Finished re fitting the tuned big valve head on the E Type, along with a high efficiency alloy rad and fans, and thought I'd pop the carbs back on and give it a try.

Fired up nice and easy, settled into a nice tick over, temp went up, and up, fans came on... Fans stayed on, temp went up and up....

Switched off and left it to cool, thinking it could be an airlock.

Topped up the coolant and went for a run round, all fine, stable temperature, till I stopped then it went up again, fans came on and stayed on.......

Looking for the problem for a couple of hours, I was just packing up for the day when Mrs came in with a drink, and said, that's a nice warm breeze blowing out of the front of the car!!!!

I'd got the fans connected the wrong way round so they were trying to push the air from the engine bay out of the cars nose....

I'd managed to connect the black fan earths to the white/brown live feed, and the blue fan wires to the black vehicle earth, what type of idiot does that...... ME apparently

[Edited on 7/3/15 by r1_pete]

Don't worry about it, you're not the first to do that and you won't be the last.

Yep that is pretty poor colour matching but the mrs saved the day.

When was fitting fans, i checked they would blow the correct way, then checked the fan switch was working.

Look on the bright side, I though the story was going to be "forgot to put any oil in" till I got to the 4th sentence.

Don't beat yourself up over this trivial wiring problem

A real idiot does an oil change and fills up the engine without putting the sump plug back in,
what with a heavily oiled driveway and the mess, that takes hours of work to clear up, it gets worse

Ive done it twice !

I fitted a replacement heater blower that I got from a lhd car at the scrappies to my saab. It, coming from the opposite side of the console compared to my car, sucked the air out when I fitted it... took me a good minute or 2 to figure out wtf was going on.

[Edited on 7/3/15 by Hodor]

Other idiots don't even fill the system with coolant and wonder why the gauges read zero!

We all learn from our mistakes. Kinda makes me a genius.

quote:

---

Originally posted by r1_pete
Finished re fitting the tuned big valve head on the E Type, along with a high efficiency alloy rad and fans, and thought I'd pop the carbs back on and give it a try.

Fired up nice and easy, settled into a nice tick over, temp went up, and up, fans came on... Fans stayed on, temp went up and up....

Switched off and left it to cool, thinking it could be an airlock.

Topped up the coolant and went for a run round, all fine, stable temperature, till I stopped then it went up again, fans came on and stayed on.......

Looking for the problem for a couple of hours, I was just packing up for the day when Mrs came in with a drink, and said, that's a nice warm breeze blowing out of the front of the car!!!!

I'd got the fans connected the wrong way round so they were trying to push the air from the engine bay out of the cars nose....

I'd managed to connect the black fan earths to the white/brown live feed, and the blue fan wires to the black vehicle earth, what type of idiot does that...... ME apparently

[Edited on 7/3/15 by r1_pete]

---

At least you did not try the "which way are they spinning test" with your fingers..... Ask Clare about that one.

It took me ages to figure out why my MK would overheat at the end of a run, when I was switching the manual fan on to get the temps down before stopping. I can't even remember how I found it in the end, but it was exactly the same and must have been built that way!

If it's any consolation I now qualify for idiot of the year award.
Yesterday pressing on in the hairdresser's taking daughter to Luton to catch a flight & running late due to traffic I passed speed cameras on the A505 near Leighton Buzzard.
I dropped my speed to near what I thought was the limit (60).
Transpires it's probably 50 and now I'm bricking it because they could have been average speed cameras in which case I'm totally screwed....
It's going to be a long fortnight!
Cheers, Pewe10

BTW anyone know why Luton was all but grid-locked around the airport and SE side yesterday lunchtime?
Fortunately daughter guided us in using her mob without too many probs. but coming away from the airport M1 access roads were closed and the rest a total car-park.

I emptied my 3sgte of oil (left it open for a day over the tray), did a months worth of body repairs under it, put it all back together and enjoyed a good spirited drive for about 2 miles.

Then I remembered and had to call for a family member to bring "any oil you can find" so I can get home.
Still impressed by how tight the tols must be for it not to have rattled. Still impressed that the turbo still functions fine 40k miles later.still impressed that on the recent strip down I did (blown ring land) the bearings look pretty good.

I now leave myself a sticky note.

Many years ago I helped a mate built a Marcos Mantula in his rented lock up , we installed the rear axle with no drive shafts through the chassis then pushed it as far to one side to fit the drive shafts, brakes etc then pushed it the other way to do the second side finally centralised it to attach all of the suspension The last job was to fill the diff but I had to call it a day , my mate said he would walk the 100 metres or so to the local accessory shop and get some and put it in . After moving house and various other delays it was finally time to get it an MOT on it( pre SVA days) I was driving it to the testing station I used along the A14 , without any warning the car spun and ended up facing the direction I had come from . The diff had seized solid , had to borrow a trolley jack to get it off the dual carriageway . Moral of the story double check.

^^

I find making a list helps. Tick off items completed. Not only is it good for morale as it shows progress is being made but is a reminder for what is left.

If i need to break off a job, the a piece of masking tape with a message "check oil", "do up steering nut" stuck does the trick.
Still need to get more methodical putting a tool down ... as then 2 mins lager not being able to find it

Been there before. Did similar thing with a fuel pump the other day lol