Weekend of three TVR "breakdowns"...
Discussion
Well my weekend was going to involve a fair bit of driving, London to Oxford (Fri), Oxford to High Wycombe and back (Sat), Oxford to Bedford (Sat), Bedford to Silverstone (Sun), Silverstone to Thame (Sun), Thame to High Wycombe (Sun) and then back home to London (Mon), but...
1. Saturday morning: A low car with even lower front splitter, horse shit and country roads do NOT go together as hitting some ripped the splitter off.
2. Saturday afternoon: On the way to Bedford, car just starts not firing properly. A very nice AA man traces the fault to the wiring loom between the alternator and battery, hence dead battery. Sunday morning we cut up my heavy duty jump leads, hard wired one end into the alternator and then fed the other through the bonnet, in the window, down into the passenger footwell and the battery is now charging once more. Luckily it was dry so the window open wasn't a problem.
3. Sunday evening: Little single track country lane car cuts out again, only half a mile from my destination. Car is turning over fine, so I didn't think it was the battery but I could no longer hear the fuel pump on start up so I thought that would be the problem. AA man number 2 (he's a very, very nice man too!) tows me to my destination, squirts fuel straight into the intake and it starts first time. So he whacks it on axel stands, finds the fuel pump and confirms that there's power to the pump and that therefore the pump's knackered. Has a bright idea though and checks the connectors as it's exposed under the car, replaces the ones on the cable, bit of Vaseline later and car starts first time. Phew - 8 years of dirt and grime in the way and not a dodgy fuel pump.
NOTE TO SELF - Ask for fuel pump connections cleaning when being serviced as it's exposed to all kinds of crap under there!
So all I've now got to do is to get the car to a garage and have the wiring loom replaced and off to Le Mans. Might clean all that country muck and crap off first if the weather's nice enough!
I don't think I can really complain too much if that's all that's going to go wrong (these things come in threes as they say!). Thank
it all happened this weekend though and not on the way / way back from Le Mans!
Bring it on Gentlemen and fingers crossed...
1. Saturday morning: A low car with even lower front splitter, horse shit and country roads do NOT go together as hitting some ripped the splitter off.
2. Saturday afternoon: On the way to Bedford, car just starts not firing properly. A very nice AA man traces the fault to the wiring loom between the alternator and battery, hence dead battery. Sunday morning we cut up my heavy duty jump leads, hard wired one end into the alternator and then fed the other through the bonnet, in the window, down into the passenger footwell and the battery is now charging once more. Luckily it was dry so the window open wasn't a problem.
3. Sunday evening: Little single track country lane car cuts out again, only half a mile from my destination. Car is turning over fine, so I didn't think it was the battery but I could no longer hear the fuel pump on start up so I thought that would be the problem. AA man number 2 (he's a very, very nice man too!) tows me to my destination, squirts fuel straight into the intake and it starts first time. So he whacks it on axel stands, finds the fuel pump and confirms that there's power to the pump and that therefore the pump's knackered. Has a bright idea though and checks the connectors as it's exposed under the car, replaces the ones on the cable, bit of Vaseline later and car starts first time. Phew - 8 years of dirt and grime in the way and not a dodgy fuel pump.
NOTE TO SELF - Ask for fuel pump connections cleaning when being serviced as it's exposed to all kinds of crap under there!
So all I've now got to do is to get the car to a garage and have the wiring loom replaced and off to Le Mans. Might clean all that country muck and crap off first if the weather's nice enough!
I don't think I can really complain too much if that's all that's going to go wrong (these things come in threes as they say!). Thank
it all happened this weekend though and not on the way / way back from Le Mans! Bring it on Gentlemen and fingers crossed...
When you say loom between the alternator and the battery, I suspect the fault was actually the 100A fuse link which is on this cable. They blow, and the connection between the alternator and battery is lost, resulting in a flat battery and odd electrical behaviour.
70p part, 10 mins to fit. Do a search on this forum for more info.
70p part, 10 mins to fit. Do a search on this forum for more info.
ginganinga said:
Come to think of it I don't think that it is that as it was kind of intermitent according to the AA and I presume that when the fuse goes that's that. Will hunt out the other posts though, just in case...
Nope, it can be intermittent as the fused link breaks down - seriously, do a search as many people have had this problem.
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