Black 96 rebuild, showing differences to the 97 & 99
Discussion
notaping said:
The temp sender can go out by the cold air duct and inside the wing, then out one of the holes by the radiator. Tied to one of the A/C or power steering hoses - it becomes almost invisible.
Wouldn't the capillary have to be ridiculously long? Mine barely makes it to the coolant pipe, on the most direct route possible.That said, I did use a Smiths dial for an MG, and swapped over the bezel and dial face.
DuncanM said:
Wouldn't the capillary have to be ridiculously long? Mine barely makes it to the coolant pipe, on the most direct route possible.
That said, I did use a Smiths dial for an MG, and swapped over the bezel and dial face.
The original has a lot of spare capillary, I haven't tried that path down the inner wing but would guess there is enough spare in it. That said, I did use a Smiths dial for an MG, and swapped over the bezel and dial face.
ukkid35 said:
Is the seat belt switch used?
It certainly looks like it's connected
Very good question, I was wondering that when masking them off, I couldn't take them out on account of the wire. From a quick look at the wiring diagrams it seems to be connect up all the way through to the dash harness but just stops there, they must have been intending to used it but didn't get round to it in the end I guess! It certainly looks like it's connected
Luckyone said:
Very good question, I was wondering that when masking them off, I couldn't take them out on account of the wire. From a quick look at the wiring diagrams it seems to be connect up all the way through to the dash harness but just stops there, they must have been intending to used it but didn't get round to it in the end I guess!
There's no bum sensor on the passenger seat, so there's no way the seat belt switch could be used on that side anywayukkid35 said:
There's no bum sensor on the passenger seat, so there's no way the seat belt switch could be used on that side anyway
I haven't seen a sensor on any of the seats I've taken out of my 3 Cerbs, drivers or passenger, however I did get a look at part of a factory 96 wiring diagram & noticed a connection from the fuse board for heated seats. I've not heard of a Cerb with them but maybe it was a option, early on at least, I did see post from someone saying their Chimaera had them. So my guess would be that the seat belts wiring / switches were a second on or more importantly off switch for a heated seat option.I'm still chasing issues with the wiring for the starter, been through all the wiring, new battery's & connections, put in a new starter solenoid & a new relay that feeds the starter solenoid but it still occasionally only clicks when I press the button, a new power supply to feed the factory relay in the passenger footwell is next on the list as the feed from the back of the car is ok:
It's the little thing like that which really take the time, chasing it is something that has been ongoing since getting the engine in a good few months ago.
Before putting it in, using stainless wire, I welded up the cracks in both the manifolds:
I don't think my welding will win any awards but I did the same to the 4.5 shortly after getting that 20 odd years ago & they are still holding fine on that.
The pipe from the filter to the engine had the good grace to start leaking before I put the engine back in:
I needed a new cooler anyway as the thread ripped off it when trying to remove the pipe, so I got got new fittings for all of it (new pipe not in this picture):
Hopefully these 3 pictures don't need an explanation!
With the the engine in I could look at the inlets & do a bit of porting so that 4.5 under the 4.2 inlets can breath better:
The sharp angle is just blended in a bit better at the bottom there.
If you look down the one with the butterflies still in you can see the big step in there I was removing at the top:
The yellow tipped can gave a circular spray pattern that was much better for these than the red, that gave a fan spray pattern:
As this thread is partly about the differences I though it would be interesting to see how much smaller a 4.2 butterfly was than a 4.5 one, so I dropped a 4.2 butterfly down into the 4.5 throttle body to see:
Not a lot in it!
I did the water rails a while ago:
Zinc primered first then Epoxy Mastic flatted back to fill the pits left after removing rust:
They were top coated in 2k silver.
