Clonking exhaust

When we have passengers in the back or drive over speed bumps, the rear end of the exhaust has been clonking on what sounded like the floor of the car.

I had a look at it a week or so ago and found that there was a badly fitted exhaust clamp banging on the rear crossmember when the suspension was compressed. I've taken off the old, rusty clamp and fitted a new one in a better position. There are no clearance issues now so job's a good'un!

Power steering fixed

Since buying the car, the power steering has been a bit iffy. On full lock, the belt would squeal and chatter and it would sometimes stop working completely for a second or two.

£3.78 for a new belt, so I got one ordered rather than trying to tension the knackered old belt already on the car. When I came to replace the belt, I found what seems to be a common fault. The adjuster nut had been battered by someone trying to adjust the belt without turning the adjuster. I tried to get enough bite on the adjuster to continue to use it, but it was too far gone. I've had to adjust the belt and lock it off using the lock nut with a couple of washers behind it for the time being.

I have a feeling this knackered adjuster is the reason the original belt was chattering and squeeling. The power steering is now lighter than before and works lock to lock without issue. You can see the toothed section that the adjuster nut should mesh with in my 3rd picture below. I'll order a new adjuster at some point, but it'll do for now!

Lit up the backside!

I've just been out in the mid afternoon gloominess to sort out the lack of reversing lights. Unfortunately, the existing wires were black and crispy after spending the last 15 years on top of the gearbox. I traced them back to where the wiring was good and joined some new, flexible wiring to the exisiting loom. Gemma can now see where she is going when reversing and other people can see her intentions too. Reversing out of the drive has been a bit iffy with no lights!

I contacted a few breakers to see if they had an original plug available but it seems like they are as rare as rocking horse poo!

Hmmmm the sensor is duff after all

I repaired the broken wires to the lambda sensor, reset the fault codes. There were 2 intermittent fault codes and 1 other. Took the car for a run and it felt pretty much the same as before - slightly hesitant on small throttle openings. I checked the fault codes again and the intermittent ones have gone but there's still an error code for the lambda sensor reading so it must be duff.

As a test, I disconnected it and took the car for a drive again. No hesitation this time and throttle response at small throttle openings is much better. Soooo, looks like a new sensor is needed on payday. Still, at least it is driveable, albeit in safe mode which prevents the car revving beyond 5000rpm (according to what I have read). To be honest, we never rev it beyond 5k anyway so not a problem!

Lambda sensor problem possibly solved...

I finally got round to jacking the car up and sticking it on axle stands so i could wriggle far enough underneath (it's quite a low car!) to check out the lambda sensor. On first sight, all looked well but then i untucked the cables and found that at least one of the wires had snapped where they had been joined with small crimps connectors. This has probably got something to do with the intermittent lambda sensor fault the ECU keeps throwing up!  :op

Just need to strip the wires and rejoin them to see if the problem goes away or if the sensor itself is duff. Hopefully the sensor is ok as it looks pretty furred up and in an awkward position to get a socket (i have a proper sensor socket) and ratchet on there!

Fuel filter and pressure regulator

I've just thawed out enough to type after spending the last hour or so replacing the fuel filter and fuel pressure regulator on the car... Easy enough job, but made harder by numb fingers!

Replaced some vacuum hoses today.

I ordered some 3 and 5mm silicon vacuum hoses the other day and they arrived this morning. Here are some pictures of the hoses I've replaced so far. There are also a couple that are out of view and fiddly to get to so I didn't get pictures of them. The hose that goes from the intake manifold to the fuel pressure regulator had seen better days so was in need of replacing. The others didn't look so bad, but they were the old fabric covered type so replaced them just to be sure.

 

There's also a hose that attaches to the top of the intake manifold that had split around the jubilee clip so I trimmed this back to get a good seal

 

As a precaution, I decided to wrap the air intake pipe in Duct tape, to rule out any risk of there being any splits in the corrugated parts of the pipe, which are awkward to detect. Looks rough, but it's only a temporary measure until I've got to the bottom of the slight hesitation.

 

I was hoping the new fuel filter and fuel pressure regulator would arrive today but it seems like Christmas is slowing things down a bit with Royal Mail!