The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Tech → Rusty Nuts are entering the fray
I re-hosed the engine, but there's still fuel leaking down below. On a positive note, the Haynes manual left in the backseat of the car does have a complete breakdown and rebuild of the power steering pump.
We're supposed to have a work night tomorrow after work, but the weather turned nasty today. Hopefully we'll get some clear weather in time.
Saturday I re-hosed the fuel system on top of the engine, but it was still leaking, so last night I looked at it again, and it wasn't leaking. I'm sure it will be just fine until the first lap of the race.
Sunday I talked with Paul Harris and he gave me a few tips on which direction we need to go in setting the car up. He's built a number of race cars over the years, so it was nice to be able to pick his brain a bit.
Last night I got the power steering working. I put fluid in the pump, and it's not leaking anywhere. But that begs the question, where did the fluid go in the first place? Was the previous fluid abducted by aliens? Has all the rest of the power steering fluid on the planet been Left Behind?
We pulled out the dashpad intact, and it's in beautiful condition. eBay!
We pulled out the front and rear seats in decent condition. eBay!
We pulled $2.72 in change out. Refund!
We pulled the carpets out in poor condition. $#!+can!
In the last week I've talked with three racers/former racers and picked their brains. I highly recommend this. It's FREE! We've received a ton of good tips. Plus, these guys are cool to chat with.
This week we're going to remove our hood hinges and latches and switch to hood studs and locknuts. Jag hoods only open at a 45 degree angle, so hood removal is a necessity. Anybody have experience at this? Anything I need to know beforehand?
We got the interior stripped except for the heater core. Got the hood studs done. Vacuumed the interior and engine bay. Removed the AC condenser. Still need to remove the rest of the AC, the heater core, the back five windows, and the door innards.
Unfortunately three of our five members are now on a government mandated break from our routines. No - we're not in jail, but I will say the provided rooms are about the size of jail cells.
Hopefully Chris and Ron can get the rollcage in work before we get back. Still have to rebuild the front end and buy wheels and tires.
Got a hit on the parts sales today, but the guy wanted the engine wiring harness that we are keeping. I offered to sell him the window regulators and motors.
I haven't posted any of our progress on the Jaggernaut in a while, probably because there hasn't been any noteworthy progress... until today!
The rearend is back under it and we have it on the new tires! FYI - to replace the rear rotors on a Jag you pretty much need to remove the rearend as an assembly. It sucks.
To lower it I cut off the dead coil and one additional coil on each of the 6 springs. Also we went from 215/70R-15s to 225/50R-15 Sumitomo HTR200s.
The paint was rollered on with leftover cans of Rustoleum from a project my wife worked on. I also have access to a stencil machine which really helps with the look.
We still need to contact our cage builder.
Looks great Erik. Good luck with the cage!
Thanks! Getting it back on the ground is a major milestone/motivator for our team.
The Jaggernaut fired up last night for the first time in 9 months! It turns out the Lucas ECU in the trunk grounds at the engine under the hood. The engine ground was crudded up pretty bad. Cleaned it and installed a redundant ground and the car fired up. It purrs like a kitten... with Hooping Cough. Once I replace the plugs it ought to run great.
Maybe it's just giving you that lumpy low-end idle to convince you (and itself) that it really is a race car 
The Jaggernaut fired up last night for the first time in 9 months! It turns out the Lucas ECU in the trunk grounds at the engine under the hood. The engine ground was crudded up pretty bad. Cleaned it and installed a redundant ground and the car fired up. It purrs like a kitten... with Hooping Cough. Once I replace the plugs it ought to run great.
Actually, a lot of cars ground the ECUs on the engine. It's how they conrol the igniters/coils and get clean signals from the other engine sensors. It's the first problem that I look for when diagnosing aftermarket ECU problems.
Maybe it's just giving you that lumpy low-end idle to convince you (and itself) that it really is a race car
Actually, I'm thinking it's probably a vacuum leak because it doesn't idle... sometimes. Once it revs up a bit it runs smooth and revs quick, but it stalls out pretty easy. The plugs are shot though, and I want to replace them to make diagnosing everything else a little easier.
