Right after some advice from Joe, I’ve give the compensator valve a few good touches with a hammer, and I’ve got fluid out of the nearside caliper, but can’t get the drivers side to play

I’ve doused it in pb blaster and will tickle with a hammer again tomorrow night after work

Failing that I’ll buy a new one from Joe

Cheers Jamie

There's a hammer for every job

True joe

Brake bias valve ordered from Joe

will try and fit it after work tomorrow night

Cheers Jamie

Maybe I'm late to the party but I've just seen this

YouTube

I see you spotted it too Jamie!

The original thread was here :

https://www.fiatcoupeclub.org/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1647174/1

though there wasn't actually a link to the video itself.

Yep

So just finished fitting the new compensator valve from Joe (thx joe )

They are a bit fiddly to rethread the brake nuts into the body of the valve, but it’s done now

Quickly bled the calipers all round, interestingly I didn’t jack the rear trailing arms and I got fluid straight to the rear calipers.

Maybe when the car is dangling the valve actually doesn’t fully close the flow?

Tried the brake pedal, but feels a bit too much travel, but I’ve run out of fluid, so I’ll get another litre tomorrow and bleed the whole system again

So I will definitely have wheels on the ground for the weekend

Cheers Jamie

Just finished rebleeding the brakes, pedal feels better

Got all 4 wheels on now

Just initially set the Osrav shocks as per some old commentary from Nigel

Tomorrow I’ll bolt the undertray on and do some last checks, and hopefully tootle around the block

Cheers Jamie

Great result to have her wheels going round again after all that effort

Cheers Simon

Folks, what bolts do I need for the lower fixing to the rear anti roll bar?

They are a 15mm head and on checking for the clonking noise the head has snapped on one of them

Thanks Jamie

I managed to get the stud out with little effort, so whilst it’s annoying, the bolt must have been fatigued. I’ve found some donor bolts that I will change all of them as now I have a bit of paranoia and don’t want a surprise of a bad kind

Cheers Jamie

Jobs still to do…


Get the wheel arches professionally painted after the clean up, now waiting for the quote....

Do the fuel pump wiring mod

Retreat remaining leather inside the car, as per the drivers seat

Cable for drivers seat recliner operation is bust, and look’s fiddly to fix. Anyone had experience of doing these???

Book the car for tracking alignment (booked for Wed 6th April) and a once over on my mates ramps, but need to free off the locking nuts first, as they are rusted up and mega tight, so the big boy tools are coming out for this job

I appear to have an oil leak I'm hoping its just the oil filter that's simply worked loose, as certainly having the car tickover on the driveway didn't show anything for several hours over the course of work I've been doing

Book a track session at Donington Park- planning for April 12th, so the pressure is on to fix a few points

Cheers Jamie

So I found the leak, it was the dipstick seal

What I’ve noticed is the flange on the dipstick tube doesn’t get close to the mating face on the block

So I’ve cleaned it all up, reapplied rtv sealant, and drilled a hole above the original hole for where the securing bolt goes.

My theory is that is there was a gap it makes it easier for oil to push past this seal, so by sandwiching down the rubber seal/RTV sealant to the block face it should reduce the chance for any oil to seep out

Also managed to unseize the track rod end nuts, which were properly corroded, meaning I can can get the car tracked up on Wednesday

Cheers Jamie

Well another surprise breakdown tonight

Tonight’s drive was short lived, so after buzzing around the country lanes near me, the car suddenly died, just as I was coming onto boost. It cut out quite abruptly, so my immediate thought was something electrical

As I’d faffed around with fuses from earlier in the week, I’d got a few spare ones with me, so I get out of the car , cocksure the fuse had gone and I’d just pop another one in

Anyway it wasn’t the fuse

I popped the bonnet and the negative connection on the battery felt a bit warm, so I thought some kind of short

Then I tried to start it, but it turned over without firing.

The injector light stayed on, so I knew it would not start

When I tried again the ignition just clicked, like when your battery is flat , and I could hear something crackling/buzzing in the drivers footwell, so I turned it off and got the car towed back home

Anyway got the car home, had a nosey around, with nothing obvious

After an hour the car had cooled down and would turn over but not fire

So the code and injector light comes on and goes off, so for me this is correct. I hear the fuel pump prime for a second or two, again I’m sure this is normal

But it won’t fire up

I’ve tried the inertia switch several times

I’m not sure about the 2 relays in the passenger footwell, and the fuel gauge is showing about a 3rd of a tank.

