Tuesday 04/09/2007

Had the shittest day two Tuesdays back. The car finally broke down on me, in the middle of Parramatta Road during peak hour. Misfiring like crazy and idling like a heartbeat, it finally gave up and stalled, not wanting to start but cranking like a chundering drunk. Long story cut short, I ended up pushing a 100m up-hill to a side road as the APEC thing was going on during that week (clearways were enforced). Towed it to Matt for a 170 fucking dollars + a ripped lip.

Matt tried to diagnose the problem for about 3 days. Some of the parts he replaced were:

• two distributors (new)
• dizzy rotor
• dizzy cap
• a set of spark plugs
• waterpump sensor
• lambda probe
• fuel regulator pressure sensor
• fuel pump relay + other associated relays

and the worst part was, it still didn't fix the problem. The car would keep overfueling and overcharging the spark and with the above changed to new parts, it was first thought to be an ECU problem. We were all set to get a towie to take it to the dealer along with a new (well, wrecked) ECU to have it recoded to suit my keys and car, until Oli came along in his new Caddy TDI and gave us a few pointers. He had a similar problem with another car and it turned out to be the crank angle sensor, which was the item I was supposed to fucking replace but couldn't because the part wasn't readily available. As mentioned in a post earlier, the wire was getting brittle, and the insulation would just crack off. It became so bad that the bare wires were being exposed, causing them to touch each other and create a short. This was the culprit for my misfires and shitty starts. The car would run fine when it's cold - the wires don't have as much resistance (basic physics). But once it gets warm, that's where all hell breaks lose. It became so bad that spark plugs would foul within 5 minutes of the car running. They would be black-as when taken out for another cleaning, only to foul again. So what Oli suggested to do was to tape the wires up individually and the sensor as well so it would let me at least drive small distances until we can source a crank angle sensor... well, a cheap one. Oli called one of his mate's from a VW parts dealer and even with his connections the best he could come up with was $400. For a piece of fucking wire. Matt's going to buy a few of them from his UK connections and he thinks they should get here in no more than ~$100AUD, which is bloody decent... but recently when I visited him, the 1998 Mk3 he was wrecking had an intact, good condition crank angle sensor, and hopefully he will take it out for me soon so I can replace it and be happy again.

So yeah, a lot of text up there but I've bolded the important bits :P

Looks like there's no more VR6 in the works anymore, as that fucking wire has/will cost me in excess of $500. So it's back to the 2.slow - it's all good though, I still love the fuckin' thing so much. Some big plans comin' up, hopefully most done by the end of the year. Will go through these things in the next post.

I don't think anyone reads these posts, let alone the guys that helped me out, but I'd like to give a big thanks to Matt, Brenton and Oli.