Cheap(?) TVR Chimaera 400
Discussion
Never fit Chinese crap anywhere. Off topic, but I have a garden with a gate at the road end of the drive, and the gate is about 200 feet from the house.
No power at the gate for a bell, and I cannot see the gate from the house.
So I fitted a remote wifi door bell, bell push (works on piezo electricity, so ne battery to go flat) on the gate post, receiver plugged into the mains in the house. Range said to be 1300 feet, b
ks Schmollocks it is. It works only when you are testing it, never when a delivery or a guest arrives. Made in China, cheap crap centre of the known world.
No power at the gate for a bell, and I cannot see the gate from the house.
So I fitted a remote wifi door bell, bell push (works on piezo electricity, so ne battery to go flat) on the gate post, receiver plugged into the mains in the house. Range said to be 1300 feet, b
ks Schmollocks it is. It works only when you are testing it, never when a delivery or a guest arrives. Made in China, cheap crap centre of the known world.Shiny new set of Land Rover Discovery HT leads arrived from John Craddock this week. These have angled spark plug caps which keep the rubbers (and the leads) at a safe distance from the exhaust manifolds. Bizarrely with the exception of number 5, which is straight.
I opted to retain my existing king lead given that a) it's only 6 months old, and b) the king lead in the replacement set had a rubber distributor cover moulded to the dizzy end of the lead. Useful in a Landie that goes off road, but not needed here (and it was awkward to fit in the confined space.
I swapped the leads one by one to avoid any muddling up, and after finding the boots to be a very tight fit on the plugs, added a little smear of silicone lubricant on the insides of the boots, and they clicked satisfyingly home. Safely clipped everything nice and tight, and the difference from the first turn of the key is night and day. The engine starts quicker and more cleanly, responds quicker to a blip of the throttle, and idles much smoother than it has for some time.
2 of the old leads were melted through to the conductor, which had clearly been shorting onto the manifold, and another two were badly singed and not far behind. No wonder it wasn't happy.
How it looks now.
I opted to retain my existing king lead given that a) it's only 6 months old, and b) the king lead in the replacement set had a rubber distributor cover moulded to the dizzy end of the lead. Useful in a Landie that goes off road, but not needed here (and it was awkward to fit in the confined space.
I swapped the leads one by one to avoid any muddling up, and after finding the boots to be a very tight fit on the plugs, added a little smear of silicone lubricant on the insides of the boots, and they clicked satisfyingly home. Safely clipped everything nice and tight, and the difference from the first turn of the key is night and day. The engine starts quicker and more cleanly, responds quicker to a blip of the throttle, and idles much smoother than it has for some time.
2 of the old leads were melted through to the conductor, which had clearly been shorting onto the manifold, and another two were badly singed and not far behind. No wonder it wasn't happy.
How it looks now.
QBee said:
e.
So I fitted a remote wifi door bell, bell push (works on piezo electricity, so ne battery to go flat) on the gate post, receiver plugged into the mains in the house. Range said to be 1300 feet, bks Schmollocks it is. It works only when you are testing it, never when a delivery or a guest arrives. Made in China, cheap crap centre of the known world.
I had some surprisingly good luck with remote controlled Chinese crap. In our old house, I rigged up a solar panel on the shed roof powering a charge controller/battery and some low voltage lights in the border. I bought one of those remote 12v switches from Amazon, in order to be able to turn the lights on and off from the house. I really wasn't expecting much, but to give it it's due, it worked absolutely flawlessly. Our garden was only about 40ft long, but the shed was in the bottom, far corner relative to the house, the receiver was located in the shed, and the remote would control it from inside the house.So I fitted a remote wifi door bell, bell push (works on piezo electricity, so ne battery to go flat) on the gate post, receiver plugged into the mains in the house. Range said to be 1300 feet, b
ks Schmollocks it is. It works only when you are testing it, never when a delivery or a guest arrives. Made in China, cheap crap centre of the known world.Put a couple of hundred miles on the car over the weekend, and took it 40 miles across country to meet some friends for lunch yesterday. Car is running really well, but it's thrown another little curveball.
