well, nightmare all round really. wish i'd left it under its covers and gone to play golf insted.

fitted a diff over the weekend as it appeared my old one was on it's last legs. put the finishing touches to it last night so decided to go try it tonight.

now with the old diff fitted i was getting a really nasty crunching noise on left hand bends under acceleration. i figured diff or driveshaft, took dad out he said deffinately diff so i changed it. guess what....not diff! noise it still there on bends and just to add to that the diff i have fitted have bearings that whine more than my ex girlfriend.

pi$$ed off at that i decided to give it some big ones on the way back home. pulled out of a junction, floored it, went to snatch 2nd floored it again but oh fook it's not it gear! hit the kinda revs a CBR would be proud of before realising and from that point onwards it misses, it won't idle, it pops bangs and everything on overrun.

thinking at best it's jumped a tooth on the belt and at worst it's smacked a vavle?

really hoped tonight would be the night i have a trouble free run. no such luck.

how much is a zetec conversion gonna set me back

John, the car that diff came out of looked in fairly good condition, I guess you never can tell. I feel really bad that it wasn't OK (especially given the work needed to change it). If me a shout if there is anything I can do to help.

I know the engine is your main concern but give the bloke below a call about changing the bearings in the diff. Reasonable prices and his work is highly regarded by lots of the garages around the Midlands

Ramzey

UK Transmissions
Unit 9
Maidstone Road
off St Peters Road
Highfields
Leicester
LE2 0UB

07811 225520

0116 2627173



[Edited on 26/7/06 by givemethebighammer]

bad luck mate, hate to read stories like this

however arnt you running a 2.0 pinto? being a non interfearence engine you shouldnt have bounced any valves, just pull the belt off time it up and drop it back on, you should be back up and running

to save it happening again tho try h+h ignition solutions i have one of their pinto dizzy packages costly at £205 but for £15 they will sell you a rev limiting rotor arm set to any rpm you ask for

hope you sort it out mate

cheers

james

wil, don't worry about it mate, it's just one of those things. only took a couple of hours all in to change it so no major drama and at least now i have a spare!
we use UK transmissions at work to do our transit diffs, he's a cracking little bloke with a really quick turn around. once i've got the engine sussed then i'll look in to what to do in that area. at the moment i feel like just leaving it covered up and forgetting about it!

james, yep it's a pinto 2.1 not long fitted a bestek ignition system on it when i was getting ready to fit the webbers so don't really fancy changing it again. wonder if there's any other rev limiter i can fit?

getting bored of spending on it now!

I'm still looking at going to Bruntingthorpe on Saturday. You do you want to come along for a passenger ride ? I'm going to call Fay in the morning about it. I'd left it late to see what the weather was going to do. It looks like showers but should dry out in between.

You are right about Ramsey, really down to earth bloke and won't rip you off. Call him he may even have another diff. I know he keeps his eye out for sierra / granada ones these days specially for the kit car people.

I know of two pintos that were interference engines and bent valves when the cam belt broke. One even snapped a cam follower finger. Do a compression check after turning the engine over on the crank bolt a couple of times by hand.

built up the courage to have a look see what the damage was and well....

compression check brought results:

1. 198 p.s.i

2. 201 p.s.i

3. 200 p.s.i

4. 197 p.s.i

so conclusion there, no bent valves woohoo! (anyone care to tell me how that compression rates for a 2.1 pinto?)

checked cam timing, spot on. another plus then!

checked ignition timing, it's as close now as it's ever been.

still though it's missing a bit and won't idle smoothly. messed about with it and concluded for tonight that it's seeming to be a spark plug! deffinately seems to be ignition side of things so buying a new set of plugs tomorrow and go from there. at least it's not rebuild time again!

Wil, thanks for the offer of the passanger ride i'd have loved to but as i was thinking i was looking at a rebuild i agreed to work tomorrow think of me while you're putting in laps and i'm stuck under a renault traffic changing wishbones!

we'll have to arrange something when i'm finally trouble free so i can come and attempt to chase you around the track.

... the numbers aren't as important as the fact that all 4 lung are within less than 2% (10% is not uncommon on a good engine)

200 psi is pretty good on a street engine....

well after head scratching, worrying, dummy spitting and several threats of setting fire to the damn thing we found the problem.

the mixture screw on the carb is beyond lose! any i've ever adjusted before have always had a feeling of resistance to them but on mine it turns with minimal effort on the fingertips! it's screwed it's self pretty much right in so in effect it was running constantly on choke! screwed it out a couple of turns and it's running sweet as a nut again! in fact probably better now that it ever had done before!

looks like the problems purely co-incided with my over revving antics.

time to sort the noisy back end out once and for all now i know it's not dead!

Don't you just love it when something that you think is a major problem is sorted by something very minor!

quote:

---

Originally posted by john_p_b

Wil, thanks for the offer of the passanger ride i'd have loved to but as i was thinking i was looking at a rebuild i agreed to work tomorrow think of me while you're putting in laps and i'm stuck under a renault traffic changing wishbones!

we'll have to arrange something when i'm finally trouble free so i can come and attempt to chase you around the track.

---

any prices on them trackdays wil? it's my birthday on the 26th of september so might treat myself with them being so close.