megadodo

You'll miss the fun of making up your own loom and the satisfaction you'll get when it all works first time........

One question and then my thoughts. Where is temperature being read from and is it accurate (okay, that's 2 questions!)? Now my thoughts. If the cooling system is running properly then an oversized radiator wouldn't be an issue as the thermostat should be regulating the water flow out to it to maintain the correct temperature. You are having to block off some of the airflow which is the same as having too big a radiator. So, too much water is reaching the radiator whether or not the thermostat is opening or not. I would agree with others that the system is bypassing the thermostat somehow and is the root cause of your cool running unless of course the reading of the water temperature is inaccurate.

I can't hear my diff above the sound of the exhaust, either my diff is okay or my exhaust is too loud......!

Having worked out how to download the image and turn it rather than my screen I have to agree with brumster, that wire is probably a warning trigger and does not need to be connected. Maybe the flashing red and green is the warning! Just disconnect it, it should not affect the functionality of the rest of the dash.

I doubt its a switched earth, would it not be a an earth through a temperature sensor ie a temperature variable resistance?

I think he probably needs to reflect on that...........I'll get me coat.

Without knowing your specific beemer engine, typically with new gaskets and the rubber rings that sit under the cover bolts you need only to use gasket sealant on the corners of the the half moon cut-outs in the head. Just a dab is needed. This is assuming there is no damage to the mating surfaces. Having said that you can use sealant on the gasket if you are sensible with the quantity. Never had an issue with my M44 but my M54 needed all new gaskets and rubbers before it would stop using the exhaust manifold as an oil vaporiser! A PO has used sealant on my S54 that I'll fix with new gaskets.

I had to take mine apart as the the handbrake lever seals were leaking and to pull the lever out you have to take out all that mechanism behind the piston. Oddly, the first one I did only took an hour once I'd worked out how it it went together and devised a method of compressing everything enough to get that bloody circlip back on. The second one however took bloody ages. I just couldn't get the balance between force and dexterity right and had to walk away from it for a couple of hours at which point it went back on first time. I would agree that unless the lever is stuck or the seal is leaking don't remove it.

Here is an opportunity to learn from my mistakes. First some background, over a year ago I converted my 6 pot BMW to run on lpg. It all went well except I didn't quite plumb in the lpg injectors into the inlet manifold "as per instructions" as my sceptical head said it wasn't required and that a conventional install would be fine. As it happened, the car ran fine apart from an occasional stall after lifting the accelerator quickly approaching a stop, being an auto it was a slight pain as you cant just turn the key to re-start! It was so intermittent though I could live with it! Mistake number 1, follow the guidance of the professionals if recommended to do so. When the car lost an exhaust valve over Christmas requiring a head removal I took the opportunity to plumb in the lpg injectors as I should have done. With this kit there are 2 banks of 4 injector wires that control the lpg injector rails. Being a six pot you use 3 from each rail. In the first installation I used A, B & C on cylinders 1, 2 & 3 and E, F & G on 4, 5 & 6 as the plumbing leant itself to a straight forward install. With me so far? On re-plumbing with plumbing had to cross over itself and wouldn't sit nicely with 1, 2 & 3 all on the same injector rail. I had to plumb 3 to the rear rail and 4 to the front. No problem I thought swap the C & E control wires round, simple. After the rebuild the car ran well on petrol but was slightly lumpy on idle on lpg, no issue I thought, its bound to need an lpg re-tune after re-plumbing. After a re-tune it was better but the idle still wasn't a smooth as it was before the rebuild. After a bout a week the idle became noticeably worse and I had to switch back to petrol but even that was lumpy, so much so that I thought the head had dropped another valve! Un-plugging the fuse for the lpg would give smooth running under petrol after a couple of seconds following a re-start. Plugging the the fuse back in would repeat the cycle of initial good running followed by deteriorating performance on lpg and then petrol. I rechecked everything including specially looking at the lpg wiring as I knew I had altered it, A, B & E on the front rail. Noting that the rail wiring was indeed 2 swapped wires I carried on with my diagnosis. I didn't check the rear rail as clearly I would have wired that correctly! 2nd mistake. Since then I have tried a different lpg ECU and a different petrol ECU all to no result. Further complicated by a failing prop-shaft leading to drive-train vibration that I assumed was engine problem related! 3rd mistake! This weekend following the prop-shaft being repaired and re-fitted I had another go at diagnosis. I checked everything again This time I checked the rear injector rail as well expecting to find C, F & G only to find C, E & G??? WTF, checked the front rail to find A, B & F, WTF? No wonder the car was struggling under lpg, so much so that the petrol ECU would try and compensate by so much its went passed its limits to cause rough running under petrol as well! I don't know how I missed it (other than E & F are similar) but you always need to double check (if not triple check) everything after any work you do especially if a new fault appears after work to another problem! I hang my head in shame. BTW, the car is now running beautifully and I'm no longer thinking of removing the lpg install and selling her!

Thanks, I suspected that's what you meant. My thoughts & experiences for what they are worth. Drums at the rear on a kit car will be absolutely fine, no need for discs at all. Can discs at the back upset braking balance, possibly but are just fine on my 2B (the extra weight helps I'm sure) , the fronts lock up first if you push too hard but car stops quickly and under control. FYI, my set-up is standard Sierra 2.0 EFI fronts and 4X4 discs at the rear using the standard Sierra servo and regulator in the rear brake line.

