Kick Those Shoes Off and Relax. It's the Delta 2017 Tea Break

[Mike Harte]

Talking about not being smart, I've just received an email from Ebay (if you are also a subscriber, you may have got it as well) which invites me to "Decorate your home this Christmas", except that they left out the "m" in home which gives a whole new meaning to Xmas. Especially for our cousins across the pond!

[Gerard C]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

I wonder if it would have been worth more if left LHD? I remember the E30 M3 conversion included having to throw the original exhaust manifold away, and think converting an Integrale was also difficult.....

Yep, one of my buddy bought for cheap money a 530 ex TWR a road going car converted to race car and from LHD to RHD. Some parts are quite a challenge to find as you say, at least in France, exhaust manifold and the complete steering system because the early 5 series didn't have a rack and pinion system but the agricultural one which works great (identical to Bertone's and many others). The wiper system has always been kept as original so for a LHD car.

[Gerard C]

Au fait, mon ami Robert did you hear that Peugeot is complaining about Opel/ Vauxhall real financial situation? You know French people they make the deal and are happy with then they start complaining a while after signing for! Sooo typical!

[midgetman]

Have you tried Android? I was about to but couldn't be bothered

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

[paulSenna]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

Thanks Paul (?)! Welcome back to tenths and HRT in particular.

Thanks for the welcome, and thanks to HRT too for keeping my interest in racing alive.

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

Grant, that beemer is in a difficult place. It’s new enough to be complicated and unfixable by amateurs, but old enough to an uneconomic repair if fixed by the trade!

You need a local Gordon Streeter, who could at least give you a straight answer to the dilemma.....

Last year I brought a car from a local dealer with all sorts of electrical problems that they had spent loads of time trying to fix, but gave up as it was costing them time and money.
I had noticed that it had been valeted inside possibly with a steam cleaner, the electric window multi switch in the door looked remarkably clean so I removed it and cleaned it out inside and bingo everything else started to work, a result for half an hours work
The main problem with electrics in cars today is because of things working on micro volts with canbus wiring it only takes a small problem to cause all sorts of faults.

[Tim Falce]

I had similar problems with my wife's old Clio, it had all sorts of warning lights come up on the dash and faults came up and all caused by a bad earth on a brake light plug.

[grantp]

Originally Posted by GORDON STREETER

Last year I brought a car from a local dealer with all sorts of electrical problems that they had spent loads of time trying to fix, but gave up as it was costing them time and money.
I had noticed that it had been valeted inside possibly with a steam cleaner, the electric window multi switch in the door looked remarkably clean so I removed it and cleaned it out inside and bingo everything else started to work, a result for half an hours work
The main problem with electrics in cars today is because of things working on micro volts with canbus wiring it only takes a small problem to cause all sorts of faults.

Thanks Gordon.

Pics received this morning show the instrument cluster dead but the radio/aircon/heater lights are on. And the car starts and runs.

Seems this sort of thing is not uncommon - as you said.

Going to take a look this morning. Starting points are either the fuses or, apparently, a battery disconnect which is, it seems, the equivalent of a computer reboot.

So many fuses in 2 locations that if the fuse diagram is missing I may go straight for the battery disconnect.

I'll take some time to check for obviously clean or possibly removed and replaced panels that might be the result of the valet work. If there really is moisture in the radio display I guess anything is possible!

Thanks for the tip Gordon!

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by grantp

Thanks Gordon.

Pics received this morning show the instrument cluster dead but the radio/aircon/heater lights are on. And the car starts and runs.

Seems this sort of thing is not uncommon - as you said.

Going to take a look this morning. Starting points are either the fuses or, apparently, a battery disconnect which is, it seems, the equivalent of a computer reboot.

So many fuses in 2 locations that if the fuse diagram is missing I may go straight for the battery disconnect.

I'll take some time to check for obviously clean or possibly removed and replaced panels that might be the result of the valet work. If there really is moisture in the radio display I guess anything is possible!

Thanks for the tip Gordon!

Grant, it may be sensible to check if there are any special battery disconnection/reconnection procedures to be carried out before you start with the spanners! Due to the high number of 'electronic devices' in the modern motor-car, if you don't follow these things to the letter, you can create even more problems!
We fitted a replacement battery to an Aston Martin DB earlier in the year, the battery is below the rear seat. Obviously, to do this we worked with the drivers door open. job done we sent the (happy) customer on his way. 10 minutes later he returned, to tell us that nothing electrical on the drivers door was working, electric windows, mirror adjust etc. After a lot of head scratching and checking with the magic diagnostic machine we decided to drop the roof, and reconnect the battery when the doors were closed. Thankfully this did the trick, so presumably if the door is open when the battery is connected, the clever car assumes that the door isn't there so refuses to work anything from it!