Coming back through Dorchester town centre at rush hour, I noticed the temperature gauge creeping up past 90° which it has never done before. By the time I got out of the traffic, it was nudging 100°C. A few minutes at 40-50 mph and it was on its way back down under 90° again.
Pulled onto the drive and let it idle. 85°, 90°, 100°.... no fans. Arse.
Switched it off and had a look. Otter switch wires connected and secure, and nothing obviously untoward. Switched the ignition on again, and the fans started roaring away. Looks like I have either a wiring issue, or an intermittently borked otter switch.
Will check the fan wiring in more detail at the weekend, including the connectors under the radiator. I'll rig up a bypass while I'm in there which is something that was on my to-do list (probably using the surplus rear wiper switch on the standard Vauxhall column stalk), which should be quite straightforward to do given the otter only switches a relay and doesn't carry the load of the fan motors. It will also be a handy way to nail it down to the otter switch for certain, as if the fans work properly when manually switched, it eliminates everything else. If they're still intermittent, I need to go deeper.
All good fun!
Coming back through Dorchester town centre at rush hour, I noticed the temperature gauge creeping up past 90° which it has never done before. By the time I got out of the traffic, it was nudging 100°C. A few minutes at 40-50 mph and it was on its way back down under 90° again.
Pulled onto the drive and let it idle. 85°, 90°, 100°.... no fans. Arse.
Switched it off and had a look. Otter switch wires connected and secure, and nothing obviously untoward. Switched the ignition on again, and the fans started roaring away. Looks like I have either a wiring issue, or an intermittently borked otter switch.
Will check the fan wiring in more detail at the weekend, including the connectors under the radiator. I'll rig up a bypass while I'm in there which is something that was on my to-do list (probably using the surplus rear wiper switch on the standard Vauxhall column stalk), which should be quite straightforward to do given the otter only switches a relay and doesn't carry the load of the fan motors. It will also be a handy way to nail it down to the otter switch for certain, as if the fans work properly when manually switched, it eliminates everything else. If they're still intermittent, I need to go deeper.
All good fun!
Limpet said:
Put a couple of hundred miles on the car over the weekend, and took it 40 miles across country to meet some friends for lunch yesterday. Car is running really well, but it's thrown another little curveball.
Coming back through Dorchester town centre at rush hour, I noticed the temperature gauge creeping up past 90° which it has never done before. By the time I got out of the traffic, it was nudging 100°C. A few minutes at 40-50 mph and it was on its way back down under 90° again.
Pulled onto the drive and let it idle. 85°, 90°, 100°.... no fans. Arse.
Switched it off and had a look. Otter switch wires connected and secure, and nothing obviously untoward. Switched the ignition on again, and the fans started roaring away. Looks like I have either a wiring issue, or an intermittently borked otter switch.
Will check the fan wiring in more detail at the weekend, including the connectors under the radiator. I'll rig up a bypass while I'm in there which is something that was on my to-do list (probably using the surplus rear wiper switch on the standard Vauxhall column stalk), which should be quite straightforward to do given the otter only switches a relay and doesn't carry the load of the fan motors. It will also be a handy way to nail it down to the otter switch for certain, as if the fans work properly when manually switched, it eliminates everything else. If they're still intermittent, I need to go deeper.
All good fun!
Ahh, the perpetual fix one issue and another rises! What fun it is to have an older car. Coming back through Dorchester town centre at rush hour, I noticed the temperature gauge creeping up past 90° which it has never done before. By the time I got out of the traffic, it was nudging 100°C. A few minutes at 40-50 mph and it was on its way back down under 90° again.
Pulled onto the drive and let it idle. 85°, 90°, 100°.... no fans. Arse.
Switched it off and had a look. Otter switch wires connected and secure, and nothing obviously untoward. Switched the ignition on again, and the fans started roaring away. Looks like I have either a wiring issue, or an intermittently borked otter switch.
