tilt sensors etc which you need to override to get a spark so I'm happy to have a spark and well, we wouldn't get far if it didn't turn over!
I set about investigating why it wouldn't start, spark was first thing I checked and that was all good so I moved on to fuel - pulled the line of the pressure regulator and nothing... now I knew I'd heard one of the pumps running (it's got two pumps, standard bike pump to pull from the tank and fill the swirl pot, then another after the swirl pot to pump to the engine) I pulled the line off the outlet of the bike pump and nothing... so that's why it's not starting then. I turned the car on and off again and listened to the pumps and realised only the second pump was running. They're wired in together so both should have power.... disconnected bike pump, cleaned connectors checked it wasn't blocked and put it back together. Turned the car on and it buzzed into life, now we're talking...
No. Still no fuel! Tried various things and it just won't pump. The line from the tank to the pump is new and clear (got a mouthful of super unleaded to confirm that one!) so the only conclusion I can come to is that the pump is goosed. It's very noisy, louder than any I've heard before and it's been lying up for a few years so I'm hoping it's just a defective pump. I went into the house, did some research to see if the pump can possibly sound like it's working but not pump anything but it was inconclusive. Certainly they can lose the ability to flow as much as required but I'm getting nothing. Any how, I just ordered a new pump there and then as it's the only thing I can think to try! I've gone for fast delivery and it's been dispatched this morning on a 24 hour service. Not hopeful it'll arrive tomorrow but if it does I'll fire it in and give it another go.
If you've reached this far then I commend you as that turned into a lot of drivel
I got a good evening working at the car on Tuesday and ticked off a lot of my 'To-Do before starting the engine' list. Bear in mind that up until this point the car had never even had a working battery fitted so I had never had the ignition on or checked anything electrical....
So on Tuesday I started in to sorting some of the wiring, I wasn't happy with some of the routing of the wires and it was needless long in places and made no sense to me the way it was done. So I stripped a lot of back, routed it the way I wanted and then set about cutting out large sections of wires that were just too long! I soldered them all back together, heat shrinked and left ready for covering and fixing in place. This was a job I wasn't looking forward to initially but once I'd stripped it back it became obvious how I could route it and make it a cleaner, simpler install.
Other jobs completed that evening were:
Diff refilled with oil
Engine filled with oil
Coolant filled
New plugs fitted
Intercooler temporarily fitted (needs to come off again to tidy up)
Exhaust fitted (also needs to come off again to heat wrap)
Finally I fitted a new battery and turned it on for the first time... a pretty big moment in the build! The ignition turned on and the dash lit up so that was a good start, up until this point I always wondered would it do anything when I turned the key! There was no attempt to start it at this stage as I had no fuel, I'd drained the tank and replaced the lines and wanted to buy fresh fuel so wasn't going to use what I had lying in the garage.
Of course turning the ignition on led me to discover other jobs that I now need to do...
Horn only made a slight sound (bad earth, already fixed)
Fuel gauge reads full (suspected bad earth, sender is fine so need to check gauge itself)
No full beam - side lights and dip work but not full - needs investigating.
Fan switch doesn't turn fan on - haven't a clue how this is wired. Need to test fan on it's own first then investigate the wiring
Bulb is blown on one half of rev counter so needs replaced
Back lights not working on oil pressure/fuel gauge so needs investigating
I'd no time to do anything on Wednesday but I had a few hours last night so I went and got 10 litres of super unleaded after work and headed into the garage with the intention of seeing if this thing would fire up.
It didn't.
It could be worse though, to look at the positives - it turns over, I have spark. I have no fuel. Two out of three ain't bad they say! They'd also be the two I would pick if I had to! Bike engines in cars can cause various issues with things like kickstand, tilt sensors etc which you need to override to get a spark so I'm happy to have a spark and well, we wouldn't get far if it didn't turn over!
I set about investigating why it wouldn't start, spark was first thing I checked and that was all good so I moved on to fuel - pulled the line of the pressure regulator and nothing... now I knew I'd heard one of the pumps running (it's got two pumps, standard bike pump to pull from the tank and fill the swirl pot, then another after the swirl pot to pump to the engine) I pulled the line off the outlet of the bike pump and nothing... so that's why it's not starting then. I turned the car on and off again and listened to the pumps and realised only the second pump was running. They're wired in together so both should have power.... disconnected bike pump, cleaned connectors checked it wasn't blocked and put it back together. Turned the car on and it buzzed into life, now we're talking...
No. Still no fuel! Tried various things and it just won't pump. The line from the tank to the pump is new and clear (got a mouthful of super unleaded to confirm that one!) so the only conclusion I can come to is that the pump is goosed. It's very noisy, louder than any I've heard before and it's been lying up for a few years so I'm hoping it's just a defective pump. I went into the house, did some research to see if the pump can possibly sound like it's working but not pump anything but it was inconclusive. Certainly they can lose the ability to flow as much as required but I'm getting nothing. Any how, I just ordered a new pump there and then as it's the only thing I can think to try! I've gone for fast delivery and it's been dispatched this morning on a 24 hour service. Not hopeful it'll arrive tomorrow but if it does I'll fire it in and give it another go.
If you've reached this far then I commend you as that turned into a lot of drivel
