The 1993 Clipper cabio I didnt know I wanted. It found me.

Todays job was another off the to do list. As the car had been sitting for so long and the history of the cam belt was unknown I thought it best to change it now before it let go.

£34 and about 2.5 hours work.

cam belt swap 1 by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

Dont worry, I noticed my mistake with the position of the tensioner before I re-assembled the covers.

Dave.

Took the car for a good run on Sunday after the cam belt swap and although the car was running great it had developed a bad case of pinking under load and on start up it felt like there was something locking up in the engine.

So Monday afternoon I decided to double check the timing to eliminate any mistake on my part.

Took plug 1 out and rotated the engine to TDC according to cylinder 1 rather than using the timing marks.

Pullys and covers off and  my marks and the timing marks were re-assuringly in the correct place.





In the picture above, the yellow mark on the end of the crank shows the position of the timing mark on the pulley if it was fitted. This is where I was slightly confused, should this mark on the pulley line up with the arrow on the plastic cover? As you can maybe see in the pic it dosnt line up on my engine.

Still, as I knew that we were at TDC (using the plug hole in No1 cylinder) I figured the pinking to be ignition timing rather than a more major problem so moved onto the distributor.

Dont know when it was last adjusted but the distributor was seized on pretty solid. A few gentle taps with the Edinburgh socket set (hammer) I had the dizzy moving and rotated it a small amount clockwise to retard the timing.

Result? Jobs a good-un. It starts on the button, revs up smoothly and no pinking.

Yes the crank pulley timing mark should line up with the one on the plastic cover. It sounds like your timing may have been slightly out - now sorted  

If you've got access to a strobe light it will help fine tune but you shouldn't be too far out now

Like this.

 Or if the put the crank pully back on once the cover is off it should look like this.

 

But is that the timing mark or TDC? If its the timing mark I have nothing to worry about but if its supposed to signify TDC its not the case on my engine.

Your pulley is quite different to mine as well.

Mines an 1988 car so the cam shaft timing Mark is different but the bottom ones should be the same?
Cam shaft

That cam shaft timing mark is the same on my car but again, thats a TDC mark.

Was your crank pully lined up with the mark at TDC or a timing mark?

The 3 pictures was taken at the same time so all the marks shown where I set the engine to change the timing belt.

Thats very interesting then. I know my engine was at TDC as I had a plug removed and checked TDC physically with a screw driver down the plug hole and TDC matched the marks on my cam.

So either its been changed or the cam pulley has the mark in the wrong place as the notch is after TDC. This is why I was wondering if it was a timing mark with the correct amount of retard.

I use super unleaded so I don't retard my timing as I found the car used more petrol and ran lumpy on normal unleaded petrol.
if you take the dissy cap off the rotor arm should also be pointing to a little line on the metal casing.

The ignition timing wouldnt have a bearing on where the timing marks on the crank or cam pullys line up but.

I have been for another M/way run and the car is spot on so Im still thinking the bottom pulley mark and the arrow on the cover are timing marks with a built in retard after TDC.

I

Here is a weird one, maybe somebody looking in can offer some guidance.

Back in the threat I posted that I had completed an oil change but while doing so I had spilt some oil on the inlet manifold that was causing smoke as it was burning off and I demonstrated the point with this picture;



I cleaned off the small pool of oil as the smell was a little annoying but when I got back from a 40 mile drive today I was smoking like Thomas the tank engine as this video will show (its not hissing, just sounds like that through the camera);

Click the pic for video.


Does anybody have any ideas as to where the oil is coming from to keep getting on the inlet manifold?

My only ideas are rocker cover gasket or possibly that breather pipe but it wasnt doing it before the oil change.

All help gratefully received.

Dave.

Rocker cover gasket still not here and thats a week since ordering it from Heritage

Anyway, it didnt stop me from going to Yorkshire for the weekend and spending a great few days visiting friends and god kids.

This was the first big run in the car since I dragged it back to life and I have to say it performed flawlessly.

I brimmed the tank before leaving on Friday and did 237 miles before filling up again on Sunday then I filled up again today after a further 212 miles.

According to my calculations I got 35.9mpg on the first tank and 33.97 on the way back up. Not too bad I thought, especially as my car history has been aircooled VW's and my last car was an Audi A6 with a 2.6 V6.

Roof wise, I did notice that at the end of each journey the roof was quite inflated and a little stretched but seemed to contract again by the following day. It looks like there are a couple of slight undulations in the padding but I will wait and see if they flatten out.

Only other fault I found with the car was the dancing speedo;



(Camera work by SWMBO)

Again, really pleased with its behavior on its first long run.

Dave.

P.S. I bought this to clean up the engine but it dosnt state engine CC's on the can;



Should I have bought not so powerful engine cleaner as I only have a 1.8??????  

Gasket kit arrived today so striking while the iron was hot (or getting it done when its not raining) I went out to get it swapped.

Start point with the oil gathering on the inlet manifold this picture was taken at 15:23 in the afternoon;


Accelerator cable and vacuum lines removed as well as the timing belt cover;



Rocker cover off and I had a good look at the cam shaft to make sure there wasnt a missing bearing. All the evidence said there should be a cam shaft bearing on the right of the middle but was clearly never made with one.



I was wondering why the kit came with studs but with the cover off and a dry fit of the gasket showed that the small flanges around the studs would prevent the casket sealing to the head;



Studs out by locking two nuts together and you can clearly see the flange that needs to not be there on the studs;



New studs screwed into the head;



Gasket on, everything re-assembled and jobs a good one;



Last picture taken at 16:14 so only took 51 minutes to complete which means there is no excuse for anybody to be driving about with a leaky rocker cover.

As it was so easy I gave the engine a quick de-grease so that I can keep an eye out for any further leaks;



Dave.

   Like the powerful engine cleaner comment, looks like it worked!!

I guess the dancing speedo will be the cable.

Ref the ballooning roof, there's two tabs of material on the underside of the roof itself that go through slots of the under padding/inter-liner and rivet to the hood frame.

I suspect that these have come off. If you look at the cabby roof fitting guide you'll see a pic of these as you can see them with the roof half open.

Good work on all the little jobs - and lucky to get the old studs out the head so quickly - I've had much worse!

Glad you're loving it Dave  

Check the routing of the speedo cable behind the speedo and make sure it's pushed all the way in at the back.
Does the needle bounce all the time or just when you are doing 70 mph?
 

Needle bounces for a couple of meters when the car is started from cold and first moves but quickly sorts itself.

On the Motorway it usually swings right round and sits against the trip meter button at about 70 mph then comes and goes, this was the first it bounced for any length of time.

Odometer dosnt seem to be effected (i.e. it dosnt go round at 140mph) so I was thinking the cable was OK but the speedo is faulty.

Time for a small update. Not really done anything with the car recently bar using it and chasing a small leak on the roof seal that causes a drip directly onto the drivers seat.

I only found this out AFTER I had sat on the soggy seat.

I tightened up the roof hold down hooks to apply more pressure between the front of the roof and the top of the screen. Its only a small drip and only in heavy rain but hopefully this will have it sealed up.

The only other change was not my choice. Saturday morning, very early on a half wit decided that what they really wanted was a pile of broken number plates so the Golf lost its dealer fitted front plate;

plate off by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

My wifes polo beside it lost its front plate as well and after a wander round and a chat with the Police it seems at least another 16 cars in the neighbourhood lost one or both plates on the same night.

Ho-hum, could have been worse but still a pain in the bahookie.

Dave.

that is F***************** annoying

Dont understand what the idiots achieve by doing this
B*******************

I found another use for the convertible top today;

oh christmas tree 4 by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

oh christmas tree 1 by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

oh christmas tree 2 by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

I knew I shouldnt have dipped my magic tree in baby bio