No one is likely to see this again so it needed a picture! Stainless clamp & the PAS had new hoses too:
New AC condenser:
All new flexible fuel pipes made for ethanol fitted & the connection in the engine bay moved from where they were next to impossible to get at behind the top chassis rail to here in the back of the engine bay. Shown here before obviously getting covered in heat shielding:
Stainless lower water pipes & silicon hoses & everything else connected up:
I did think about trying to test run the engine before putting back into the car but as it had been running fine in the green Cerb about 6 months earlier I decided it would be better to just try it in the car.
I was caught out by the crank seal there though! So gearbox out again:
I actually bothered to RTFM:
Then was glad the kids holidays got in the way because looking back under it a week later it was still leaking (fresh shiny) oil:
Very glad for the kids delay there, it wouldn't have been fun to find that after putting the gearbox back in!
I'd been a bit too conservative with the sealant, where the red arrow is pointing - there is slight step on the back of the engine at that point:
At least having it in bits again gave a good reason to have the clutch re-lined:
I was thinking I would get it done the next time the box came out, I just wasn't expecting that to be quite so soon!
A good few weeks after first firing it up it's back together & running again, this time staying dry underneath, which is nice.....
Hopefully the next update will be the last, with a driving car
Byker28i said:
Did you paint your water rails?
I polished mine when the engine was being rebuilt but they 'fur' up quite quickly again.
Yes painted, they were stripped back, all trace of rust removed (same way as some of the suspension back on the first page by dipping then sanding to give it a key) zinc primered, epoxy mastic, then 2 pack silver paint finish, to match the colour of the chassis. I polished mine when the engine was being rebuilt but they 'fur' up quite quickly again.
That colour looks a lot like polished metal as it called aluminium silver!
ukkid35 said:
It's even worth trying to save to coolant pipes, let alone the water rails
Have you seen the price of them new?
Ha, yes I bought the stainless smaller bore heater pipes from ACT in stainless new, they cleared out my back account alone!Have you seen the price of them new?
Edited by ukkid35 on Tuesday 16th April 22:01
I was very lucky, someone was selling the set of lower pipes in stainless the silicon pipes & a radiator that was still like new on eBay all for the price of a new rad that I needed anyway. They looked terrible in the pictures but they only needed a clean & they looked like new again, there was no way I could have justified dropping over £1.5k on that lot on top of the huge amount everything else has cost!!
I was thinking about trying to do something with the lower pipes as you did but didn’t have to in the end.
I’m like you & try to find the most cost effective way of fixing things myself, even if it does take three times as long!
I’m wishing I had just paid out & sent the whole starter motor to get rebuilt now though. I thought I was being clever just getting a new solenoid but after many hours replacing all the cabling for the starter & having it still just clicking occasionally I gave up & I rang the people who sold me the solenoid. They said it sounded like one of the armatures was playing up. The whole starter is off to them now, like they recommended in the first place!
I’ll be selling one of the Cerbs when this one is finished (probably this one) so I want them to be as good as they can be. As nice as it is have two you can’t drive them both at the same time & I’ve still got the remains of the crashed one to do something with…
There is a different main fuse up here:
You can just see the red wire in the middle of the above pic, here is is close up:
The power is taken from the output of that there to go to the relay a good few Cerb have for the starter somewhere in the passenger footwell. As I said I'd changed all the wiring for this & the relay but wasn't getting anywhere with the starter issues.
It was at this point a very nice chap put down a good deposit on the Black 96, with the understanding he'd pick it up once it was a properly working car.
So I did some man maths & decided the most sensible thing would be to pick up the next project Cerb:
I had the working starter out of that before it was even off the trailer!
(I'll come back this car at the end)
Spot the difference! The red one didn't look too bad....
Old starter worked perfectly in both cars. Nice looking one didn't.
This is with the clutch units swapped between the two starters, however the problem stayed with the new starter in either car with either clutch pinion. So I put the old but working starter into the black Cerb & gave myself more work with the red one....
The old AVOs had hardly been used on the black Cerb & cleaned up nicely:
TurboTechnics recently bought AVO, they will have new range of shocks soon but you can get bits from them now. If you have a leaky AVO they can service them too. The main guy from AVO when over to TurboTechnics as part of the deal.
