Sad

[DWM]

Thank you very much.

Now let's not all get excited. It probably won't be tomorrow. I've got meetings and other things that I can't avoid, at least in the morning. And then even if I can get the throttle and fuel rail etc done tomorrow afternoon, which might well be too difficult for me given the speed at which I work, I'm not likely to try starting Genevieve just as it's getting dark, because then I won't be able to see (and, if necessary, try to fix) whatever turns out to be wrong. So there will be no ignition key action till Friday at the earliest I think.

[Doug2942]

DWM No point rushing things when you are so nearly there, having a break via your meetings etc might give you a breather & it will all go back together just fine.
Best of luck.

[DWM]

Let's hope so.

I have a newfound and total respect for anyone who does this kind of work for a living.

I'm sure I make it a bit harder for myself through incompetence; and obviously possessing better tools and a car lift etc would reduce the pain considerably... But even so... just bending over an engine bay for any length of time makes me ache. And the cold slowly kills you... and then there are the endless assaults on the knuckles from sharp bits of metal... it's sheer hell.

[DWM]

I am correct, I hope, in thinking that there is nothing that belongs in the hole in this picture (the one in the middle, right in the centre of the D-shape that is normally covered by the similar bulge in the timing belt top cover)?



I've been going through all the pictures I took of this process and on that evidence it seems to have been vacant from the start. Also I can't see anything in my bags of removed bits that looks like a candidate for filling it... so I am reasonably sure that it was never filled.

But can anyone confirm for sure?

[DWM]

Well, I knew I wouldn't have much time today.

Before I had to go out, I managed to get the throttle body and ICV back on, and to route the vacuum pipes tidily as they were before (lots of trudging back and forth between house and car to have a look at pictures on computer...).

I just need to pop the injectors back into the fuel rail and I think I am no more than about three bolts from being able to try to start the thing.

But I have to admit defeat on one thing: the bloody manifold to downpipe connection. I spent about an hour and three quarters in the place I least like being (under the car - it just frightens me, even though it is safely on axle stands) trying to get those bloody springs and nuts on. I managed one of them within about twenty minutes of trying (on the right-hand side, where there is a bit more space), but the left-hand one I just could not do on my own and eventually I got fed up with having fragments of rust rain down in my eyes from the crappy heat shield that seems to block reasonable access. So I gave up.

[Doug2942]

A method I have used before for reaching awkward nuts or bolts is to use a long socket with a swivel joint but without the handle bit to gently start the nut/bolt.
Or I have a flexible extension thingy which also works. A blob of vaseline is also useful to hold something in place, say a washer, whilst you put the nut on.
Best of luck, you will get there soon.

[DWM]

Thanks - I'll have another go tomorrow. But if that doesn't work I'm beginning to think that (if the car starts at all) I'll simply have to drive it (very carefully) to the exhaust place in town and get them to do it.

[stephend]

Would it help to use a jack to support the weight of the pipe while you offer it up and get the nuts started?

[DWM]

Good thinking, but actually no: it wasn't the weight of the pipe that was the problem. I already had a whole library under there with me holding up the pipe itself. Not just the (still unread but worth its weight in gold for motor mechanics) Blackwell's Companion to the Philosophy of Language but a couple of fat Greek and Latin dictionaries (yes, that's Liddell & Scott plus Lewis & Short, for all you Classicists), and then for some fine tuning of the height adjustment I had grabbed some paperbacks. The 'W' section was closest to hand in my carefully-ordered bookcases so I had Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse and a few Evelyn Waugh novels, including The Loved One (which in retrospect would have been rather appropriate if the car had fallen and killed me).

No, the problem is one of getting that flipping great iron ring to stay right up, and then of aiming the spring and nut successfully so that I can get the nut going on the threaded bolt that comes down from the manifold. There's almost no room. When I put it like this I don't see why it's so hard; but it is!!!

[gatos]

Originally Posted by DWM

Good thinking, but actually no: it wasn't the weight of the pipe that was the problem. I already had a whole library under there with me holding up the pipe itself. Not just the (still unread but worth its weight in gold for motor mechanics) Blackwell's Companion to the Philosophy of Language but a couple of fat Greek and Latin dictionaries (yes, that's Liddell & Scott plus Lewis & Short, for all you Classicists), and then for some fine tuning of the height adjustment I had grabbed some paperbacks. The 'W' section was closest to hand in my carefully-ordered bookcases so I had Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse and a few Evelyn Waugh novels, including The Loved One (which in retrospect would have been rather appropriate if the car had fallen and killed me).

No, the problem is one of getting that flipping great iron ring to stay right up, and then of aiming the spring and nut successfully so that I can get the nut going on the threaded bolt that comes down from the manifold. There's almost no room. When I put it like this I don't see why it's so hard; but it is!!!

Might have saved a few books if you used the volvo jack on top of only a few books..... This way, you can raise the downpipe a lot slower by raising the jack and it should make is a bit easier