It's worse now. We put new plugs in (same brand, etc), a new cap & rotor (cap was cracked), repaired the ground on the coolant temp sensor, and it runs like crap. The #6 cylinder (which is the front one, silly Jag engineers) has a dead miss. We swapped the #5 and #6 plugs and it still misses on #6. We pulled the #6 injector and it looks clean. When it runs it blows black smoke and appears to be keeping the injectors at max pulse width. It revs up once it's past 3000 rpm, but below that it dies out, especially when it's warm. It shouldn't be the O2 sensor since the engine runs like crap as soon as it starts.
Any suggestions? I've already promised that if we have to we'll push it around the paddock and declare success, but we'd really rather drive it.
Don't know much about late Jag electronics but I do have an '82 TR-8 with Lucas EFI so here goes: Does it use an enrichment injector upstream for cold starting or just the main injectors? Cure the miss first...have you swapped plug wires? Are you certain the firing order is correct? I've seen some with crossed wires that would run just well enough to fool you, especially if the distributor has been swapped and it's been rotated to set timing by ear. Try static checking it at TDC. I like to keep an old cap and cut the top out so you can see the rotor as you work. What about ECU grounds and pigtails? I've cured some by adding supplementary grounds from the block to the ECU casing and ground lead. Does the alternator work? Bad diodes can add an AC component onto the feed DC that can raise hell. Try the spray coolant that TV repairmen use on the distributor housing to chill the control module or pack the area with ice as a test. Is the MAF and or TPS screwed? Maybe the ECU thinks you're wide open all the time, i.e. excess pulse width.....maybe you can disconnect the MAF and TPS one at a time and see if it reverts to internal fuel mapping.
Disconnected the AFM today, it ran even worse. Plugged the AFM back in and it runs like a champ. It was either a poor connection in the AFM plug or it's a loose wire near the plug. Either way we know where to look first for the ghost of Joe Lucas.
I made a victory lap down the block and back with the rear doors flapping - we won't weld them closed until we get the harness bar in.
Thanks for your advice!
Glad it helped! The Lucas FI stuff is based on Bosch technology so it ought to capable of reliable running. After all, look at the Lemons 928's and big Benzes. Oh wait...
Glad you got it running, Erik. But why weld the back doors? If you can use them it makes it easier to shuffle all the crap that you have to take to tech -- jack, jackstands, driver's kit for driver tech, bribes, etc. I say you bungee them shut or use a door latch from Home Depot that you can safety wire in the closed/lock position for the track. Much more ghetto-lemons that way.
We might just bungee them, but I figured that for the race they'd want them more secure. We're going to have to be careful about what we cram in the back because we have brake cooling ducts running from the passenger side rear door to the calipers mounted on the pumpkin.
I'm guessing you got rid of your stock door latches? If I had those, I'd use those and be done with it. But if not, you could always go with a latch like these, which are essentially what LMP cars use to hold down their engine cowlings, so they should be good enough for tech and would still allow easy access to the rear seat area:
http://www.pegasusautoracing.com/produc … ?RecID=777
You can probably find something pretty similar at the local hardware store.
We used pop-out dzus on our passenger door, which is more of a PITA than it's worth, honestly.
I really hope that you guys put together some fun costumes to go with that car. Powdered wigs and that kind of crap, walking around drinking tea from fine china with pinkies sticking in the air, talking in the most outrageous British accents. Maybe have some Grey Poupon to pass out to the hoi polloi...
The stock door latches were built like bricks and almost as heavy. The 4.2 is supposed to be a "racing" motor, but when you put it in a two-ton car it's still a slug. We've removed over 1000lbs out of this car, and my wife's Honda can still outrun it.
I really hope that you guys put together some fun costumes to go with that car. Powdered wigs and that kind of crap, walking around drinking tea from fine china with pinkies sticking in the air, talking in the most outrageous British accents. Maybe have some Grey Poupon to pass out to the hoi polloi...
No powdered wigs, but you're on the right track. Now quit giving away our secrets!
Today I went to swap out the stock pads (reinstalled for an autocross we didn't make) for the Carbotechs. The rear calipers are siezed, probably because the ingenious Jaguar engineers mounted the stock exhaust RIGHT UP AGAINST THE CALIPERS. If I can't weasel them out I'll have to drop the rearend again.
We did get the roll cage finished today, but we still need to mount the harness. Anybody going to be available to help at MAM on Friday? No one on my team has ever installed a racing harness before, and even though I'm handy with a wrench I'd like some supervision.
The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Tech → Rusty Nuts are entering the fray