My first car - 1996 VR Ltd 1.8 Combination A
Discussion
Well, today hasn't been the best day ever....
Was out in the country enjoy the sunny weather and a twisty road when she seemed to be a little flat in her response to the throttle. This has happened once before, and cleared itself within a mile or two, but today she was like this for a good 4 miles - then suddenly she began running really rough, sounding like a proper misfire/not all cylinders firing, and not responding to the throttle. So my hazards went on and I pulled in, and the engine dies completely..
She'd start again no problem, but was still running amazingly roughly and wouldn't stay running.
Where I'd stopped there was no mobile signal, but fortunately there was a farm a bit less than a mile away, and they were happy for me to use their phone. Long story short, after about an hour on the phone, I had a local recovery company agree to come out.
An hour later matey boy arrives and soon has her running, albeit a bit rougher than normal. The problem seems to be with the air flow sensor, and with that unplugged she'll run. Yay!
So, I make it home okay, and put her to bed for the night - but when I go to close the windows - nothing! The buggering windows have stopped working!
I nip along to Maplin to get some fuses, but there's something odd going on here... The fuse box in the Eunos seems to be a little different to the picture in my manual - my manual is from a UK spec car, and where the manual says there should a 30A fuse for the windows, in my fuse box there is an empty slot! And to add insult to injury, the box of fuses I grabbed didn't contain the requisite 30A fuse!
So as things stand, I've bodged it -
Not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but hopefully should keep any rain out until tomorrow when I can investigate further.....
Was out in the country enjoy the sunny weather and a twisty road when she seemed to be a little flat in her response to the throttle. This has happened once before, and cleared itself within a mile or two, but today she was like this for a good 4 miles - then suddenly she began running really rough, sounding like a proper misfire/not all cylinders firing, and not responding to the throttle. So my hazards went on and I pulled in, and the engine dies completely..
She'd start again no problem, but was still running amazingly roughly and wouldn't stay running.
Where I'd stopped there was no mobile signal, but fortunately there was a farm a bit less than a mile away, and they were happy for me to use their phone. Long story short, after about an hour on the phone, I had a local recovery company agree to come out.
An hour later matey boy arrives and soon has her running, albeit a bit rougher than normal. The problem seems to be with the air flow sensor, and with that unplugged she'll run. Yay!
So, I make it home okay, and put her to bed for the night - but when I go to close the windows - nothing! The buggering windows have stopped working!
I nip along to Maplin to get some fuses, but there's something odd going on here... The fuse box in the Eunos seems to be a little different to the picture in my manual - my manual is from a UK spec car, and where the manual says there should a 30A fuse for the windows, in my fuse box there is an empty slot! And to add insult to injury, the box of fuses I grabbed didn't contain the requisite 30A fuse!
So as things stand, I've bodged it -
Not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but hopefully should keep any rain out until tomorrow when I can investigate further.....
I don't know - I take it you're talking about a window cut-out device?
Will go and check right now - and I'm going to feel such a chump if that's the case!
..........................
Investigated, and found a switch with an icon of a window on it that I've never paid any attention to.
My windows now work.... Don't know whether to be
or 
Thanks DXG
Will go and check right now - and I'm going to feel such a chump if that's the case!
..........................
Investigated, and found a switch with an icon of a window on it that I've never paid any attention to.
My windows now work.... Don't know whether to be
or Thanks DXG
I'm not having much luck recently with my Roadster...
Turned the key this morning to start her up - whir, clunk, nothing. She made maybe 3 revolutions then stopped dead. And I mean everything was dead, even the immobiliser.
I'm assuming it's an electrical fault. I've tested the battery, and it's fine, and all the fuses are good.... and that is where I run out of ideas.
She seems to be getting the hang of failing to proceed - first the air filter, then the clutch, now this.
Turned the key this morning to start her up - whir, clunk, nothing. She made maybe 3 revolutions then stopped dead. And I mean everything was dead, even the immobiliser.
I'm assuming it's an electrical fault. I've tested the battery, and it's fine, and all the fuses are good.... and that is where I run out of ideas.
She seems to be getting the hang of failing to proceed - first the air filter, then the clutch, now this.
Been a little while since I've updated this..
The breakdown in the above post was caused by a broken battery cable - to my shame when looking for the obvious causes I looked right at it but didn't see it.. :where's that get me coat smiley:
My current project is one of those things that are working, but not quite well enough.
It's the stereo system. It's rubbish. It has the full-on Japanese-syndrome tiny button thing going on, which I can't stand, the CD skips and jumps at every available opportunity, and the speakers are rubbish.
To cure this, a new head unit is going in, which will play radio, SD card, memory stick or AUX in, so no jumping. New speakers will replace the (I assume originals), and there'll be an amp to power them. There's also a bunch of Dynamat ordered for the doors, which I think will make the biggest difference.
