Few small setbacks

Hello again, weather has continued to be great so I've taken every opportunity to be out driving. The Scania Road trip was last Thursday so had the car ready and cleaned Wednesday evening. Thursday morning got in and tried to start and ignition was dead again. No problem just lightly thump the steering wheel as usual. That's when the steering column fell out of the retaining bracket! 

Impossible to drive anywhere!

Back to square 372, spaghetti everywhere!

It's always worth attaching the scuttle to the bulkhead with Cleco fasteners and run the car for a week or so to see that everything is functioning correctly before riveting it in place.

There is nothing to stop the bolts from slipping out of the "U" shaped bracket. While the column was hanging down I replaced the ignition switch.

Just two retaining grub screws and out it popped.

Plug out the old cable and plug in the new.

New from BMW cost around £65

once the new switch was in place I tightened both bolts holding the column in place as well as replaced the plastic/metal washers with normal metal ones. Hopefully it won't slip out again. 

I took the opportunity to also change the crank shaft sensor and throttle position sensor as I still get a slight lag occasionally when accelerating. At least with all the sensors changed I can discount them as the problem! 

Crank shaft sensor

So far, touch wood with the new ignition switch I've had no problems with a dead dashboard. Next thing is get under the car and have a good check, nuts, bolts, cables etc. Brakes need a check too, bleeding and replacing if necessary. Weather doesn't look so good over the long weekend so I'll have time to have a good check.

Talk soon, have a nice day! 

Battery Solved

Some good news, the weather over the Easter weekend was fantastic, and it’s still going!! I also decided against the Varley or Odyssey batteries because of always wondering whether the car would start or not. Anette has a small Peugeot 206 and the size of that battery is quite small, less powerful than the original 318 battery but better than the Varley 25, so bought one of those instead (half the price). It meant I had to remove the washer bottle so the battery could be moved over to give enough space to squeeze the air filter in.

That wasn’t an easy task because the MAF and rubber ducting between the MAF and intake take up a lot of space. The MAF can't be modified so it left only the ducting. I was a bit reluctant at first but cut off about 3 or 4cm on the MAF side and sanded down the ribbing so the clamp would go back on.

I'll add a washer bag to the side panel just in front of the lower left corner of the battery. 

Fredrik on his first driving lesson, I know what you're thinking "He trusts him driving his pride and joy?"

I’m really pleased with the solution but of course it’s not good when it comes to air getting to the engine. As a long term solution I’ll add the scoop and make a hole directly above the air filter. For the moment though it works fine.

Another problem is the ignition is not working sometimes. Dashboard is completely dead and it needs a tap on the steering wheel to get it working. I intend to take out the ignition switch and replace if need be. I hope that's all it is.

Trouble is weather is fantastic and I hate to have the car garaged on beautiful sunny days!  

Battery hicups

Hello again, After getting nearly all the winter jobs finished I thought I was ready to get out and enjoy the fine weather. I suddenly started getting flat battery problems. Maybe you remember when the Super Charger was installed the intake manifold, MAF etc. ended up facing backwards instead of forwards. That meant there was far less space for the battery so I had to swap the standard with a Varley Red Top 25. Problem is the Red Top is designed specifically for racing - starting the engine and not running auxiliary equipment like alarms, dashboard dials etc. I've been using a battery charger from the 90's which is probably why the red top no longer holds any charge. It maybe solved by having a trickle charger plugged in whenever the car is standing still in the garage but I don't want to take the chance and ruin another battery - they cost almost double a normal battery (here in Sweden at least!). Also the solution to draw air into the intake isn't good either, so something drastic has to be done.

Red Top in place with air filter and washer bottle. I can move  the washer bottle almost anywhere but air filter is a real problem. At the moment a pipe from the air filter goes down past the engine and points forward sucking in air very close to the road.

I've therefore made up my mind to add a scoop to the bonnet and have the filter directly under it.  This solves the problem of air as well as hopefully freeing up enough space for the battery otherwise I could move the battery to behind the radiator (if there is enough space).

It's going to look a bit mean but solves the problems. 

Bye for now.

Indicators solved

I'm happy I wired in a connector to the dashboard/scuttle switches as the dashboard had to come off again! The non-functioning indicator turned out to be me accidentally swapping two wires in the connector. I still can't get the hazard switch LED to come on at the same time as the indicators though.

Another thing that put me off taking the scuttle off was the windscreen wiper motor had to be unbolted and removed from the bulkhead leaving the wiper blade drive shaft bolted in place to the scuttle. A real ass to get the motor bolted back in place again and the drive shaft put back.

Like this but the motor had to be completely removed from the shaft otherwise the weight would damage it.

It then dawned on me that I could leave the whole thing in place only having to remove the nuts holding the windscreen splines in place and then dropping them through the scuttle. They lay on the wiring harness until the scuttle goes back!

Will change the oil in the next couple of days. May need to remove the super charger as it's a bit of a tight fit to get to the filter.

With a bit of luck it may be enough to remove the rising rate fuel regulator.

Order two tyres for the rear today. Yokohama RD08's recommended by Dave are quite expensive here and the Toyo R888's that James mentioned are hard to come by. Talked to a guy at Yokohama and he suggested the Advan Sport V105.  A great tyre with good road holding in dry and wet for road and occasional track days. I will order two more for the front once I see the results.

Bye for now!