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Tim Falce

I had similar problems with my wife's old Clio, it had all sorts of warning lights come up on the dash and faults came up and all caused by a bad earth on a brake light plug.

I've had similar problems with the wife but absent a reset button I was not minded to attempt a search for poor connections in such a high voltage system.

Elder daughter (yes, the same one that owns the BMW) has a Fiat Punto for her first car. She used it for work when she left University by which time it was about 5 years old.

On a drive back from a client one night a headlight failed. That particular model of Punto had an interesting design quirk in the electrics that mean if one bulb failed the other would also fail shortly after. About 15 minutes in this case. So she ended up driving much of the way on side lights in the middle of winter.

The Fiat service dealer told me there was a wiring mod available for a fee.

As she was about to get a company car and sell the Punto we declined.

Thanks Tim. Something else to consider given the in depth valet work that seems to have been required. Who know what might have got in where. Not good weather for helping to dry out any errant moisture.

[grantp]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

Grant, it may be sensible to check if there are any special battery disconnection/reconnection procedures to be carried out before you start with the spanners! Due to the high number of 'electronic devices' in the modern motor-car, if you don't follow these things to the letter, you can create even more problems!
We fitted a replacement battery to an Aston Martin DB earlier in the year, the battery is below the rear seat. Obviously, to do this we worked with the drivers door open. job done we sent the (happy) customer on his way. 10 minutes later he returned, to tell us that nothing electrical on the drivers door was working, electric windows, mirror adjust etc. After a lot of head scratching and checking with the magic diagnostic machine we decided to drop the roof, and reconnect the battery when the doors were closed. Thankfully this did the trick, so presumably if the door is open when the battery is connected, the clever car assumes that the door isn't there so refuses to work anything from it!

Good grief. Too clever for words! No wonder cars as written off for what seems to be minor damage these days.

Sounds like it was fortunate that it was a soft top. The next step would have been to chop the roof off, Fire Service style!

One more thing to bear in mind and I am very wary of disconnecting batteries but, apparently, it's quite normal approach with BMWs although not always successful.

I suspect it may have a tendency to lose personalised settings .... but the car is for sale anyway so that is not a concern.

Right, off to see what I can discover if I can find away to get across to the other side of the M1!

[VIVA GT]

I've just checked our workshop information system. There is no special battery disconnection/connection procedure listed so hopefully it is straightforward. Just make sue you don't leave the keys inside the car, sometimes the central locking triggers when the battery is re-connected!

[Mike Bell]

Wow, who knew there was so much knowledge hidden away in HRT!

[GORDON STREETER]

As a matter of interest the BMW 850 coupe was the first CAN Bus vehicle to enter the market in 1986. By reducing the vehicles wiring by 2km, the vehicles overall weight was significantly reduced by at least 50kg and using only half the connectors. For the first time, each of the vehicles systems and sensors were able to communicate at very high speeds (25kbps - 1Mbps) on a single or dual-wire communication line as opposed to the previous multi-wire looms. However, the introduction of CAN Bus also increased the vehicles complexity and made after market installations even more difficult and in many cases impossible to perform.

I remember a customer of mine decided to put a bulb in his car instead of asking me (I would have done it for nothing) it was in a Volvo that ran the sidelights all the time the ignition is on, he put a single pole bulb in instead of a double pole that joined the two connectors together in the bulb holder and sent 12v back to the ECU, the car refused to start and was relayed to me and it took a fair bit of time to find out what was wrong. This was a long time ago before the firms that check and repair ECUs came on the scene and he had to get a new one from Volvos at £600 !

[grantp]

Well, I tried a few reet "tricks" but it wasn't responding to that.

Only one fuse location on this one - buried behind the glove box. OK if you are a supermidget but i could not get hand, light and line of sight to any of it through the access provided at the back of the glovebox. Decided against dismantling the dash in its entirety.

So returned to the boot and grappled with the the battery terminal. Didn't seem keen to come off at first and there is limited space to grip things and get a good tug. Loom in the way too.

Got it in the end. Left off for 3 or 4 mins, reconnected and everything came to life. Yippee!

Current History is gone of course but who cares ...

She had some concerns about the rear tyres or the MOT but I see at least 3+ mm so should be OK.

Radio/Info display that looked like it was "half full of water" according to SiL it just the bottom half of the screen's pixels not working.

Looks like about £190 to fix. 4x the cost of something similar on my Saab.

Thanks for all the help folks. All good advice that made me more comfortable mucking around with this thing. It's not even high spec. I hate to think what one might need to watch for on anything with all the toys.

No wonder modern card are so readily written off after small bumps. And insurance premiums keep rising.

[Mike Bell]

BMW used CAN bus wiring on the 1200GS motorcycle to save weight. Think first time used on a 2 wheeler. I replaced my 1150GS with one, and the electrics were a constant problem! Ironically my Ducati, a make with a supposed reputation for dodgy electrics, never had any problems, and still doesn't at 17 years old....

