Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[Zelandeth]

Well carp...



Expensive "Oh carp" as well.

Something major appears to have let loose in the bowels of the engine. Was running absolutely fine, bumbling along at about 45, there was a single cough, then about five seconds later it sounded like all hell broke loose. Immediately shut the engine off and coasted into this lay by. Engine now hits a hard spot when you try to turn it by hand.

Best case? A piston ring has broken up. Given this engine has always been a bit ratty though I think that's probably being optimistic.

Waiting for recovery. Then I'll need to leg it down to MK Central and find a train to Birmingham I guess!

Abby needs the Partner over the weekend, the Rover I don't trust to make it for a second as it's still having fuelling issues, and TPA sadly is still buried in the garage, and currently missing a fuel pump as that's just about making the Rover currently run.

First "there's no way we're fixing this at the side of the road" I think I've ever had in one of my own cars. We didn't try to sort the issue on the Saab as I was literally about a mile from home and I'd flagged down an RAC patrol so it was just easier to stick it on the recovery bar than faff about in the rain.

This ain't getting fixed here though!

[CitroJim]

Oh balls Zel So sorry to hear this

Fingers crossed nothing too horrific has happened...

[myglaren]

Damned shame and I hope it is something trivial.

[RichardW]

Bugger.... At least it's easy to get the engine out, and there are not too many moving parts!!

[mickthemaverick]

Bugger.... At least it's easy to get the engine out, and there are not too many moving parts!!

Not now there aren't!!

That's a real bind Zel, good luck with the investigation

[MattBLancs]

Oh dear!

Sorry to hear of your misadventure, as others have said, hope proves to be something trivial. Hmmm.

Presumably nothing externally visible as to what's occured (i.e. not "a leg out of bed" )

At least we can rule out a, snapped cambelt hopefully

[Zelandeth]

Recovery was on the scene in about half an hour. Can't really complain at that. Yes there's a £25 excess, but again absolutely can't complain about the service provided by AutoAid.



Soon enough we were bouncing our way back to MK.



Dear...God...that Mitsubishi thing has to be the worst riding vehicle I have ever been in. The reason you got no updates while en route was because it was so bouncy I literally couldn't read my phone for more than about ten seconds at a time.

Lovely driver as well, we had a great natter on the way back. Even if it did take for bloody ever because of an accident on the M1.

Car now deposited at home. Confirmed it is indeed still the same now cold. Rotates absolutely fine through about 2/3 of a rotation, then hits a hard stop. Will dig into it once back from ConFuzzled.

Now sitting on the platform in MK Central waiting for the train we sprinted here to get...which is of course running 40 minutes late.

Hard to say what exactly will be done until I've dug into the engine to see what's actually happened and how much damage there is. Given the noise it made there definitely will be some carnage. The original air cooled twin setup will be staying though, as I know some people will suggest alternative upgrade options. If the engine is completely smoked, a question will have to be asked as to whether the replacement gets rebuilt to standard spec (as I'm obviously not just going to drop an unknown unit in), or whether some go faster bits get added.

Taking bets on what's let go? Can't immediately see anything external amiss (I did wonder from the noise if the fan bearings had collapsed and it was hitting the cowl, but no). Broken ring? Catastrophic crankshaft failure? Disc valve that's come apart and jammed in the case? Wrist pin having escaped a piston? My gut feeling is it's not a bearing issue as it didn't get worse, this went from normal to "Oh my god" instantly. For all I know the engine has always been a bit of a rattler I'd have expected some degree of degredation rather than instant failure.

If I'd had more time I would have pulled the plugs and checked if both pistons were still moving. Sadly had to leg it to make the train. Which I'm still waiting for!

[mickthemaverick]

My money's on a broken con rod

[Zelandeth]

My money's on a broken con rod

That would definitely fit with how suddenly the onset of symptoms were. Guess we'll know if only one or both pistons are still moving when I pull the plugs out.

[Zelandeth]

Hmm...wonder how much money I want to throw at this...

Link to Trabantwelt

Probably not that much!

[Gibbo2286]

Nice video here :

[Zelandeth]

Well it's been a good weekend of escapism...



However all good things must come to an end, so back home this afternoon and back to normality.

Absolutely knackered now, and been kinda busy unpacking and catching up with boring household nonsense from having been away for several days.

I managed to find ten minutes to examine the Trabant though.

Plugs out and we have immediate evidence of some issues with the number two cylinder. There has clearly been something bouncing around in there.



There's definitely some impact marks on the plug and the gap has closed up a bit.

Both pistons are moving though, so it doesn't look like we have a broken rod. So something has made its way into the combustion chamber, and my guess based on how it's behaving has got itself wedged in the exhaust or induction ports. The question of course is *what?* Bit of a piston ring which has come apart (which is my current favourite theory), a needle roller from a bearing that's come apart, or some completely foreign matter from somewhere?

That's probably a decent starting point though. We might not need to completely dismantle the bottom end. Maybe, if we're lucky.

While I was away a few more bits for the AC control system project have arrived.



Fan speed switch, potential relay and a shedload of status indicators. Still waiting on two latching push buttons (which match the style of the status indicators), and a few reels of wire...then I think we'll be ready to make a start on actually ripping the old control board out and building our new massively over-engineered version. Sure I'll end up questioning my sanity once I start trying to put the resulting spaghetti together.

[CitroJim]

Pleased you enjoyed a good time Zel

Did you feel the engine 'nip' up at all before it failed?

Fingers crossed whatever has happened it's not too dramatic...

[Zelandeth]

Pleased you enjoyed a good time Zel

Did you feel the engine 'nip' up at all before it failed?

Fingers crossed whatever has happened it's not too dramatic...

Nothing all that noticeable. There was what felt like one "cough" shortly beforehand, but it's hard to say if that was something physically failing - or just a cough.

The engine was still running (and idling) until I switched it off a couple of seconds after the initial event, so that's something.

[Zelandeth]

Well this has put a slight damper on my intended productivity.



Let's see how long it knocks me for six this time round. Would be really nice if I could actually attend the couple of events a year which I really, really look forward to without feeling like I'm being hugely reckless because of the odds of bringing this back as a souvenir.

In better news, the last switches I'd been waiting for have now arrived. As hoped, they perfectly match the panel indicators I'd picked up.



Only two of these are actually going to be used (blue for cooling enable, red for heating enable), the orange one was originally going to be the power switch until I decided to use the Unimax one to combine the power switch and indicators for both standby and power on. None of these will be carrying any real power, that's all going to be handled by relays.

Next step will be to actually design a control panel. Given I'm feeling pretty wiped out that sounds like it might be about my energy level for tomorrow, assuming I can summon enough functioning brain cells anyway.

Either that or just continue catching up on the film scanning backlog which was what I spent a good chunk of this afternoon doing.