irokin Posted January 15, 2005 Report Posted January 15, 2005 give me the shits.... Pulled up at the servo this morning on the way to work. Filled up with fuel, got an ice coffee (coffee is crucial to saturday morning work) and paid for the stuff. Get back to the car, turn the immobiliser off and attempt to start the car. She cranks but no hint of firing. I try again, pumping the throttle a few times thinking there might be a fuel problem. Still nothing. So I wiggle some wires and stuff around. can't get it going after 5 or 6 attempts at checking things like coil connections, plug leads, points gap, rotor, dizzy cap etc etc. So I push it out of the road, check fuses etc under the dash. Mind you by this time I was getting pretty pissed off about being late for work, ITS TIME AND A HALF I'm MISSING OUT ON HERE, so this is costing me something in the vecinity of $27/hr. can't getting going after trying everything I can think of (and yes I checked that fuel was going into the engine). So I decide to start my iced coffee, thinking this will reduce my rising stress level. Dad rocks up about 15 minutes later (I called him in amoungs all that shit somewhere but thats not important) I try to show him what it does, and the bloody thing starts. Many ???? and wtfing ensued. So I get in the car ready to continue to work and notice my tacho (factory tacho dash, yay celica) is reading 250rpm!!!! more WTFing from me and I call dad over whos gotten in his car ready to follow me. I show him and rev it up to ~2000rpm with the tacho only reading 1000rpm. I also noticed the charge light had come on but my volt meter showed that it was infact charging (at a healthy 13 volts). So I get in dads car and he drives me to work. Now when I come home dad tells me that he'd driven it home and the temperature didnt get above the first knotch (usually gets to 1/2 way), the fuel gauge sat at half way (and if you remember I fueled up with premo and iced coffee), charge light stayed on and the tacho showed weird readings. However my volt meter and oil pressure gauges showed correct readings (aftermarket gauges). So now I have to go down and rip the dash out and find what the hell went wrong in the 3 minutes the car was switched off. Dad says something similar happened to his old HQ but he can't remember what it was that caused it. Anyone got any idea? Quote
irokin Posted January 15, 2005 Author Report Posted January 15, 2005 On the plus side I can finally put that METRIC temp gauge instead of the GHEY american imperial crap. Quote
Jason Posted January 15, 2005 Report Posted January 15, 2005 could it be a ground? sounds like a dry joint check it on the dials. Dry joint check - start hitting it for 5 mins and see if it turns on when you bash it. Is it old wiring? That is most the case with soldering/wires over 15 years old - looks at my many failed atempts at my immobilizer - Quote
irokin Posted January 15, 2005 Author Report Posted January 15, 2005 old wiring...sure is, its a 32 year old car. Ground is my best guess too. I'm gonna see if I can't run an extra ground wire from somewhere. I hate my immobiliser to death. Its more annoying than anything. If it was just a 4 point alarm Id be happy. Quote
irokin Posted January 15, 2005 Author Report Posted January 15, 2005 can't. I have no idea how its wired in there. I have a spare dash loom but I can't be assed ripping the interior out to install that. It would appear that the problem has _somehow_ rectified itself. I have my suspicions that the distributor was to blame not having a diecent earth (somehow). I played with the timing a touch to get it to idle nicely while i tried to hunt for the problem and all of a sudden the tacho and all the gauges worked fine. Possibly the coil was using the tacho signal as an earth restricting the amount of earth line left for the gauges??? Ive honestly no freakin idea what the hell is wrong. As long as the problems gone away and STAYS away. Quote
Medicine_Man Posted January 15, 2005 Report Posted January 15, 2005 In my opinion if it does it again, I'd pay an sparky to have a look at it, an experienced sparky should be able to pick up what it is quite quicky, saves you the stress and prevents you from f@$king something up.. I had gremlins in my wiring when i put my CSX dash cluster in, took it to an auto electrical mob and they fixed it real quick, picked up on a few other problems too while they were at it, in the long run I believe it was worth the money.. Quote
irokin Posted January 15, 2005 Author Report Posted January 15, 2005 Yea I think I'll take your advice and get a sparky to look at it if it happens again. I hate getting under the dash, and even then I'm only guessing. Quote
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