Cold starts with the 307

[GiveMeABreak]

2.0hdi cold stars have been fun. TERMINAL SHOCKER !

Yes all the give it 3 lots of heat,glow light , why mines water temperature controlled well as you might already know.

so i checked battery amp, mime was 70 , ok seems a bit lame , checked the 206 77 , ok so swap over time. Ive just recovered from my findings, the battery just taken off my 307 had its leads on the wrong terminals. The person i brought the car off was a bright yellow van driver with 2 big letters in black on the van, he fitted it , he told me, im still in shock., no pub intended, bloody annoyed too.

[CitroJim]

Do you mean reverse polarity? Amazing the car survived if that is the case...

[Huskyxantia]

Hi Jim, yes indeed how on earth did it run , i took the battery off carefully placing it the same way down on the ground as it was facing when fitted to the car as i always have done when removing battery's so i know whats what. ,you can imagine i was that shocked i even went back indoors to tell the wife she even said how on earth didn't something catch fire? I'm still baffled how the heck it ever ran, checking the service notes with the car, the battery was replaced last February 2022 , thats 4 months before i purchased it, when i went back out side to the car to double check i follewed the battery leads , the earth from gearbox was on the live to the battery and the live was on the earth, someone must be watching over me. Now with the replacement battery with 7 more amps it cranks that bit faster so should be better for them sub zero start ups , more compression from the faster crank, i was called that once !

Moral of this post ... simple check can save the car . As to people whom moan that I'm always messing with my cars , I'm very happy i do.

[Hell Razor5543]

Several decades ago my Mums' Stepmum had a red Hillman Minx. For six months she had the battery connected up the wrong way round, and we still don't know why the car worked. Mum borrowed the car for a weekend, and 'redecorated' the engine bay. Oil related stuff was coloured green, coolant was blue, electrics were red (although where negative wiring was concerned it had it had black banding), and so on. Ros never had and avoidable issues again (although the mechanic was very surprised the next time he had the bonnet open!).

The real reason that colour coding worked was that Ros was the artist Rosalie Loveday. Her colour sense was incredible. Once she redecorated the living room in a very strange colour scheme, and we couldn't understand why. She called us in to the living room very early in the morning, and the room was ablaze with glorious colours. Grandfather had been away for a while, and she wanted to welcome him home in a way he would appreciate, so (knowing that Grandfather was a very early riser) she brightened up his mornings.

[CitroJim]

That is absolutely amazing Husky! Yep, you definitely have one cracker of a guardian angel there

Several decades ago my Mums' Stepmum had a red Hillman Minx. For six months she had the battery connected up the wrong way round, and we still don't know why the car worked.

Old cars like that Minx were happy either way James. A lot of cars were positive earth back in those days for reasons too deep to go into right now but mainly to do with spark polarity and a belief it would help prevent rust - sacrificial anodes and all that - you'll know all about that from canal boats...

It didn't really work. And by the early 70s almost all cars were negative earth.

And as many car radios were becoming negative earth only, the cars got converted... Simple job, reverse the battery and 'flash' the dynamo field to reverse it's residual magnetism. You could get away with the last step if you had a Guardian Angel like Husky has

I did it myself on a few of BMC's finest a few times...

[Huskyxantia]

Yesterday, i checked the glow plugs 4.3 ohms each one they were clean too, then i saw when moving the primer bulb a small patch of diesel on the underside , so ive cleaned that up and for now wrapped self healing tape around the join to the fuel pipe, ive drove 100 miles since , it starts a bit better the shudder has gone in the low rev range too.

[CitroJim]

Good work You have a classic air leak there Husky - it'll admit air rather than leak diesel (unless provoked) as for most of the time it's under suction. It doesn't take a very big air leak to upset things...

A new primer bulb and new pipe work and she'll be as right as rain