My engine removal thread

[Chillidoggy]

It'll be M8 x 115.

[Loose Cannon]

A typo, really? its repeated elsewhere, I think on the clutch slave cylinder. Here was me thinking it was some obscure or foreign thread.

[Chillidoggy]

Post up a photo of the bolt's location just to be sure, but I think that's probably it.

[Loose Cannon]

Bolt 10  "MS x 115"

Its repeated quite a few times elsewhere. Of course now you mention a typo it makes more sense. A lovely lady in the 70s typing pool probably had a pile of papers like the New York phonebook to transcribe without knowing what the tedious engineer was babbling about.

[Chillidoggy]

Yes, they're M8 x 115 bolts.

If you check the Deroure site, you'll see them listed as such.

[Escape]

Such errors seem quite common in the workshop and parts manuals. I thought maybe it was typical for the digital versions, but the above seems to indicate it's the same on paper?

[red vtec]

hi, good job. i still need to pull my engine, what crane did you use? i have been lent one but i'm not sure its suitable.

 

thanks

[Loose Cannon]

I borrowed it from a friend locally who is a serial Esprit owner. Its a special long reach version, the standard ones most tool hire places carry are not suitable for the Esprit.

A balance bar is almost essential as I found the engine went in best nose down (of course you could always jack the front of the car, but clearance issues would make a difficult task even worse).

I didn't find either pulling or replacing the engine too difficult (with the right gear of course), its the million and one other jobs you get to do with the lump out that eat the time, money and patience.

[Loose Cannon]

After many days with antifreeze running up my sleeve it looks like I have a fully leak-free and mobile car.

Been out for a surreptitious fill up of fuel up the road,  which finally got rid of loads of airlocks in the coolant. Everything feels fairly well .......except the throttle.

 

The car has been lazy to start since everthing got re-connected, and can't be moved out the garage until it warms up a little. The throttle stumble from 0% (which has always been a problem from) is much more pronounced and threatens to stall it, also at low speeds the throttle response is very wobbly and lacking power under load.

The ECU has been disconnected now for many months so I assume that's starting from scratch. The only change made on the fuelling system is a change to alloy tanks and RC injectors. The MAP sensor pipe has been replaced as the old one had been squashed flat, so theoretically should be better. The fuel level sender isn't working for some reason (it was OK when the car was parked up).

 

Its frustrating as I can't get the car MOTd until this is sorted. I also don't want to do too much idling in case I'm dumping a load of fuel into the bores. My Freescan cable may have gone permanantly missing so I can't check anything myself. Is there anything I can do or check without Freescan?

[Chillidoggy]

I'd be ordering a new ALDL cable from Chris internets. You could be farting around for ages otherwise.

[Barrykearley]

You need a cable - without it your just wasting your time

[Loose Cannon]

Cable turned up thank heavens. However I then had to connect the cable to the laptop and fart around assigning ports etc - easily the hardest job so far! There really needs to be some clear English step by step instructions logged somewhere on here for this critical step.

Anyhow, dodgy MAP sensor was just a connector I missed (doh), easy to sort out.

I reset IAC and BLM to factory settings and it sounded sweeter straight away.

Adjusted the throttle cable a little and the respionse was a bit better, HOWEVER a noticeable improvement was when I stuck a new throttle postion sensor on, all of £5 from eBay! (Vauxhall part no.17106681). The sensor appears to have a significant springing function, as well as detecting imputs. The old one was pretty slack, and now the pedal has a nice feel plus the off-idle stumble is about half what it was originally.

MOT booked for Wednesday.

By the way the fuel level sender guage moves up when I turn the ignition on but won't go over "empty". Can I assume the connectors are on the right way from this, and the sender float is seized?

[Barrykearley]

You sure the fuel senders on the right tags ?? Sure there were 3 on mine and I got them arse about face the first time

great news on the rest 

[Loose Cannon]

70% sure only about the connectors. This was an area I forgot to label on disassembly (hence the missed MAP power plug). Oh well torch out and head in holes again!

[Chillidoggy]

Good news!

I'm curious to hear how you get on with the new injectors, whether they give you a smoother running engine, better starting etc.

[Loose Cannon]

48 minutes ago, ian29gte said:

I'm curious to hear how you get on with the new injectors, whether they give you a smoother running engine, better starting etc.

Me too! With hindsight its a variable that would probably have been better left until a later date - there was a nagging worry that if it hadn't run properly on first start I wouldn't know what had changed for the worse. For the same reason (because the gearbox and clutch/flywheel have been off fort he first time under my own hands) I left the hydraulic clutch conversion until next year, just in case it "felt funny" on first drive.....

BTW the simple improvement found by changing the TPS sensor has added an IAC valve to the shopping list. . One of Swindon _Alans excellent parts cross references helped here.

 

Unfortunately I ran out of energy last night to check the fuel guage out, but at least found a few photographs that show the wiring colour codes to the connectors. There appears to be 3 spade connectors on top of the sender but only 2 wires? (green/black and green/orange). Could have sworn there were 3 wires but perhaps that was the fuel pump.

[Chillidoggy]

Yes, I think it might have been better if you'd got it running first before trying the new injectors, but with the car off the road, it's easier to do everything in one go. I'm equally as guilty.

Multiplug - green/orange is the low level sensor wire, green/black is the fuel gauge, black is the negative, which is the single male connector.

[Loose Cannon]

Thanks for that. The 97/98 VDO sender is slightly different with 2 spades instead of a plug, and a spade on the outer rim. But that picture's telling me I have a black wire off somewhere.

[Loose Cannon]

There was a thread a while back with someone else chasing poor fuel guage readings;

It looks like the VDO sender has only two wires as well, the orange tracer should be going to "B" and the black tracer to "C".

Well I can't see or remember any loose single black earth wires that should be connecting to "A". All my pictures from the stripdown just show the the 2 wires appearing from the loom together. As suggested by Gunter in that old thread it sounds likely the guage is earthed via the whole tank to the chassis (the tank bolts and copper braids are connected and and in good condition).

The only glaringly obvious change on mine is the alloy tanks. The guage worked perfectly before. To test I ran a wire from spade "A" to a chassis earth point and the guage didn't flicker, it still just above "zero". If a seperate earth doesn't work does that mean the floats stuck?

[Chillidoggy]

Swop the connectors over, if you have them on the wrong tag, the gauge won't work. Also, run a cable from the negative sender connector to the battery negative to by-pass the chassis earth strips, then try it again.

If it doesn't work after that, then you might have to remove it from the tank.

[Barrykearley]

Mine was similar to that I'm sure

think I only had two wires to attach to the three choices of terminals

i just swapped stuff around until I got lucky - second go for me

[Chillidoggy]

1 hour ago, Barrykearley said:

Mine was similar to that I'm sure

think I only had two wires to attach to the three choices of terminals

i just swapped stuff around until I got lucky - second go for me

 

So there you have it, Mark: Just swap stuff around until you get lucky, that's how proper electrician's do it.

[Barrykearley]

Ffs - @ian29gte now you've let the secret out

[swindon_alan]

Ha ha ha take that Barry!

[Chillidoggy]

Open goal!