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front bumper just went on for the 1st time. 2 minutes with a file and jobs a gooden. looks friggin amazeballs pictures to come once ive washed it. what with the rain lastnight its got crap from a tree all over it
You don't need to get whole car to practice welding, go to a bodyshop and ask for crashed panels (they normally have to pay to dump them so will usually welcome some one taking them) get one of them, then you can practice on that with out having 99% of a car stuck on your driveway.
Also, be sure to purchase a welder that will be suitable for what you intend to do. These £100 gas-less ones are no use for anything really, certainly not welding cars. Also, in a 'slightly better but still useless' category are the ones that have only "min/max" for the adjustment. The issue here is that you have no control over the wire speed, you need to be able to adjust this for different positions. These cheaper welders have a pre-set wire speed for "min" and a slightly faster pre-set for "max". When you are standing at a work bench welding on the flat it's all great, but you crawl under a car and try to weld over head and it's like trying to piss up a drain pipe. You need to increase the wire speed a little bit, but the welder doesn't have that function, so unless you want to turn your car upside down to weld it, it's no use. Look for a welder that has multiple (usually 1-6) amp/volt positions AND infinite wire speed adjustment (a circle with an arrow through it and usually m/s or similar beside it). Aim for something between 150-190 amps, this is more than enough for car panels but it will give you a huge duty cycle, in other words it will go all day with out over heating. Also, if you want to do rallying, you will want a welder that can be used for basic fabrication so being able to weld thicker material will be useful for you too.
Hope there's some thing in there that is of use to you
You mentioned you were going to build your car as a fast road car to begin with, what plans do you have for weight reduction (other than foam instead of metal ) as I didn't see any on your original list?
Keep up the progress, read lots on here, loads of great car builders in this old place!
i havent really thought much about making it lighter. perhaps plexiglass windows carbon fibre or fibreglass boot and bonnet, lightwheight seat, dashboard chop, lighter wheels. ill cross that bridge
thanks for the welding advice. some valuable info. lookig to spend about £2-250 on one. i deffo need some practice
there is 1 bit on the back bumper on each side which need cutting off, that will become clear as soon as you offer it up to the car.
other than that bolt straight on
Well if its a rally car you want rather than a fast road car, I wouldn't bother with fancy bodywork, for rallying you want a car that's rugged, something with a strong shell and something that handles, also, personally I wouldn't run a puma lump as a rally car, not a 1.7. Due to the class structure in rallying, a 1.7 puma lump will put you in the 2.0 class, up against big power duratecs, Vauxhall red tops and the like, a 1.6 zetec would make for a better choice as you can go in the 1401cc-1600cc where your engine stands a better chance.
ive been ill for a couple of days but managed to half do my grill, flush the coolant system, changed the waterpump, thermostat and bypassed the heater control valve and its still overheating. any suggestions as to what else it could be? oil pump?
ive been ill for a couple of days but managed to half do my grill, flush the coolant system, changed the waterpump, thermostat and bypassed the heater control valve and its still overheating. any suggestions as to what else it could be? oil pump?
Could be anything, we are not at the car, you are, it's you that can provide the answer. Diagnosing any fault is just a simple process of following logical steps, with an understanding of how each component works and a way of testing it. If you know what something should do and you can determine what it is actually doing then you see the problem clear as day. I hope you have not been guessing at parts and/or blindly following what fixed someone else's car. Don't worry if you have, most people make that mistake at first. Provide answers to the following three questions and it will lead you to the problem. By that I mean if you are not able to answer it right now, maybe you didn't test the control valve for example, then go back and do the test(s). Do each of these three for each part you changed or suspected at fault:
What diagnosis lead you to change (or bypass) the part?
What tests did you do to confirm the item was at fault?
What tests did you do to confirm a successful repair?
Don't think you need fancy test equipment either, with a bit of thinking outside the box and some ingenuity you can test most components on a car with basic tools. You will find though that if you change the way you think about diagnosing problems you don't actually need to do that much because one or two observations or a simple check here or there will point you in a particular direction and from there you can narrow it down very easily.
Anyway, I'll stop wittering on now, you go and get some answers and take it from there
good advice
I felt the pipes coming from/to the hcv one side was hot the other was not which led me to believe that hot water was only coing as far as the valve and not all the way through. I took the hcv off inspected it, couldn't see anything wrong so carefully took it apart. It was full of water. A silicon seal had failed and coolant leaked into the solenoid.. I bypassed the valve with a piece of 15mm copper tube in a u bend shape and some hose clips, refilled engine with coolant allowing the system to take 7 litres in total. Brought back up to temprature with a short drive and the oil temp just shot up so went back home before it became dangerous
The way the car overheated and the hot coolant was flowing backwards through the pipes it all looked and sounded like a waterpump failure that i'd had very recently on my corsa so i changed it along with the drive belt because i felt the pulley was a bit wobbily due to bearing wear and was on its way out, the drive belt was in a right state looked like it was about to snap. as for the thermostat its only the price of a pint of beer and i dont drink anymore
Changing the waterpump and thermostat has greatly increased my confidence when it comes to working on the engine. Normally i would just take the car to the garage but then i won't learn anything.
Ok that's great, you're getting stuck in there, figuring it out for yourself, learning and having fun (possibly!).
What made you feel the pipes at the HCV?
What is the purpose of the HCV and what should it have been doing at the time you felt the pipes?
The way I would approach this is to first of all confirm that the water temperature is going beyond the ideal operating range. If that can be proven with 100% certainty then I'd start looking at all the reasons this might happen. It is possible that if you only have the gauge on the dash as your reference it could be inaccurate, having a second data source (that you know to be accurate) will allow you to check this. You could be chasing a coolant system fault when it might just be a poor connection on the sensor, or any other number of things. Think data and accuracy and 100% and what you can prove with absolute certainty and you will get there
Updates yay.
I've fitted a new heater control valve. Pattern part was £15 from ebay and more importantly a 2 year guarantee,
So i drained the coolant once more, (which i retained as it was brand new)fitted the HCV, flushed the coolant system again, refilled with coolant,then i jacked up the drivers side as high as i could and removed the coolant expansion tank cap, ran the engine for about 30 minutes to remove any air locks in the system. The car came up to temperature, thermostat opened, cooling fan cycled perfectly. I did this 3 times in total, didn't lose any coolant so no leaks which i'm proud of and it didn't overheat.
After a few 30 minute drives round the block i didn't have any overheating issues.:ban-
By god i think i've done it
By the way, i use a free app called Torque Lite.
its an OBD 2 compliant app that connects to my ecu in real time via a ELM 327 bluetooth adapter plugged in the passenger footwell.
As you can see from the image it's quite informative
The app has a cool function, The HUD display. For those that do not know what a HUD is , it stands for "Head up display" it projects a mirror image as a reflection on your windscreen for night time driving
11-05-2016, 09:17 AM
) as I didn't see any on your original list?
