With the sun shining brightly I rolled the car out of the garage. First task fill up the coolant with water/anti-freeze. So far so good ... no obvious leaks. Next put some fuel in. Again no obvious leaks. Final pre-start task ... connect the battery ... again no sparks so all good so far.
Armed with instructions from some of the respondents on the WSCC Forum I went through the start up procedures:
1. Remove all plugs
2. Remove fuel pump fuse
3. Turn ignition on
The brake light came on (handbrake was on) and the ignition light came on. Check!
4. Turn the key to crank the starter.
The starter whirred into action but was spinning far too fast and there was no sign of it engaging with the flywheel. Time for some head scratching!
I removed the heat insulation I'd put over the wiring on the starter and checked there was no shorting of the cables ... all looked fine. Checked the cables and I was getting 12v as expected at the ends. Couldn't see anything obvious wrong with the starter but couldn't figure why the solonoid wasn't actuating. Time to resort to 3rd party assistance ... a quick posting on the WSCC forum for advice.
Whilst waiting for a response and in an attempt to remove my depression I set about fitting the pedal box cover on the scuttle I'd bought some 3M Di-Noc carbon fibre lookalike film from eBay to cover it. So once I'd drilled all the holes I set about covering the panel. I have to say in all the video's I watched of people fitting this stuff to car bonnets, bits of dashboard and even mobile phones it looked a lot simpler than this. All in all it took over an hour just to cover the panel. I had been thinking about using this on the rear wheel arches to protect from stone chips but was having 2nd thoughts now. Here's the finished article ... overall I'm pleased with the results but it didn't compensate for the engine not starting.
Still no response from the forum so I started checking all the electrics, switches, lights, etc. All were working fine except the indicators and the main/dip switch was upside down. A quick wiring adjustment and all were working properly. Bouyed with this success I checked the forum for some responses to my plea for help. A couple of guys had responded suggesting an issue with the solonoid. This got me thinking ... was it wired correctly. I remembered Robbo (http://westfieldfw.blogspot.com/) had mentioned about the starter wiring on his site ... checked it and there was a picture of the starter motor and it looked like he had the white/red solonoid wire on the lower terminal. I had originally put it on the upper terminal as this was where the nut/washer was ... the lower terminal was bare.
I crawled under the car again and swapped the cable. With fingers crossed I reverted to my start up prep again from step 4. This time as I turned the key the starter whirred with a different sound ... and the engine started turning over! I ran it for 20-30 seconds and all seemed fine with oil pressure coming up nicely. Time for next step.
5. Replace plugs
6. Replace fuel pump fuse
7. Turn the key again to ignition on
The fuel pump whirred for a couple of seconds and the fuel pump relay clicked. A quick check for no obvious fuel leaks ... all good.
8. Turn the key to start
The engine turned over again but very slowly this time (plugs were in so more compression) but there was no sign of it firing up. Turned it over again for a little longer to allow a bit more time for the fuel to flow etc. Still no sign of firing. A third time and all I could get was a clunk from the starter ... yes the battery was now flat.
Thoroughly fed up I rolled it back in the garage and put the battery on charge.
Part 2 tomorrow!
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