Fast Marina Magazine

Fitted my new Lucas temp gauge to the turbo. I previously used an old smiths gauge that worked, but didn’t give an actual figure when running. The Smiths unit sat at approx 3/4 when warned up and very rarely shifted up or down unless I booted it but even then it was only a fraction of an inch. I often pulled over and checked the stat housing temperature with my IR gauge and this would read between 80 and 90 degrees, depending on air temperature.

Anyway, I fitted my new Lucas gauge (matches with the boost and oil pressure ones) and now I have and actual figure instead of just a pointer at 3/4. This is good as now I can see that the engine is only sitting at 80-82 degrees on a run or sat in rush hour traffic. I always knew the fan came on too soon so I will now change the switch and see if I can get the engine up to thermostat temperature. At the moment i can’t imagine it is opening seeing as the water is only 80 degrees most of the time.




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Being aquainted with a few running temperature issues myself, I find this interesting. So are you blaming an electric fan blowing or drawing air through the radiator for keeping the coolant temperature below 90C? The way I see it, that stat must be open for the fan to be able to drag the coolant temperature down. But if it's an 82C stat it might only be just cracked open. The other possibility is it's stuck open but if you already know your electric fan runs too often, it seems unlikely.

mickthefitter wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 6:51 pm Being aquainted with a few running temperature issues myself, I find this interesting. So are you blaming an electric fan blowing or drawing air through the radiator for keeping the coolant temperature below 90C? The way I see it, that stat must be open for the fan to be able to drag the coolant temperature down. But if it's an 82C stat it might only be just cracked open. The other possibility is it's stuck open but if you already know your electric fan runs too often, it seems unlikely.

It is all theory at the moment. First of all I want to make sure the sender unit is correct for the gauge. This will then confirm that the readings are accurate and match to the IR readings. Secondly I want to change the fan switch as I know it is turning on at 60 degrees and never goes off. This is most likely a faulty switch but at least it turns on at all. The location of the switch is directly under the stat and so picks up on engine temperature rather than radiator top hose like its donor car. This alone will be interesting once the switch is changed as it may mean it still turns on too soon, but we shall see.

Ben

beniboyz wrote:

mickthefitter wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 6:51 pm Being aquainted with a few running temperature issues myself, I find this interesting. So are you blaming an electric fan blowing or drawing air through the radiator for keeping the coolant temperature below 90C? The way I see it, that stat must be open for the fan to be able to drag the coolant temperature down. But if it's an 82C stat it might only be just cracked open. The other possibility is it's stuck open but if you already know your electric fan runs too often, it seems unlikely.

It is all theory at the moment. First of all I want to make sure the sender unit is correct for the gauge. This will then confirm that the readings are accurate and match to the IR readings. Secondly I want to change the fan switch as I know it is turning on at 60 degrees and never goes off. This is most likely a faulty switch but at least it turns on at all. The location of the switch is directly under the stat and so picks up on engine temperature rather than radiator top hose like its donor car. This alone will be interesting once the switch is changed as it may mean it still turns on too soon, but we shall see.

Ben

As an experiment... you could get hold of one of those adjustable thermistors like I did for mine that goes into a top hose. That way you could possibly play about with different settings for the weather conditions? It'd be reasonably accurate for the water temperature. Cheap on ebay.
Mine did me proud when stuck in another M6 queue on Monday coming back from Devon.

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Gee tc wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 10:05 am . New BL boxed servo which was identical but with metric threads (noisy vacuum valve still ) and master cylinder.

What's the part number on the 'box for the servo Tony? I've been after a "big" TC one and that looks close enough that only Josh would notice it's not quite right... might be easier to find than a good TC one!

Box sadly didn't have a number . Torn to shreds from storage. Was BL though.
I'm guessing it came from an allegro as I believe that car was when BL went metric.
Perfect fit, just needed nuts. Soz

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Mine is a TR6 one I think and that has metric treads.
Came from the Guy at Peterborough BLMC day (He also goes to Other autojumble s like Beauilieu.

Gee tc wrote:

beniboyz wrote:

mickthefitter wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 6:51 pm Being aquainted with a few running temperature issues myself, I find this interesting. So are you blaming an electric fan blowing or drawing air through the radiator for keeping the coolant temperature below 90C? The way I see it, that stat must be open for the fan to be able to drag the coolant temperature down. But if it's an 82C stat it might only be just cracked open. The other possibility is it's stuck open but if you already know your electric fan runs too often, it seems unlikely.

It is all theory at the moment. First of all I want to make sure the sender unit is correct for the gauge. This will then confirm that the readings are accurate and match to the IR readings. Secondly I want to change the fan switch as I know it is turning on at 60 degrees and never goes off. This is most likely a faulty switch but at least it turns on at all. The location of the switch is directly under the stat and so picks up on engine temperature rather than radiator top hose like its donor car. This alone will be interesting once the switch is changed as it may mean it still turns on too soon, but we shall see.