"drum brakes on the rear of a zero are higher efficiency than discs" , can you clarify what you mean by this, as brakes when driving or as a handbrake mechanism? I can't imagine manufacturers all using a less efficient system on nearly every car on the road. Disk brakes were invented to improve on drum brakes.

Disk or drum brake? Your comment implies discs?

Somehow that seems like cheating?

Ignore the haters, RHs are superb value for money. As a kit the 2B was poor, as a building challenge it was awesome fun, much more so than just bolting a Caterham kit together. Who reads instructions anyway? I've never really worried about 0-60 times although mine is not much slower to 60 than my 343 BHP M3, it much more how it drives, feels and in gear acceleration. It's very different to my M3 but every time I take the 2B out I come back with a massive smile on my face and there a couple of corners on my local blast route than I can take quicker in the 2B than in the M3.

Another vote for the voltmeter rather than an ammeter. Much simpler and cheaper to wire, just as informative if not more so. With an ammeter you have to run heavy gauge wire to the dashboard area significantly increasing the length of the wire and therefore the voltage drop, and what you want to charge the battery is the volts! Unless you fuse this wire (2 big fuses for real protection) you have an large current delivering wire inside the vehicle. A voltmeter not only shows you that your alternator is putting out the required volts and is therefore charging but it also shows you the actual battery charge and drop under starting, all very useful info. Finally, what is the typical failure mode of an alternator? Low voltage output not just amps! So you have all you really need to know with a voltmeter that is cheaper and easier to fit, no brainer really. Now, if there was a truly accurate shunt based ammeter available for DC then I would consider it but as well as, not instead of.

Its not so much the brightness that's the problem it's the height adjustment. I see so many cars with badly adjusted headlights, either one or both, its just so annoying. There is a problem with the brighter lights when the road has humps or is hilly but then the problem is transient. I have also seen the bulbs pattern go wrong over time causing problems, new bulbs fix the issue but as far as most drivers can figure out is "the light is working, there's nothing wrong!" My other pet hate for lights is dual filament stop & tail bulbs fitted the wrong way round (how can they not tell?) so the brake filament is on with the sidelights!

I'm the only one who is wondering where all the data and info that we need to make a reasoned decision on this referendum actually is? All I've seen so far is rhetoric and general abuse or scaremongering? So much for the democratic process! Not that I ever thought it worked that well anyway.

I think the auto-park wire will be an ignition live and not from the stalk (that's a guess though!).

My pinto with an alloy RS sump takes 4.5 litres running the original dipstick that came with engine. HTH

The house I grew up in had wattle and daub walls, when repair was required (only ever fell off after physical damage) you had to damp down the old stuff and the smell of manure came through nicely. Easy to chase for wiring though! Being a listed building we were supposed to repair like for like but I seem to remember dad's consumption of "modern" plaster was quite high!

For the more adventurous builder! If I'm joining two wires of the same thickness in an area where I don't wont the loom diameter to "grow" because of the joints overlapping each other I do the following. Each stripped end (typically about a cm) is twisted about 90 degrees clockwise. Then the two end are offered up to each other, then I gently untwist the wires so that ends splay all the strands open slightly. Next, rather than wrap them around each other I feed one splayed end into the other keeping the untwisting tension on (as it where) then I re-twist both ends and pull on the wires slightly. With practice the 2 ends grip into each other and make a joint that is barely thicker than a single wire. Then I solder the joint as neatly described by Simon B. Then I remember I forgot the heat shrink! You can also join into an existing wire this way as well. The down side to these joints is you can never unsolder the buggers easily to fit the heat shrink you forgot in the first place! Apart from the thickness of the joint being better than a typical twisted joint you can get away with a shorter joint as well. Where I use a multi pin connector block, providing the wire is sized correctly for the connector I'm more than happy to use just a crimped connector which technically is very slightly better at resisting long duration vibration (hence its use in aerospace and the military). Where, for whatever reason, the wire is not the right size for the pin in the connector I'll crimp and solder. I've lots of wires pulled out of a crimped connector because it wasn't matched properly, soldering solves that issue.

I would always recommend soldering, I've worked on cars for nearly 40 years and I've never had a good solder joint fail. Resistance should be negligible and I have used soldered joint on low voltage signal cabling without issue. Soldering, like welding, does take a bit of both prep and practice. If you decide on crimping buy a good quality tool and make sure your connectors are designed for that tool. They may look the same but they 'aint! Use the right size connector for the wire, the stripped and twisted wire end should be a snug fit in the connector before crimping. Stagger multi wire joints where possible and support the loom properly. Consider connector blocks instead joints as this often makes repair and dis-assembly easier.

Agree with Vauxhall, Astra GTE or similar

Assumptions will catch everyone out. I have a misfiring daily drive, no compression on cylinder 4. Pull the inlet manifold and you can see all the inlet valves, 1 of the inlet valves on cylinder 4 is covered in crap while all the others are spotless. Pull the head off to find that part of one of the valves on cylinder 4 is missing! Assumption made? New inlet valve is required, obviously, so one new one ordered. On arrival its too big and I'm very confused? Check the head again to find its one of the exhaust valves with a bit missing! Doh!

I've probably missed it somewhere, but with the car carrying a plate is not already registered or is it one of those "dodgy" registrations?