Will check the fan wiring in more detail at the weekend, including the connectors under the radiator. I'll rig up a bypass while I'm in there which is something that was on my to-do list (probably using the surplus rear wiper switch on the standard Vauxhall column stalk), which should be quite straightforward to do given the otter only switches a relay and doesn't carry the load of the fan motors. It will also be a handy way to nail it down to the otter switch for certain, as if the fans work properly when manually switched, it eliminates everything else. If they're still intermittent, I need to go deeper.
All good fun!
Glad, otherwise running well.
Set to work over the weekend investigating the fan wiring.
The connections to the otter switch had clearly received attention before as they were generic insulated crimped spade terminals. When I pulled one off, it fell off the wire. When I bent the wire, it was so brittle it snapped. Although they had been wrapped in heat resistant wrap, the heat had obviously done its thing over the years.
Seeing the condition of the wiring, it was plausible that it was a wiring rather than a switch issue, so I decided to rig up something temporary just to isolate the cause. I cut the factory wiring back up to the top of the swirl pot, cut a length of wire of the right length, and added some decent new crimped spade connectors to rig up to the otter switch. Reused some of the original conduit as well, although a good chunk of that was also brittle and scrap.
On the other end, I also rigged up spade connectors between the now cut back original wiring and my new section. But used male to female on the positive, and female to male on the negative. This would enable me to simply disconnect the switch, and join the two ends of the original loom wiring together to (manually) bypass the otter switch as a further test if needed
Not pretty, but temporary.
Started the engine and allowed it to warm up until the fans cycled. At just over 80° on the gauge, the fans cut in, ran for a minute or so and cut out. Just when I thought I'd pinned it down to the wiring, they started to act up. The fans would spin up for a brief moment (a second or two, cut out, spin up, cut out and repeat) before either coming on permanently or not coming on at all. Temperature gauge was climbing.
Shut the engine off and instigated my test.
Ignition on and the fans roared away on full chat. Started the engine, and the coolant temperature stabilised before beginning to slightly fall back.
So, I'd confidently eliminated the fans themselves, and their wiring and relays. Seems I need a new otter switch. Time to throw more coolant over my garage floor!
When it comes to the permanent wiring repair, I'll cut the factory loom back further, and solder a new length of wire in, and then properly heatshrink and insulate it before popping it into the original conduit. The repair will be invisible.
The connections to the otter switch had clearly received attention before as they were generic insulated crimped spade terminals. When I pulled one off, it fell off the wire. When I bent the wire, it was so brittle it snapped. Although they had been wrapped in heat resistant wrap, the heat had obviously done its thing over the years.
Seeing the condition of the wiring, it was plausible that it was a wiring rather than a switch issue, so I decided to rig up something temporary just to isolate the cause. I cut the factory wiring back up to the top of the swirl pot, cut a length of wire of the right length, and added some decent new crimped spade connectors to rig up to the otter switch. Reused some of the original conduit as well, although a good chunk of that was also brittle and scrap.
On the other end, I also rigged up spade connectors between the now cut back original wiring and my new section. But used male to female on the positive, and female to male on the negative. This would enable me to simply disconnect the switch, and join the two ends of the original loom wiring together to (manually) bypass the otter switch as a further test if needed
Not pretty, but temporary.
Started the engine and allowed it to warm up until the fans cycled. At just over 80° on the gauge, the fans cut in, ran for a minute or so and cut out. Just when I thought I'd pinned it down to the wiring, they started to act up. The fans would spin up for a brief moment (a second or two, cut out, spin up, cut out and repeat) before either coming on permanently or not coming on at all. Temperature gauge was climbing.
Shut the engine off and instigated my test.
Ignition on and the fans roared away on full chat. Started the engine, and the coolant temperature stabilised before beginning to slightly fall back.
So, I'd confidently eliminated the fans themselves, and their wiring and relays. Seems I need a new otter switch. Time to throw more coolant over my garage floor!
When it comes to the permanent wiring repair, I'll cut the factory loom back further, and solder a new length of wire in, and then properly heatshrink and insulate it before popping it into the original conduit. The repair will be invisible.
Edited by Limpet on Monday 13th May 10:24
Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff