If there's a 50/50 chance of something going wrong, 90% of the time it will
Why is it that there are always so many breakdown/problem threads on here from people with fully built cars? Considering the mileage they do even the
nontracked kits seem to have lists of problems to be dealt with every summer.
Do we build them badly? The friends I have with kits are always complaining of misfires, sucking this/blowing that, lack of spark, misfueling etcetc.
Why are they so troublesome!?
You hear about these problems. You don't get to hear about the 'lack of problems'
ie 100 people with car X, if 10 have problems with an item, and each of them posts on the internet, suddenly its a common fault. But what about the 90
people who don't have the problems.
it's the 50-50-90 rule.
If there's a 50/50 chance of something going wrong, 90% of the time it will
manufacturers spend umpteen millions trying to make their cars' systems reliable and not prone to breakdowns...
...but even then, things go wrong.
We cobble together bits & pieces from all over the place, and still manage to be reasonably reliable. I don't us car builders do too badly.
IMHO, most cars on here were built on the following basis:-
our cars are made of bits from a number of different cars, radiators from volkwagens, ford axles, bike engines/vauxhall engines and ford gearboxes etc
etc. they haven't had the millions of £s of R&D spent on them i guess.
plus i guess a ford factory for examlple will build more cars in 2 months than everyone on this site will ever build, they've had a fair bit more
practise (and use all brand new parts too
I dont buy the £X spent on R&D thing, all the really nittygritty things we just rip off from these major manufacturers, we're not expected to
design diffs/blueprint engines/model uprights.
"we" have been using sierra donors (etc) for years now to specifically build these types of cars. Also this is only anecdotal but the
problems are with things like overheating/distributors/enginey stuff which is out our hands to a certain extent. Its almost like the parts are only
playing up because theyre in a kit!
We do tend to use stuff in environments they weren't intended for, connected to stuff that's hand-made or from a different manufacturer,
plumbed/wired in ways that they never intended - it's a wonder that anything works!
For example, on my car, I have an engine from an automatic Mk 2 Escort, a gearbox from a Sierra, a made-to-measure propshaft and an Escort rear axle
with all it's original brackets ground off and new ones added. The engine's plumbed to a VW Polo radiator and the ignition system's
been thrown away and replaced with a home-made mappable one (MJ). I originally had a Sierra Weber carb, but that's been replaced with 4 from a
Honda CBR600 motorbike.
And it still works well! 
(touch wood...)
[Edited on 18/6/09 by David Jenkins]
I thought it was just me. Some of my car's failures were due to me not building it right. Some were due to metal parts of the car failing (I
bought the chassis I didn't make it). Some were due to using old parts (the sierra diff leaked through the nose along the spline, the yamaha cam
chain tensioner probably just got old). Some were unexplained, like the bottom end bearings going. Some were because the parts were modified, the
carb hole bung up goo came off after a couple of years.
During my car ownership I had to fix the half shaft, the diff, the prop, the gearbox, the engine, the carbs, a chassis bracket, two cycle wing
brackets, a steering column bush, an indicator mount, a coolant hose, an exhaust weld failure, a seatbelt failure, a seat runner failure, dodgy wiring
to a temperature sensor, poor headlight beam, diff bolts that broke, a brake pressure sensor that stopped working. Bakes that needed to be bled due
to very low effort. A brake calliper that siezed. A gear shift cable that snapped, a throttle cable that frayed. And I needed a new bonnet when the
old one flew off. There was always something that needed doing. When it all worked all at the same time, it was glorious. Its like Clarkeson is
always saying about Alfas. You have to suffer the pain to experience the joy.
I guess it's human-nature too: you'll put up with a niggle on your daily-driver, but we all want our projects to be the best that they can.
Be it pride, experience or whatever.
Plus, I don't know about anyone else, but I tend to drive my tintop much less "vigorously" than I ever do my Indy.