[Mike Harte]

With reference to this business with the electrics on cars, I have noticed that every time improvements are made to pretty well everything, the manufacturers make the process more and more complex and complicated.

Not that I would do it nowadays, but to change brake pads 20 or 30 years ago was a few minutes job, which required just one, maybe two, pairs of pliers to pull the locking pins out of the pad retaining pins and a large screwdriver to prise the pistons apart.

Last time I did this for my partner, you need spanners, ratchet and sockets, something to suspend the callipers whilst you then changed pads, and the reverse for re-attaching.

How was that easier?

And as Grant mentions, to change a battery on many cars you need to connect another battery by jump leads whilst you swap over the new and old batteries so that you can retain all the old settings. On some cars you could even lose the use of radio if you don't know or can't remember the special code!

And to think that 50 years ago I built a car to go racing from a completely bare shell.

[delta]

I was asked by customer yesterday to reverse his car and trailer back to the workshop door. He had a brand new Audi of some sort. I was impressed with the sat nav display in front of him. It was blooming brilliant.The picture was just like having a camera on the front of the car just amazing.For sure I am glad I am not a modern day mechanic these days.

[Mike Harte]

Iain, is there such a thing as a modern day mechanic in the car trade? Surely they are either technicians who can read what a computer is telling them is wrong, or a fitter who has been trained to replace parts whether they are needed or not?

On another track, why is it that manufacturers nowadays give so little consideration to the consequences of using small, cheap parts in their products that have built in obsolescence. One such part is fitted to my gas boiler to measure the water pressure inside the system. The sensor is of such poor quality that it requires changing at least once a year (the boiler's only 3.5 years old), and usually fails during the coldest spells. It's costing my gas supplier a fortune to keep coming back to change a tuppenny-ha'penny part that is just so badly designed.

[Colin McKay]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

BMW used CAN bus wiring on the 1200GS motorcycle to save weight. Think first time used on a 2 wheeler. I replaced my 1150GS with one, and the electrics were a constant problem! Ironically my Ducati, a make with a supposed reputation for dodgy electrics, never had any problems, and still doesn't at 17 years old....

In the 70s a pal I shared a house with had a big Ducati which was his only form of transport. He came off shift at 11pm every night and we had a rota of standby drivers for foggy and/or rainy nights when the electrics were guaranteed to pack up. The call would come at any point up to midnight depending on how close he was to a working phone box when the inevitable happened

[delta]

O well enough of cars let's talk about the weather. Henley on Thames we are in double figures tomorrow. Then day after it's going to be -2 . WTF is going on . Ah and another thing anyway else watched the latest Williams DVD . It's well worth watching loads of unseen footage as well as my old mate Dave Brodie f ing and blinding on it .

[GORDON STREETER]

Even though these "modern" new fangled cars are supposed to only use a small amount of electricity when they are left parked up the battery will go flat after a while, the more upmarket the car is the worse it and it's not uncommon to only last a few weeks if not used. The recovery/breakdown guys are always in the long term car parks with jump packs/leads.

[grantp]

Originally Posted by GORDON STREETER

Even though these "modern" new fangled cars are supposed to only use a small amount of electricity when they are left parked up the battery will go flat after a while, the more upmarket the car is the worse it and it's not uncommon to only last a few weeks if not used. The recovery/breakdown guys are always in the long term car parks with jump packs/leads.

Perhaps some of the comments I have seen over the past few days about "smart" management of the battery based on changes in use patterns and the resultant effects on whatever data is being collected from the battery are also somewhat worrying.

Here I think it was just a problem with some aspect of the on board computer network going into hibernation and failing to respond on a restart.

It looks like it may be sold now. Someone has made an offer to take it as it is today and I think they will accept the deal rather than keep funding insurance and going for more cash by spending on MOT and negotiating anyway on a couple of tyres, maybe brake pads and the radio/info display.

If it hangs about much longer they may have to keep it on the road into the new year. Better to move it on now.

[midgetman]

At the moment my Saab has s habit of dropping into limp mode. Switching off sometimes clears it as does disconnecting the battery. According to the reader it is something to do with the wastegate circuit. The CAN bus has also failed at the rear meaning the brake lights are stuck on.

Nothing is mechanically "wrong" with the thing, just an electronic fault. Which makes it basically worthless

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by delta

O well enough of cars let's talk about the weather. Henley on Thames we are in double figures tomorrow. Then day after it's going to be -2 . WTF is going on . Ah and another thing anyway else watched the latest Williams DVD . It's well worth watching loads of unseen footage as well as my old mate Dave Brodie f ing and blinding on it .

I watched the film on you tube as few weeks ago, very interesting and all the more entertaining by having the usual types of comments from 'The Brode'!