So, what's going in?
The speakers are Alpine SPG-17C2 6 1/2" coaxial jobbies
They should fit the original space nicely, but be a massive improvement on the standard fit speakers..
The amp is again Alpine, a PMX-T320, at £80 seems a huge amount of bang for your buck..
Now to the head unit...
I really really do not like your typical Japanese-style loads-of-feckin'-tiny-buttons head units, for a car that's a homage to the English sports car I think it needs something that looks more old fashioned, so I went for this...
It's an American design, looks nice and simple, but has lots of tech going on underneath the plain facia. I'm hoping it will be a nice unobtrusive addition to the dash.
It has a remote unit for plugging in SD cards, pen drives or an AUX feed
I've not mentioned the headrest speakers, and that's because for the moment I'm ignoring them - I want to get the basics right with the system. I will have the opportunity to upgrade them later as I will have the head unit amps free to power them, which is one of the reasons I got the Alpine Amp.
The main trouble is, I've never fitted a car stereo before, or messed with a car's electrics, so this is going to be a whole new learning curve!
The breakdown in the above post was caused by a broken battery cable - to my shame when looking for the obvious causes I looked right at it but didn't see it.. :where's that get me coat smiley:
My current project is one of those things that are working, but not quite well enough.
It's the stereo system. It's rubbish. It has the full-on Japanese-syndrome tiny button thing going on, which I can't stand, the CD skips and jumps at every available opportunity, and the speakers are rubbish.
To cure this, a new head unit is going in, which will play radio, SD card, memory stick or AUX in, so no jumping. New speakers will replace the (I assume originals), and there'll be an amp to power them. There's also a bunch of Dynamat ordered for the doors, which I think will make the biggest difference.
So, what's going in?
The speakers are Alpine SPG-17C2 6 1/2" coaxial jobbies
They should fit the original space nicely, but be a massive improvement on the standard fit speakers..
The amp is again Alpine, a PMX-T320, at £80 seems a huge amount of bang for your buck..
Now to the head unit...
I really really do not like your typical Japanese-style loads-of-feckin'-tiny-buttons head units, for a car that's a homage to the English sports car I think it needs something that looks more old fashioned, so I went for this...
It's an American design, looks nice and simple, but has lots of tech going on underneath the plain facia. I'm hoping it will be a nice unobtrusive addition to the dash.
It has a remote unit for plugging in SD cards, pen drives or an AUX feed
I've not mentioned the headrest speakers, and that's because for the moment I'm ignoring them - I want to get the basics right with the system. I will have the opportunity to upgrade them later as I will have the head unit amps free to power them, which is one of the reasons I got the Alpine Amp.
The main trouble is, I've never fitted a car stereo before, or messed with a car's electrics, so this is going to be a whole new learning curve!
Cheers Alex! Comments like this make it all worthwhile!
There's some good news now, and some not so good news....
But good news first - I have a pile of boxes!
Apart from a little forked trim remover tool which :should: arrive v. soon, and a little hard roller to force the dynamat into place, this is everything I need for the install (I think!). I'm dead chuffed with how quickly it all got here, modern logistics are brilliant!
I'm a little apprehensive as I've never worked on car electrics before - natch, as I've never had a car before! - but am looking forward to the project and learning more about cars, and my car in particular.
I'll not be rushing this, I want to get everything just right, so I'll do it stage by stage. Get the dynamat in there first, and mount the speakers. Then I'll need to plan where to put the amp. I'm thinking tucked up in the passenger footwell would work, which would mean shorter cable runs compared to mounting it in the boot, but we'll see - none of the components have gone anywhere near the car so far! Good news is, my boss used to be really into the car hi-fi thing and has offered to help out with the install - bad news is his missus is delivering twins probably as I type this, so he'll not be available to help for months if not years! :where'sthattoungeincheeksmilie?:
At the start of this post I said there was some not so good news as well, and that is that my engine is officially poorly...
For a little while the idle speed has been erratic; it would sit at 1000rpm then go up to maybe 2000rpm and sit there, and sometimes drop a couple of hundred rpm. In the last few days it's begun to do this while actually in motion as well, there'd be a sharp drop in power, not huge, but enough to be unsettling. In the last couple of days there's also been a tick-tick-tick-tick sound that comes and goes.
Today coming home from work the ticking was there and I stopped to pop the bonnet, and there was a little smoke coming from the ignition leads! It felt like there was a lot of heat build-up in the area round the rear of the cylinder head.
When I got home I had a better look, and there was rusty-looking fluids around that area.. Good thing is, when the idle was being erratic, I'd booked in at my local garage for them to have a good look, and that booking is tomorrow first thing. I think there's a sensor back there that often causes problems and is an easy fix, I'm just hoping it's that - after spending all my hard-earned on stereo equipment I don't want to be landed with a huge bill to fix the motor!