Zinc primer, top coat & a good coat of wax on the threads too:
New heat shielding:
The centre section of the exhaust had seen better days so I managed to make some speed 6 silenced centre pipes fit:
They are quite a bit longer:
Same dia as 4.5 pipes:
But did fit, they just needed cutting do to length & the 4.2 rear sports pipes slid inside these larger dia centres nicely:
They did have a nasty overhang at the cat end so I cut that out of both sides:
With that I just about had a working car:
I do need some more of these rubbers I nicked out of the red one, any one know where to get them?
I hate that standard linkage with a passion now, just by heating the link bar with a hot air gun I could get a 1cfm change side for side:
After lots more messing about with a properly hot engine it was running nicely:
The linkage TVR used it the cheapest most basic type you can get in flat 4 tuning circles, I used to have the same issues with one on my first VW Bug many lifetimes ago. The first thing I did with that was swap to a rotary link bar that isn't affected by engine heat.
Still it was nice to get it out on the road for a few weeks before it went off to it's new owner:
I did wish I'd done this when putting it together the first time!
I can at least fiddle with the yellow one again now the black one has gone!
Anyone know the red one?
It has a Pistonheads sticker in the back window!
It looked ok:
I was thinking of just running it till I found this:
Chassis isn't the best either:
I guess I'll just have to take the body off while the engine is out, see you here again this time next year, well maybe, unless I distracted actually using the yellow one...
At the thread is titled differences I'll finish with one more, the back one had 08/96 stamped into the chassis, the red one had 03/96, it has yet another type of rear seat:
So that's 3 different types of rear seat in 4 Mk1 Cerbs I've had!
(Red one has removable base & lower back rest, black one has the whole rear seat made as one so you can't fully remove the base without the back part, which is glued & screwed on that. The 97 & 99 have the fixed back rest but removable base.)
You can just see the red wire in the middle of the above pic, here is is close up:
The power is taken from the output of that there to go to the relay a good few Cerb have for the starter somewhere in the passenger footwell. As I said I'd changed all the wiring for this & the relay but wasn't getting anywhere with the starter issues.
It was at this point a very nice chap put down a good deposit on the Black 96, with the understanding he'd pick it up once it was a properly working car.
So I did some man maths & decided the most sensible thing would be to pick up the next project Cerb:
I had the working starter out of that before it was even off the trailer!
(I'll come back this car at the end)
Spot the difference! The red one didn't look too bad....
Old starter worked perfectly in both cars. Nice looking one didn't.
This is with the clutch units swapped between the two starters, however the problem stayed with the new starter in either car with either clutch pinion. So I put the old but working starter into the black Cerb & gave myself more work with the red one....
The old AVOs had hardly been used on the black Cerb & cleaned up nicely:
TurboTechnics recently bought AVO, they will have new range of shocks soon but you can get bits from them now. If you have a leaky AVO they can service them too. The main guy from AVO when over to TurboTechnics as part of the deal.
Zinc primer, top coat & a good coat of wax on the threads too:
New heat shielding:
The centre section of the exhaust had seen better days so I managed to make some speed 6 silenced centre pipes fit:
They are quite a bit longer:
Same dia as 4.5 pipes:
But did fit, they just needed cutting do to length & the 4.2 rear sports pipes slid inside these larger dia centres nicely:
They did have a nasty overhang at the cat end so I cut that out of both sides:
With that I just about had a working car:
I do need some more of these rubbers I nicked out of the red one, any one know where to get them?
I hate that standard linkage with a passion now, just by heating the link bar with a hot air gun I could get a 1cfm change side for side:
After lots more messing about with a properly hot engine it was running nicely:
The linkage TVR used it the cheapest most basic type you can get in flat 4 tuning circles, I used to have the same issues with one on my first VW Bug many lifetimes ago. The first thing I did with that was swap to a rotary link bar that isn't affected by engine heat.
