altezzaclub

..and when you have a charged battery, take the +ve battery wire off and rub it gently on the terminal. Any sparks means current is being drawn, so find out what is using power. Maybe someone wired the boombox up wrong and it slowly flattens the battery over a few days....

Probably the battery is fked.. especially if you've only just bought it, the guy selling it would take out a good battery and put in his worst! Charge the battery overnight or jump from another car or swap the battery & see. If it is still the same on a fully-charged battery, you'll have to lie under the passenger's side and test the wire to the starter motor solenoid with a multi-meter while someone tries to start it. That wire should show 12V when the key is turned to 'start'. Check the engine earth visually, see if there is a loose cable, and then measure resistance between the motor and the battery negative. Should be under 10ohms. If you have 12V to the solenoid and the earth is good, the problem is inside the starter motor. Pull it out and strip it.

http://autospeed.com.au/cms/article.html?&A=0383&P=1

Just glue the sucker! A slop of araldite on the sliding pins would fix them in place. If you're keen, replace the springs with heavier ones so it advances slower and at higher revs. Set it for mid-range and let it go up 10deg at the top end, at least you give it some extra time to burn.

So its $110 per car??

Does that mean it doesn't crank over like YOU think it should, or it cranks over slowly, or it doesn't crank over at all?? Do the dash lights go out or go dim when you crank it?

In fact the outers should be flat-beam floods that are focused close in, and the middle ones should be pin-point spots that show a Km ahead.... but I'm not sure if they will stop you hitting a kangaroo at night!

....the Police asked you leave so you left them in charge....

Well, you own a welder and you have this disgusting setup on all your cars, so it doesn't matter which one you use! :laff:

Air should come out real hot and help cool the motor- its just an extra radiator.

just go for it- Looks easy enough... http://www.ronpatrickstuff.com/

You'll be right- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F-I08xLWqM&feature=related they always take so long to start, then so long to spool up and get going, so I don't think they will replace piston motors very soon.

Cheaper to get a thermometer- $6 http://www.hostdirect.com.au/showProduct/Kitchen/Kitchen+Accessories/5399/Coffee+Thermometer+-+150mm,+0+-+100+Degrees+Celcius

The purpose of any Govt is make every subject a criminal in one way or another, so they are guilty before the Govt of something... anything will do, so long as each person has something to hide and be afraid about. So the easiest way is to pass thousands upon thousands of regulations covering every aspect of life so no-one can avoid them all, politicians and policemen included. I feel quite confident in saying it is not possible for any one person to know every law they live under, never mind obey them. Why else was society functioning quite well a hundred years ago, yet there have been thousands of laws passed since then that have served no purpose except to make criminals of us all. I'm an anachist! We just need agreed-upon rules, not agreed-upon rulers! (anyway, a law about locking your car proves that the Police don't expect to be able to prevent it being stolen... what sort of a society is that??)

WTF does that mean?? The public is not allowed to leave a vehicle unlocked? How crazy is that? Its got nothing to do with The State, its a private risk we take... Are they doing you for leaving it unlocked after they orderd you away from it? That's even crazier !! You had the (apparently) best security in the Nation standing there looking over your car! Still, I didn't vote for them...

Did you flush the radiator from the bottom to the top?? Take off the rad cap & stick a thermometer into the radiator. Read the actual temp as it idles for 15minutes and compare it to the gauge. I keep a 100deg thermometer for this sort of thing, always handy. Watch the water to see if it starts moving and swirling once the thermostat open and it warms up. If everything is stock, what can go wrong?... Temp sensor is lying- there is no problem Dash gauge is lying- there is no problem Rad has insufficient fins to get rid of heat.-no cooling between top & bottom Rad is too blocked to flow water well enough.- low flow Thermostat is not working- low flow Motor has rust bridging the water channels and blocking them.- low flow Pump has impellor worn away and can't pump very well.- low flow There is a blockage in a hose that is killing flow.- low flow

What's the brake bias like Brenton?? Lock up the rears on dirt?? It looks like you're running a stock system, which means there is a lot of room for improvement as braking can affect the handling just like turning the steering wheel.

To expand the discussion- there are a couple of fans that the factory used, and some were shrouded and some not. Rob's KE55 has an electric fan sucking (behind the rad) with a shroud around it, but the shroud is "flat" with the fan up against the radiator. So any air going through hits a flat wall and has to move across to where the fan blades are and slip past them. To me that is much less efficient that the stock shroud which is cone-shaped as the stock fan sits 80mm away from the back of the rad at the front of the blades, and the shroud goes to the back of the blades which is 120mm behind the rad. We had our car heat up two summers ago on a trip past Dubbo on a 30deg+ day, so I went over everything carefully. Nothing was wrong, but when I stripped the motor a year later I cleaned the rust out of the block. We have had no cooling worries since, it never reaches halfway up the gauge, and that is without the shroud fitted. I'd already cleaned up some of the pile of rusty flakes before I took this photo. All done with a bit of wire and screwdrivers.

..and now you know its fiddly job to get it done well, so expect to spend a long time getting it right. I'm happy to use screws to hold it in place and keep its shape.

Sounds like a fun way to learn a lot about automotive engineering!

Muffler is low- hope the grass is always really smooth... Keep it high and stiffen it- high-pressure gas shocks & heavier springs. Going to lock the diff?? Battery to the boot? Higher lift cam that pulls from lowdown... How about a sumpguard? Even a fibreglass one would help the sump ride over rocks in a place they shouldn't be, or a sheet of alloy bent to fit. Have it go right back to cover the front of the gearbox, as you don't want a rock sliding off the end of your short guard and ripping the gearbox off. If your on the gravel then weld covers on to protect the brake lines as they go into the cylinders and run the rear lines inside the car. A cover for the fuel line might be a good idea too.

5yrs....!! pfui !! 'tis nothing, yesterday even! my car is nearly 30years old, so anything less than that is new!

Meh- in the end it doesn't matter a shit what Aussie does- Its all about China and India with 2.5 billion people (that's 100 people for every Australian!) who will all want to drive cars, and they need to be super-clean fuel-sipping hybrids or whatever. I don't see any sign of THAT happening, India still makes all those Lee Enfield motorbikes that it can't export because they don't meet ANY emission requirements. We get stuck with stuff that the Americans or the UN have decided is good for us.

That was good aiming- he hit that tree smack in the middle of the bonnet! No windows is a problem when you roll because the guy on the bottom always puts his hand up and you don't want it to go outside and get rolled on. Mate gripped the top of the door as they went over and got his fingers ground away on the tarmac one time. Even Lexan windows riveted on is good.

That's factory, 8deg. They run well with more, so long as you're using 95octane or better. Give it 10 or 12... I've had 18! :blush: