Vulgalour's Vehicles - 10/03 Ignition Switch Woe

[vulgalour]

I'm moderately certain it's not outer TRE related as those are less than a year old and I've not had any tracking issues unless my tyre pressures have been off. The car seems remarkably sensitive to a drop in tyre pressures on any corner so I keep my eye on them, more often than not (presumably due to road camber) if the tyre pressures are off I find the car pulling to the left a tiny bit.

After much advice from the internet - where would I be without internet fora? - I suspect that what's happened is a previously stubborn nut on the rear has come a little bit loose. I have been trying to get the pivot shafts unseized and it could be that this effort has finally resulted in things coming undone just enough to give me a bit of rear end wiggle, allowing the car to torque steer accordingly. So my next job is to get the back end up in the air again and inspect to make sure all is well before having a look at the front and doing the same. This will have to be done before I head out tomorrow to get the battery and O-ring I need to get the HLS running.

I did used to have a very peculiar clicking on the the steering rack when I had the Ambassador steering wheel fitted, on the motorway you could actually move the steering wheel back and forth on the column, even though it was tightened up accordingly. I never found the cause of it, but putting a proper Princess wheel on made it go away. I have no idea if this is at all related, but I'm trying to think of as many possible culprits as I can.

[vulgalour]

Today I edged closer to getting this thing running, but it's been a bit manic on the errands front so I didn't get as far as I wanted. Sorry, there's no running engine video yet, it got too dark and cold for me to finish off the jobs. List items now removed:

Engine

> Carburettor - small O-ring required for internals, otherwise in very good order.
> Fuel lines - may need to replace a couple of rubber hoses between pump and carb.
> Battery - second hand from Deatons. Good nearly new battery £15-20 usually.
> Spark plugs - need four, the three I had have disappeared.

That doesn't mean I did nothing, far from it, I got quite a bit sorted. I had previously hinted that progress had been made with the dashboard and indeed it has. Not fully built up yet, I've a few bits left to connect and tweak, but it's a far cry from where I started.


The engine was my main focus, I had about half an hour spare to spend before the daylight was completely gone, which was less than ideal, but I was determined to get something done to get things a bit closer. Managed to get a fresh O-ring for the carburettor innards, I just need to top up with some ATF to get it squelching now.


Reasonable battery from Deatons for £20. I've had quite a few used batteries from here and never been let down with them.


Battery on, carb all screwed down, vacuum retard hose trimmed down and fitted, spark plugs and leads fitted...


Fresh fuel lines and jubilee clips, new fuel filter and overflow from carb smartly tie wrapped to route away from danger zones.


I was coerced into checking it would turn over, which it does rather well and sounds healthy. Didn't go as far as firing the engine up, I want to set the points properly, change the oil and put the coolant in before I do that.


In other Princess news, the problem with the steering on my beige HL is the passenger side track rod end. This is good because it's a cheap thing to replace and easy, but it's bad because the part is not yet a year old and has undertaken less than 2000 miles. There is no play in the bushes or bearings or ball joints either so that's good too. Checked my tyre pressures and was alarmed to find one had fallen to 9psi since my last check about a week ago, I suspect foul play because it wouldn't be the first time, and the pulling is less noticeable but still there. No play in the steering rack, rear end did, as I suspected, have slightly loose pivot shaft nuts so I retightened those correctly. I also bashed the bajeezus out of the rust on the rear wheel arch so it now clears the rear tyre properly and have no more rubbing on that corner.

[TerryG]

My money would be a slow puncture or a leak around the valve stem when parked in a particular position. I have had that a couple of times.

[vulgalour]

It's not a fault with the wheels or tyres, although that was my first suspicion. Over the past year I've had wheel nuts undone more than once, valve caps stolen and on three cars I've had my tyres let down to low pressures. When my wheel nuts were undone I only found out when I joined the M1 so I'm a fair bit more fastidious about checking my wheels than most.

Thing is, I wouldn't have the tyre issue if the neighbour allowed me to park on the shared driveway. If I dare to park on the drive I get nagged and nagged to move the car as no matter where I put it somehow it's always in his way. I've never worked this out. Our shared drive can accommodate 6 cars (10 if we want to block the shared bit), between us with have 4 but he sees my having a car I use and a car I'm restoring as an extravagance and takes objection to it.

Nothing I can do about it, so I just grit my teeth and keep an eye on my car.

[TerryG]

I have had that argument when living with my parents. That's the problem with shared drives, neither of you can park on it as it obstructs the other.
Have you considered a proximity alarm on your car? it goes off if someone stays in close proximity to it for longer than a pre-set amount of time.

[JPB]

.....Nothing I can do about it, so I just grit my teeth and keep an eye on my car.

Daily Mail response: Lamp the twat and have done with this nonsense once and for all. He's a small-minded bully who needs to be taught a lesson about the concept of sharing.

