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Panko

Panko's Mk1 Escort (Round 2)

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47 minutes ago, Fingers said:

It's do as I say, not as I do

Very hypocritical


sure is. I shared the link to RSOCV Facebook group. Yeah lot of people agreeing how bull shit it is 

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What a bloody week 😕 

 

I am having a bad run with cars at the moment. 

 

While the daily driver LR Discovery is off the road awaiting for repairs, I decided to drive the Escort as the daily. that last less than a day. I drove it from my place to my partner's place, about 40 minutes away, and it had been miss firing, back firing and wouldnt idle properly at all. was running on 3 cylinders. 

 

It felt like an ignition issue. Everyone that i took for a spin in the car, agreed. 

I changed the spark plugs, which didnt help. 

The next day I drove the car from my partners to my brother's, then home. on the road i did about 60km that day, running like complete shit, again only running on 3 cylinders for the first 10-15 minutes of it being running, then it would come good under load, but still didnt idle. 

 

The next morning (Friday) I fired it up, and let it warm up before going around the block to see how it was going. It had gotten so bad that it didnt even have the power to accelerate enough to get out of 2nd gear, and i live on top of a hill so i limped it up the hill to my place at about 30km/h on a 60km/h main road. 

 

I spent all of friday swapping out different components of the ignition system. eventually swapping the entire ignition system back to a points ignition, but it didnt help. 

I checked the compression, all good. checked valve clearances, all good. WTF 🤬

 

After leaving it sit all weekend, i had another go at it today, again to no avail. 

So I pulled the carby apart, which is only a few months old Weber 32/36DGV. i pulled all the jets out and blew air through them, checked and cleaned the inline and internal (carby) fuel filters, and put it all back together. 
I was amazed to have the issue nearly fixed, it feels good under load, i could finally get full throttle without it backfiring and spitting, and it seemed to have plenty of power. So I put the electronic ignition back in, set the base timing and test drove it again, it seems to have come good, but still a bit rough idle. 

 

So my next bit of a test was to look when and where i bought the last tank of fuel in it. It was the 19th of May in Emerald. The only thing i can think now is its a bad batch of fuel. and before driving it last wednesday, it had been parked since the 19th, so if the fuel had shit in it, that would have given it time to settle at the bottom of the tank, which is where my fuel outlet to engine is, and slowly sucked it through the system, over the course of a couple of days, to get it to the point in which it couldnt even accelerate beyond 2nd gear. 

 

Tomorrow, will be the proper test for it. ill start it after sitting over night in the cold weather, then go and top the fuel tank up with fresh fuel, and probably some fuel system flush, and see if it gets better. 

 

At least it still looks pretty even when its broken with the bonnet up

 

eYBboTD.jpg

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Just a thought, my ex brother in law had a mk1 escort and for ages he had the same issues. he ended up finding that he removed the fuel tank and upended it to clean it out. he found a seal from a metho bottle in there which was covering over the fuel outlet intermittently.

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9 minutes ago, hendrixhc said:

Just a thought, my ex brother in law had a mk1 escort and for ages he had the same issues. he ended up finding that he removed the fuel tank and upended it to clean it out. he found a seal from a metho bottle in there which was covering over the fuel outlet intermittently.

 

ha!. i wonder if there is something in the bottom of my tank causing issue lol. 

 

9 minutes ago, deankdx said:

wonder if the fuel has water in it.. i vaguely remember an issue with water and a mates car. 

try some metho in the tank.. 

 

Im thinking water yeah. contaminated. so hopefully i can flush it out by running fresh fuel through the tank 

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3 minutes ago, Panko said:

 

ha!. i wonder if there is something in the bottom of my tank causing issue lol. 

 

 

Im thinking water yeah. contaminated. so hopefully i can flush it out by running fresh fuel through the tank 

metho (mentholated spirits) mixes with water and fuel, so if there is a smallish amount of water in there, it will go through the carby no issue.. 
otherwise, fuel floats on water.. so might be why it picked it up on certain hills? angles of the car..

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Well today was....interesting haha

 

I syphoned out a few litres of fuel, being cautious to leave enough to get down the servo and not run out. Because my fuel gauge doesnt work very well, turns out i still had half a tank left when i went down the servo. 