Still it was nice to get it out on the road for a few weeks before it went off to it's new owner:
I did wish I'd done this when putting it together the first time!
I can at least fiddle with the yellow one again now the black one has gone!
Anyone know the red one?
It has a Pistonheads sticker in the back window!
It looked ok:
I was thinking of just running it till I found this:
Chassis isn't the best either:
I guess I'll just have to take the body off while the engine is out, see you here again this time next year, well maybe, unless I distracted actually using the yellow one...
At the thread is titled differences I'll finish with one more, the back one had 08/96 stamped into the chassis, the red one had 03/96, it has yet another type of rear seat:
So that's 3 different types of rear seat in 4 Mk1 Cerbs I've had!
(Red one has removable base & lower back rest, black one has the whole rear seat made as one so you can't fully remove the base without the back part, which is glued & screwed on that. The 97 & 99 have the fixed back rest but removable base.)
porterpainter said:
Thanks for sharing the journey on this car. The new owner is going to be might pleased! Look forward to seeing you sort the red cerebra
He seemed happy enough, his first drive in it was a 20 hour one back to his home in Norway! He said he go back home no with problems thankfully. 
Byker28i said:
Nice work. Those centre pipes that are silenced look like mine. They were an ACT exhaust adding some quietness in
Bearing in mind these are 17 years old now
Yes they are very similar, just from Motaclan instead. I was surprised how quiet the exhaust was when driving, I left the cats in too though. It was just right out on the road & still quite loud at tick over. I have got the SP back box on the yellow one, it’s basically the same as the ACT big bore full back box, that has a bit of a nasty drone at 2k rpm. I had to put the cats back into that as the drone was getting too annoying. That helped but didn’t remove the drone completely. I assume it’s from the back box. The sports pipes are much better for not catching on speed bumps too! Bearing in mind these are 17 years old now
Do you get any drone with your ACT set up?
Luckyone said:
Yes they are very similar, just from Motaclan instead. I was surprised how quiet the exhaust was when driving, I left the cats in too though. It was just right out on the road & still quite loud at tick over. I have got the SP back box on the yellow one, it’s basically the same as the ACT big bore full back box, that has a bit of a nasty drone at 2k rpm. I had to put the cats back into that as the drone was getting too annoying. That helped but didn’t remove the drone completely. I assume it’s from the back box. The sports pipes are much better for not catching on speed bumps too!
Do you get any drone with your ACT set up?
Strange, I have an SP back box (according to Joolz), and no drone either with Cats or with the H linkDo you get any drone with your ACT set up?
I have the SP exhaust and H link, there is a resonance at 2100rpm (to be specific ) but it is only apparent if you happen to be cruising at that for a while. Also I think it has quietened down over the years to the point of being scarcely noticeable. No way would I go back to wonky sports tails, they are a PITA
) but it is only apparent if you happen to be cruising at that for a while. Also I think it has quietened down over the years to the point of being scarcely noticeable. No way would I go back to wonky sports tails, they are a PITAFarmyardPants said:
I have the SP exhaust and H link, there is a resonance at 2100rpm (to be specific ) but it is only apparent if you happen to be cruising at that for a while. Also I think it has quietened down over the years to the point of being scarcely noticeable. No way would I go back to wonky sports tails, they are a PITA
Mine are OK, but you do have to get the whole run right, make sure the mounting is used on the centre pipes.) but it is only apparent if you happen to be cruising at that for a while. Also I think it has quietened down over the years to the point of being scarcely noticeable. No way would I go back to wonky sports tails, they are a PITAObviously we have different experiences of SP rear exhausts, which is why I replaced it with an ACT system 16 years ago that I still have. Untruthful claims about noise, poor road clearance, poor manufacture as one tailpipe was twisted and offset by 10mm so hit the bodywork and damaged it, poor welding etc.
Probably better now they are made by others.
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