Francis
Craig,
I'm tring to avoid future breakdowns by having everything either new or fully reconditioned
trouble is it takes forever and costs a fortune to build it
-Robert
[Edited on 18/6/09 by mcerd1]
quote:
Originally posted by cd.thomson
Its almost like the parts are only playing up because theyre in a kit!
quote:
Originally posted by mediabloke
I tend to drive my tintop much less "vigorously" than I ever do my Indy.
So concensus is that we're not very good at building cars that are created from parts that shouldn't be used 
I think that sums it up very neatly!
It's actually amazing what we do achieve, especially looking at the amazing stuff that the members of this forum produce.
depends on how much duck tape is holding it togeather
Looks like im going to have a very reliable car then. All the running gear is from the donor
It's a combination of things.
Second hand parts and parts mated together with others that they weren't designed to fit to, along with other "hardwear" problems all
lead to failures. But is only part of the problem.
Most don't have all the skills required to not only fit the parts but also to design how they fit. Occationally changing the oil or tackling a
timing belt change is not the same as building a car. I've been repairing cars for a living for 30 years. Some of the problems that people have
are just second nature to me but it took all that time to get that way. I still get stumped every week with problems I've never seen before; What
chance does that give amateurs. Experience of seeing hundreds of failures (and poor design by manufacturers) influenced the way I built my car and so
I avoided most of the pitfalls others have (understandably) made...but I still made some!
Throughout my build I came across stuff I didn't know. I never knew the wiring set up for a hazard light, in order to make it not be affected by
the indicators for examply; I didn't need to, untill I came to make a wiring loom. That held me up because I had the skills but not the specific
knowledge.
That someone with only basic (or none in some cases) maintenence experience can build a car from scratch is amazing to me!
...and if the odd bit has teething problems is that a surprise?
adrian
quote:
Originally posted by speedyxjs
Looks like im going to have a very reliable car then. All the running gear is from the donor
I never fully broke down when my MK was on the road (i.e. needed to be towed/picked up) My water pump belt came off so I drove about half a mile, turned engine off and coasted for as long as I could before starting again (hilly quiet roads with no traffic at all) and repeating. I kept an eye on the water gauge and it was fine, got home and fixed it ^_^
quote:
Originally posted by iank
quote:
Originally posted by speedyxjs
Looks like im going to have a very reliable car then. All the running gear is from the donor
How reliable are 23 year old Jags?
mine has been reliable with just small things going haywire.
The radiator switch died (was brand new)
fan didnt help was also new
and the rad cap is too low in pressure so we got a new one and its not worked.......
The bracket holding the exhaust broke but we had wacked it going on to the trailer so it was always a suspect.
All the stuff thats fooked up has been new.
Ps my car was driven down to stoneleigh a day after registration and has been up to the north of scotland as well with out missing a beat.......
the headlamp bulb blew but thats consumables
[Edited on 18-6-09 by mangogrooveworkshop]
I am all of these
It was the first car they'd ever built
It was done on a budget
Some of the parts were second hand
There was no comprehensive manual
But my car hasn't missed a beat for 2 years now! i cant believe that there hasn't been one major breakdown or issue, maybe thats because i
couldn't get it started at the very start so i spent a lot of time checking things on the engine and so seems pretty much perfect now!
quote:
Originally posted by mediabloke
I guess it's human-nature too: you'll put up with a niggle on your daily-driver, but we all want our projects to be the best that they can. Be it pride, experience or whatever.
) I only broke down once in 5500miles and that was only because the alternator siezed up (forgot to change the bearings before i fitted it...). Other
than that, no problems to report
Craig,
I think you are missing the most telling point here - If we are building the cars because we are enjoying building them, then we are soon going to get
pretty p*ssed off if they work perfectly all the time.
We WANT them to break down, so we can get them back in the garage and fix them!
However, at the moment, I need to tear myself away from this computer screen which is sucking me in - I've got a car to build!!! 
Steve.
I finished my Peugeot powered Scamp 10 years ago, it has only once broke down, and that was 3 days after I had changed the 1.6Gti engine for a 405
Mi16 engine. Dodgy coil, we were on holiday in Wales and couldn't get the correct coil for love nor money!