Good thing is, the guys at my local Indy garage are great, bad thing is I've had quite a few reasons to call on their services in the past months...
Anyway, to sum up this post - I don't mind that things go wrong with this car, she's given me that much pleasure over the last (nearly a) year that it's totally worth it. Previously in the good weather I've been out on the bike in full leathers, so have remained a pasty white - this year I've loads of people saying 'You're looking well!', just because I've been out roaming around having fun with the hood down!
There's some good news now, and some not so good news....
But good news first - I have a pile of boxes!
Apart from a little forked trim remover tool which :should: arrive v. soon, and a little hard roller to force the dynamat into place, this is everything I need for the install (I think!). I'm dead chuffed with how quickly it all got here, modern logistics are brilliant!
I'm a little apprehensive as I've never worked on car electrics before - natch, as I've never had a car before! - but am looking forward to the project and learning more about cars, and my car in particular.
I'll not be rushing this, I want to get everything just right, so I'll do it stage by stage. Get the dynamat in there first, and mount the speakers. Then I'll need to plan where to put the amp. I'm thinking tucked up in the passenger footwell would work, which would mean shorter cable runs compared to mounting it in the boot, but we'll see - none of the components have gone anywhere near the car so far! Good news is, my boss used to be really into the car hi-fi thing and has offered to help out with the install - bad news is his missus is delivering twins probably as I type this, so he'll not be available to help for months if not years! :where'sthattoungeincheeksmilie?:
At the start of this post I said there was some not so good news as well, and that is that my engine is officially poorly...
For a little while the idle speed has been erratic; it would sit at 1000rpm then go up to maybe 2000rpm and sit there, and sometimes drop a couple of hundred rpm. In the last few days it's begun to do this while actually in motion as well, there'd be a sharp drop in power, not huge, but enough to be unsettling. In the last couple of days there's also been a tick-tick-tick-tick sound that comes and goes.
Today coming home from work the ticking was there and I stopped to pop the bonnet, and there was a little smoke coming from the ignition leads! It felt like there was a lot of heat build-up in the area round the rear of the cylinder head.
When I got home I had a better look, and there was rusty-looking fluids around that area.. Good thing is, when the idle was being erratic, I'd booked in at my local garage for them to have a good look, and that booking is tomorrow first thing. I think there's a sensor back there that often causes problems and is an easy fix, I'm just hoping it's that - after spending all my hard-earned on stereo equipment I don't want to be landed with a huge bill to fix the motor!
Good thing is, the guys at my local Indy garage are great, bad thing is I've had quite a few reasons to call on their services in the past months...
Anyway, to sum up this post - I don't mind that things go wrong with this car, she's given me that much pleasure over the last (nearly a) year that it's totally worth it. Previously in the good weather I've been out on the bike in full leathers, so have remained a pasty white - this year I've loads of people saying 'You're looking well!', just because I've been out roaming around having fun with the hood down!
As I've got the day off work today, I decided to start familiarising myself with the audio system, working out exactly what else I'd need in the way of connectors and the like, but straight away got sidetracked into assembling the head unit! 
Because the unit is designed to be able to fit any classic american car with their knobs in a huge variety of positions the brackets have way too much adjustability, and getting everything lined up correctly was a proper ball-ache...
..the pots were on the wonk, then the fascia had a small curve in it, then one pot was too far out, I could go on and on... Every adjustment affected everything else, I really could have used 3 pairs of hands!
I eventually got it pretty much right - pots perpendicular to the fascia plate and aligned just so, but I think they still stick out a bit too far, but I'm right at the end off the adjustability in that direction. I'm hoping that from the driver's seat it won't be apparent.
( ^^ Though from this angle they look perfectly flush against the fascia!)
Overall I'm dead chuffed with it, seeing it together for the first time I think I made the right choice of fascia and knobs, and I think it'll suit the interior of the car.
Because the unit is designed to be able to fit any classic american car with their knobs in a huge variety of positions the brackets have way too much adjustability, and getting everything lined up correctly was a proper ball-ache...
..the pots were on the wonk, then the fascia had a small curve in it, then one pot was too far out, I could go on and on... Every adjustment affected everything else, I really could have used 3 pairs of hands!
I eventually got it pretty much right - pots perpendicular to the fascia plate and aligned just so, but I think they still stick out a bit too far, but I'm right at the end off the adjustability in that direction. I'm hoping that from the driver's seat it won't be apparent.
( ^^ Though from this angle they look perfectly flush against the fascia!)
Overall I'm dead chuffed with it, seeing it together for the first time I think I made the right choice of fascia and knobs, and I think it'll suit the interior of the car.
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