I will to be sure check there’s actually fuel in it tomorrow, and given I put about 50 quids worth of fuel and haven’t done more than a 70 miles I hope it’s not just fuel now for why it won’t start

However I still wonder what was going off with the electrics

Any pearls of wisdom that anyone can think of ?

Ps big thank you to joe for taking messages tonight

You haven't blown a hose off as you gave it the beans?

I've replied to your PM in more detail, but thinking maybe fuel pump as it's been replaced recently with an uprated one and the fuse blew a few days ago too? Maybe the electrical problems are coming from that, or a short or the pump has overloaded the old wiring?

Morning gents

Firstly thanks for the replies

I’m going to take the undertray off and check for any pipe related issues , albeit I don’t think that explains the electrical weirdness that I saw


Then I’m going to clean up any of the main earth connections I can find, albeit I only know of 2 so if there’s more can someone enlighten me

I’m steering towards something to do with the new fuel pump/fuel pump wiring regarding the strange electrical issue I experienced.

So I’ll try and do the fuel pump wiring mod, just to eliminate this point

At times there appeared so little battery that when the hazard lights were on the dashboard lights were dimming in sequence with the hazard flash

Will report back on what I find, or not

Cheers Jamie

so its not a boost pipe issue, everything is secure

I've cleaned the earths up, but they didn't look bad

so the code & injector light come on and go out as they should with a 1 or 2 second with the pump priming.

the car now turns over, but doesn't fire

so I'm going to take the pump assembly out and test the pump......

Cheers Jamie

Check you've got fuel coming through to the rail first....

6 ground points in engine bay:

1. Front left, on chassis leg near alternator
2. Front right, on chassis leg in front of battery (opposite to #1)
3. Front right of gearbox (cable continues from #2)
4. Right side under coil pack cover
5. Back right of engine bay near strut top mount next to ABS diagnostic socket
6. Rear of engine near bottom of large triangular support bracket (note, bracket lower bolt must also be present for good earth connection)

thanks Graham/Simon

Fuel wasn't getting to the fuel rail......

so when I took the pump assembly out the flexipipe had come off the pump, so that explains why it wouldn't start, but now it starts. So I've used a beefier cable tie as I'm surprised it could come off, maybe I caught it when I faffed around with it earlier in the week??

But it doesn't explain the electrical weirdness I saw last night

So after chatting with Joe I'm going to borrow an infra camera from work to see if I can see any hot spots on cables in and around the footwell areas

Will keep you posted


Thanks again

Jamie

When you replaced the fuel filter was it definitely fitted the right way around? Just wondering if back pressure from there could have blown that hose off and caused the pump to draw too much current?

Or with that hose off maybe the pump spins freely and draws too much current? Definitely something strange with the pump fuse blowing the other day and that hose being off now. Which hose was it, one inside the pump/tank?

Also, is battery voltage OK? If there was a short from the pump that blew the fuse maybe it damage a cell or 2 in the battery and so it's now not outputting full power.

Hi Graham,
I fitted it as per the arrow of direction, that matched the filter you had fitted, so I'm sure its correct

My thoughts regarding the pipe is 2 things

1 is the tie wrap that was supplied was tiny and not man enough for its purpose

2 is when you put the pump assembly back in the tank, you can catch this pipe ( when manoeuvring it into place, this is what I think happened coupled with a crappy tie wrap

You could be right that the pump continually running due to no back pressure might be the reason for the current draw, I don't have any other ideas at present so sounds plausible

The voltmeter in the car is indicating 14 volts, so ordinarily you'd say that was ok

so for now I'm planning to drive it to my mates garage (25 miles away) this afternoon for the tracking set up (road & track set up), so let's see....

Cheers Jamie

So.. . .

Car is behaving perfectly, no electrical weirdness

Just had the tracking done, and it's now ready for a trackday

Cheers Jamie

Good

Thanks again Joe for your help, much appreciated

Check all the air inlet hoses, sounds like one of them has popped off

Trackday booked, roll on Wednesday