Guardian response: Invite him to help you with the work you're doing to the car, he'll probably appreciate the chance to be useful since he clearly has self esteem issues and most likely cannot sustain a state of arousal for long enough to keep his boyfriend happy between the sheets.

Exchange & Mart response: For sale: Little used oak Harveys' dining suite c/w four leatherique highback chairs and 2 matching carvers, best offer secures, no canvassers or text replies. Call or email please, may swap for Experia Play if open to any network and rooted.
PS. Slight blood staining to the base and back cushions on the master carver, no signs of aluminium powder though so I shouldn't think that CID will be bothering with it now.

[vulgalour]

Remarkably I got the car on the drive without fuss last night while it was howling a gale and throwing wheelie bins about. Tricky to get off on account of one wheel being on mud, but it'll do for now.

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Today I wanted to try and get this engine running so it was time to top up with coolant first.  That's when I found out the radiator leaks from the top hose but not enough to stop the car from being run up, it's another thing to get fixed, the radiator itself looks otherwise reasonable.
 
It's been a merry old dance today really.  When I rebuilt the head off the car I also fitted the fuel pump but I'd fitted it incorrectly and it was pumping a mere dribble into the engine.  Popped the top off to check the diaphragm to find it good and put the top back on, then did this at least twice more before realising the problem wasn't internal to the pump but was because the tongue wasn't interacting with the cam lobe correctly.

 
The tank had half a jerry can of fuel tipped in as that's all we had to hand and we made another attempt but now the pump would only really pull bubbles and stale 4star through.  Bypassing the mechanical pump with an electric confirmed it wasn't a pump fault and we found some more unleaded fuel in the camping stuff - it's for a heater or something, I don't know, I don't do tenting - and ran a direct feed from that to the mechanical pump which saw a good flow of fuel happen.
 
Car wasn't firing so we checked the old points which were past it.  New points fitted and gapped and tried again.  Still nothing.  Pulled a plug and tested for spark which there wasn't though we did get a spark from the earth strap to the block instead.  Opened up the distributor to find the new points had opened too far when screwed in so they were regapped and the spark was returned.
 
By now the battery was labouring a bit so we called the cavalry in.

 

 
We got as far as the engine trying really, really hard to fire.... and then we ran out of fuel.  Then it got dark.  Then it rained some more.  Then I realised I'd eaten nothing all day and it was 4:30pm so we're going to have another go tomorrow or when I get more fuel to chuck in.
 
Yes, I have made noises of much frustration.  Today has been one of those days.  At least there appear to be no unwanted oil leaks and with the exception of the radiator, no coolant leaks either.  Happily the handbrake cable I ordered also arrived today so once the engine is running I can get on with sorting the brakes out.  Oh, and the ball bearings exploded out of one of the factory jacks I've got so while it still seems to work, the bearing is shot in it.

[TerryG]

It sounds frustrating but none of that will matter when you hear it run for the first time since the rebuild

Is the rag-top golf yours too?

[vulgalour]

The Golf was mine and it's actually sporting a hardtop work-in-progress. When I scrapped the BX estate I had (bought from the sale of my '97 Maestro) I used the funds to acquire the Golf which had been sat in a field for 3 years. Cleared the white/grey overspray off the entire car, removed the black paint from the original grey bumpers and all the black paint off the original brown interior using brake fluid - this is a rather excellent way of restoring plastics - and spent a lot of time chasing faults with it. When the red Princess became available I wanted to take it on, but wasn't ready to sell the Golf as it stood so a convoluted deal was struck whereby my brother took on the Golf so that I could free up the capitol to get the red Princess transported nearly 300 miles so I could resurrect it with a view to using it and trading it in/selling it to fund a smaller second car which turns out is going to be ANOTHER field find car in the form of the little Renault 6. Still with me? I now have a buyer for the red Princess, a deposit is taken and the plan is to get the Princess and the 6 ready for the road by the end of May, meet up at an event in Wales, exchange relevant keys and drive home. So far, this plan is on course with the Princess but I'm still yet to collect the 6 as we haven't arranged a date for that. The Golf is now my brother's daily driver and family transport and he's been working through the idiotic niggles and faults inflicted on it by a previous owner and loves it as much as I love my Princesses, so I'm happy it's gone to the right person.

Best of all, the red Princess is going back to a few miles away from where I transported it from and the chap I've sold it to didn't get it the first time around because there was no space for him to put it in. So he's also under the pressure of clearing a parking space to put the red Princess in by the end of May so that it can receive the rest of the restoration work that I won't be doing, namely paint.

[TerryG]

Sounds like your whole family like tinkering with older cars Handy when you have frustrating problems so there is more than one set of hands in the house to help. When is your brother starting a restoration thread on the golf?