 

anyway, i topped the tank right up, and i mean right to the top of the filler, with fresh 98 octane, and added a bottle of fuel system flush (whether it works or not who knows). it still isnt 100% but i think its getting better. I mucked around with the timing again, and I reassured myself that it does need to run quite a bit of advance to be happy. I did have it set too far initially, though. Its still idling rough as guts at times, at one point it sounded like a rotary :D 

 

i think im just going to keep driving it to try flush out the old fuel, and hope for the best. if i still dont see an improvement by the time i use an entire tank of fuel, then i know something else is very wrong with the engine or fuel system. 

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3 hours ago, Panko said:

and added a bottle of fuel system flush

 

does that stuff absorb water? if not, and that's the issue  then you'll still need Metho

3 hours ago, Panko said:

i think im just going to keep driving it to try flush out the old fuel, and hope for the best. if i still dont see an improvement by the time i use an entire tank of fuel, then i know something else is very wrong with the engine or fuel system. 

is the fuel filler able to get water in it while washing/raining? if so, i'd suspect its water in the fuel.

 

 

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57 minutes ago, deankdx said:

 

does that stuff absorb water? if not, and that's the issue  then you'll still need Metho

is the fuel filler able to get water in it while washing/raining? if so, i'd suspect its water in the fuel.

 

 

 

not sure if it does, but the idea is it cleans out the fuel system. 

How much metho you talking ? 

 

thats a good question, however its never been an issue before, and i havent washed in yonks, because its been  under its cover 

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10 minutes ago, Panko said:

How much metho you talking

when we did it we put a bottle in(1 litre) 

BUT. it was never going to fix LITRES of water in the fuel.. what we did in the end was drained the tank, and put the fuel in a bucket and tipped off the petrol(floats on the water) and then tipped out the water.. 
the small amount of water that accidentally got tipped into the petrol and probably some remaining in the tank was no issue with 1litre again of metho.. (never had issues with that car/tank again.. AFTER fixing the fuel cap area.. water was getting in when it rained


googled below... other results say it can cause rust? 

A small amount of metho in the tank, occasionally, can get rid of a very small amount of water trapped down the bottom. If you have a 50-litre tank, I'd have no hesitation in putting a bottle of metho (call it one litre) in the tank.Apr 27, 2014

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10 minutes ago, deankdx said:

when we did it we put a bottle in(1 litre) 

BUT. it was never going to fix LITRES of water in the fuel.. what we did in the end was drained the tank, and put the fuel in a bucket and tipped off the petrol(floats on the water) and then tipped out the water.. 
the small amount of water that accidentally got tipped into the petrol and probably some remaining in the tank was no issue with 1litre again of metho.. (never had issues with that car/tank again.. AFTER fixing the fuel cap area.. water was getting in when it rained


googled below... other results say it can cause rust? 

A small amount of metho in the tank, occasionally, can get rid of a very small amount of water trapped down the bottom. If you have a 50-litre tank, I'd have no hesitation in putting a bottle of metho (call it one litre) in the tank.Apr 27, 2014

 

Well im trying to avoid draining the tank from the bottom, i did syphon a bit out today, but wanted to be able to still drive it to the servo. 

The fitting at the bottom of the tank, is the original fitting, which is a pipe that goes up the middle of a barb, then a nut to clamp it tight. that fitting has probably never been undone, and the hose off the tank is original. attempting that at the moment may open another can of worms. 

 

SO, metho method might work, but a whole bottle i was not expecting. I have a 41L tank 

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if i was doing it, 
i'd syphon out as much as possible, use the fuel line to drain out as much extra as you could get(park on a hill? put the back on stands? )  and then add metho to the small amount left in the tank.. 
add 10litres of fuel and drive it a bit.. then put the fuel back in(making sure it's got no water in it)

 

i recently drained off some OLD fuel from My gemini wagon with an electric pump in the engine bay.. (used for mowers ) 

 

 

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hmm ill tip some of the fuel i syphoned out today into something clear and let it sit tomorrow. i syphoned it from the bottom the tank with the hose, so hopefully it will have picked up any water. 

 

Then ill go from there, if in fact there is water in the fuel 

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Yeah I wouldn't be in a hurry to undo that tank connection either, like you said it's probably brittle and asking for trouble. I'd suck it through the fuel line with an electric pump like Dean mentioned. I've done that with one of my rovers in the past. Pull at least a couple of litres out that way into a clear container of some kind so you can see what condition the fuel is in and if it's picking up any crud along with it.