Ben

As an experiment... you could get hold of one of those adjustable thermistors like I did for mine that goes into a top hose. That way you could possibly play about with different settings for the weather conditions? It'd be reasonably accurate for the water temperature. Cheap on ebay.
Mine did me proud when stuck in another M6 queue on Monday coming back from Devon.

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Not a bad idea. The original switch was intended to control the carburettor fan, so it’s location is probably the wrong side of the stat. A top hose switch would be good, although I need to look at the radiator too as I think it is too small for when “pulling boost” on the motorway. If I had a radiator with a switch boss then we would be in business and it would be of a better capacity than the Renault one fitted.

I shall continue the experiment and feed back.


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Gee tc wrote:

beniboyz wrote:

mickthefitter wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 6:51 pm Being aquainted with a few running temperature issues myself, I find this interesting. So are you blaming an electric fan blowing or drawing air through the radiator for keeping the coolant temperature below 90C? The way I see it, that stat must be open for the fan to be able to drag the coolant temperature down. But if it's an 82C stat it might only be just cracked open. The other possibility is it's stuck open but if you already know your electric fan runs too often, it seems unlikely.

It is all theory at the moment. First of all I want to make sure the sender unit is correct for the gauge. This will then confirm that the readings are accurate and match to the IR readings. Secondly I want to change the fan switch as I know it is turning on at 60 degrees and never goes off. This is most likely a faulty switch but at least it turns on at all. The location of the switch is directly under the stat and so picks up on engine temperature rather than radiator top hose like its donor car. This alone will be interesting once the switch is changed as it may mean it still turns on too soon, but we shall see.

Ben

As an experiment... you could get hold of one of those adjustable thermistors like I did for mine that goes into a top hose. That way you could possibly play about with different settings for the weather conditions? It'd be reasonably accurate for the water temperature. Cheap on ebay.
Mine did me proud when stuck in another M6 queue on Monday coming back from Devon.

Sent from my SM-G903F using Tapatalk

Not a bad idea. The original switch was intended to control the carburettor fan, so it’s location is probably the wrong side of the stat. A top hose switch would be good, although I need to look at the radiator too as I think it is too small for when “pulling boost” on the motorway. If I had a radiator with a switch boss then we would be in business and it would be of a better capacity than the Renault one fitted.

I shall continue the experiment and feed back.


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Hi from Canada. Well, today I replaced the speedometer cable - the clip had broken off and only a bit of tape and friction were holding it on. I then swapped out the original two gauge dash cluster for a three gauge one. I kept the original speedometer from the car. I recently found an RVC rev counter on Ebay that looked identical to the RVI one in the three gauge cluster. Since the car has electronic ignition, I used the RVC rev counter instead and everything functioned perfectly first time. The wiring for the rev counter is there in the harness even if the car didn't originally come with one.

Unfortunately the plastic housing for the three gauge cluster [also from ebay] arrived seriously cracked into two pieces and so had to be glued and painted. So it looks passable, but I'll want a replacement.

Going to replace the bushes for the tie-rods next.

Cheers Paul and Tony. I'll look out for a TR one

PHUQ wrote:Cheers Paul and Tony. I'll look out for a TR one

Or get an escort Mexico....
Lottery win required!

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I've just canceled the Friday MoT for my Marina that I booked yesterday, because I've seen the weather forecast and there's going to be thunderstorms and torrential rain! It's supposed to be MoT exempt anyway! I know it's anal, but I'll be damned if I'm going to take the car out for a voluntary inspection when in the middle of a drought, the only day they can fit me in, the Met Office are predicting localised flooding and traffic disruption! If the door or screen seals leak, I won't just be leathering it off after, I'll be drying out carpets. No thanks, it can wait.

Update: Well that met office prediction was a waste of time! Traffic disruption? Localised flooding? We has a short heavy downpour around 6am then it was dry and sunny all day! Never mind. It was a voluntary MoT I cancelled. Actually I'd prefer a 'non MoT safety inspection' because if I MoT NNN, I'm not so sure that when the tax is next due, the system will just electronically check any MoT I have, and not give me the option of the MoT exempt declaration check-box. But we'll see.

Had to replace the brake adjusters on TDT the other day cos the hand brake was up in the air and not holding, even though I packed them with grease last time I adjusted them, they were seized solid and the nuts rounded. MOT is out today and thought I'd just take her in tomorrow as I was confident there was nothing wrong but then found the n/s sill has a split just under the front door. Looks like a very old inner sill patch around where the torsion support is. It looks tacked instead of seam welded, so I have that to deal with. There's always something

Loaded the van up ready for its last autojumble trip to Peterborough, hope it doesn't come back still full.