WITW - Ricky's van attack

[MikkiJayne]

Back on the Green Beast Its been at Mike's for a month or so as it really needs the oil leaks sorting before being put back in to service, so there was no point in it going home then coming straight back.



One unpleasant surprise when the front panel came off - it appears to have suffered an impact on the lower right corner which has also damaged the radiator We were assuming that the escaping coolant was the oil cooler pipe, but alas also the radiator too. I'll get a replacement front panel from Prestige, and a new radiator.



Engine out



Its been out before, as there are a few tell-tales like wire routing and cable ties in odd places. The sensor ground wire was just chilling out behind the cylinder head!



and the left engine mount wasn't connected. The ECU didn't seem to mind about either



A three-fer here. The knock sensor plugs are toast, as usual. The vacuum pipes are all shredded, as usual. Not as usual though, the header tank t-piece snapped as soon as I touched it. Tbh I'm always pleasantly surprised when these don't snap, so I will replace this with a metal piece.



One of the heater hoses is badly distended. This wouldn't have lasted much longer so hopefully I'll have one in the box of pipes. These are NLA now though.



Engine and box on the separating table.



I'll split these tomorrow and start cleaning them up. Apart from the radiator, this one is pretty much all the usual suspects

[RICKY D]

I’ve been racking my brain regarding the busted radiator and I can think of two scenarios which could have caused that;

1. Shortly after [ahem] slamming the car on the coilovers, the wife caught the front of the bumper on a high kerb. When she reversed the lower bumper was completely bent out of shape and the bumper was out of alignment. I had to take the bumper off and get the heat gun out and manipulate it back to shape as best as possible before reattaching it.

2. Not long before point 1 above, I had the car jacked up on the widow maker jack. I was applying some silver hammerite to the rusty brake disc centres for cosmetic purposes. Whilst finishing up the last of the front discs the jack folded like cheese and the front of the car came down on the deck. Due to the angle I was parked at the front nearside was semi resting on a kerb and the full weight of the car was on that one side for about 30 minutes until my mate turned up with a jack. Both front wheels were completely off the car and I didn’t have one underneath like I normally would.

I think it was the wife though!

[S81]

I can understand why they are called the widow maker ,when I had the d2 i went to change a flat wheel in the car port ( very smooth concrete floor) i had car jacked and remove studs put my hands on top of the wheel and give it a pull and down came the car ,it was that close that I instantly looked at both hands to see how many fingers we're missing ,but fortunately for my they the back of them were just skinned were the wing had rubbed them against the back of the wheel ,(I bought a trolley Jack after that)

[MikkiJayne]

Hmm. I wonder if this is why the left engine mount was disconnected? It fell apart when I touched it.



Got the engine and box split, but thats it tonight. I was going to mount the gearbox on the stand, but realised I had repurposed the M12 hardware I normally use for this on something else recently and had forgotten to replace it



I'll get some more hardware tomorrow and carry on.

[RICKY D]

Lest me get this straight, so the engine mounts have a circuit to them?

Is this normal? Why would an engine mount link to the diagnostics?

Purely for my learning

[MikkiJayne]

They are active mounts. The solenoid on the side opens up a valve to an air pocket inside the rubber. With it open the mount is softer as it just depends on the rubber. With it closed, the mount is stiffer as it also contains an air spring.

Normally the ECU will show an error code if the mounts are open circuit, but it wasn't in this case so I'll investigate that and make sure its behaving.

[RICKY D]

I’m impressed the D2 had such tech back then

I only have a plug in OBD2 reader that connects to my phone and it only shows the basic codes such as the omission of cats which triggers an EML every few hundred miles (I rarely bother clearing them anymore), however I vaguely remember my friend telling me before I had my cats removed that an engine mount was flagging up in his scanner but it wasn’t leaking...so he left it

I wonder if this was that. That was about 3 years ago at least.