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I read the entire article that you referenced above Dean from google. 
 

now ive read the entire explanation, and I understand how the methylated spirits method works, im confident in giving that a shot. 
in basic terms its the alcohol in metho that mixes with water, then the alcohol dissolves in petrol. 
the author of that write up recommended filling up with E10 once in a while, which is essentially what adding metho to the petrol is turning your fuel into.
however i will NOT be filling up with E10, but i will give the metho a crack tomorrow to try and solve this issue, as a once off.  

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Well the metho appears to be working, or helping at least. 

 

I put about a litre into the tank last night, and let it settle over night. i know ideally i should have drained the tank, but I didnt. 

 

Anyway, this morning the car was running like crap initially. running on 3 cylinders, pinging, and very down on power. after about a 5 minute drive along a 60km/h road, it cleared up and came good, and has been good all day. 
It still has a slight miss at low cruising rpm when the throttle is only slightly open to maintain speed, mostly noticeable at 60km/h in top gear, which is at around 2000rpm. 

 

Ill keep driving it until this tank of fuel is all but gone, and see what happens next time, see if i can flush it out with this tank.  

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it's quite amazing how the metho works,  the way we initially found out there was water in the tank i just remembered.. 

i thought it must have had a stuck needle and seat in the carby, but when i removed the top, i could see the 2 levels of fuel/water in the bowl.  we added a litre, but it wasn't enough for the shit ton of water in the tank, so then we drained it, tipped off the fuel from the  water, fixed the issue.. put the fuel back in with another metho bottle to be sure.. was good forever. (doubt the fuel filter even got changed.. would have been interesting to look at it though)

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1 hour ago, deankdx said:

it's quite amazing how the metho works,  the way we initially found out there was water in the tank i just remembered.. 

i thought it must have had a stuck needle and seat in the carby, but when i removed the top, i could see the 2 levels of fuel/water in the bowl.  we added a litre, but it wasn't enough for the shit ton of water in the tank, so then we drained it, tipped off the fuel from the  water, fixed the issue.. put the fuel back in with another metho bottle to be sure.. was good forever. (doubt the fuel filter even got changed.. would have been interesting to look at it though)

 

I tried tipping some of the fuel i syphoned out the other day, into a jar yesterday and let it sit for the day. Couldnt see water or separation, but too many factors could have prevented that...

I might not have syphoned from the bottom of the tank in the first place, or i might not have tipped fuel from the jerry can into the car, that contained water, so couldnt see separation. 

 

So its still a little guess work, but given the results of today, im thinking it is moisture, or at least contaminated fuel. 
IF it still doesnt clear in the next tank of fuel, ill go back to square one, and drain my tank, replace fuel lines, perhaps pull the fuel pump down and make sure its all good too. 

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While the weather has been horrendous in melbourne, I started working on the gauges today. 

 

I bought a set of 3 (pictured below) but decided that now that the in dash temp gauge works properly, that is enough. 
So I bought a clock to go with them instead of the temp gauge. Unfortunately, even though the clock is the same model range of gauges, the bezel is different :( 

 

So, set of 3 that match with 2 temp gauges in the car

 

QsVTC3S.jpg

 

or; 

 

matched oil pressure and volts, and a slightly different clock...

 

QTxb9bw.jpg

 

I decided to keep the clock. 

 

Test fitting...
I originally had the clock on the left, but decided to put it centre to make it symmetrical. 

 

epgOUtD.jpg

 

from Driver's POV. so the far right hand gauge is blocked by steering wheel, in this case, Volts gauge. 

 

iJlalIV.jpg 

 

wiring at gauge end done...

 

sYt2Tl2.jpg

 

it all runs through 3 plugs, and directly from the battery, via a relay switched by the ignition switch. it means they wont draw from the ignition circuit.

 

I9pGX8r.jpg

 

lights all work. all thats left to do is a bit of wiring in the car end, need to buy 1 more 2 way plug, then install it all back in the car. then i just have to install the oil pressure sender and its good to go. should be all in and operating tomorrow :D 

 

v7kCbeC.jpg

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in the process of mucking around with the dash panel today, i leant on the passenger seat the wrong way and split it :( 

 

No i dont have a single good front seat for the car 😕 or not any that match the interior. 

 

The driver's original seat is split in the same spot, the recaro in the driver's side is ok but doesnt match, and the passenger side recaro (in storage) needs completely recovering before its useable. 

 

So what do i do? 

 

Recover the original passenger seat, knowing i cant get the correct trim now, and will be cheaper than the recaros to cover how i want (Recaros @ $1500 per seat) or spend the money and get one of the Recaros done, and run with mismatched recaros until i can afford to have the second one done? 

 

YXVhpwd.jpg

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