Head Lights problem solved

Today's priority was getting my day car MoT'd and spending some time with Tricia as it was the last day of my holiday.  The Clio passed it's MoT with no problems, it needed new wiper blades but I had pre-ordered them to be fitted so that was the morning gone.  Tricia and I went into Yeovil looking for shoes and a hand bag - for her obviously - and then went to a small bistro called Mulberry's for lunch which was very acceptable but left me not wanting to do anything in the afternoon.

BAD Bulb

 Whilst not in the best humour for fault finding I eventually got into the garage and started on the head lights - 2 problems - n/s beam shape and the inability to fully tighten them up.  I removed the n/s head light unit and took it apart the tightening problem seemed to be related to a tang that's welded inside the unit that should lock the hollow bolt in place but wasn't so I bent this back into place.  With no obvious problem with the lens I removed the bulb and compared it to the o/s - and they were different. 

GOOD Bulb

From what I saw yesterday the angle that the bulb  was askew broadly equated to the angle that the beam was from the horizontal so I'm confident that this is the cause of the problem - I'll fit a  replacement bulb before taking the car back to the garage for it's suspension set up and ask them to confirm and readjust the head lights again.







Pleased with this first success I decided to look at the speedo to try and solve why it didn't show any speed.  First I checked the sensor, it was slightly too close so I set it to 3mm with is the middle of the tolerance band, testing will have to wait until Saturday.

Now on to the emissions, I'd emailed Mark at WF with a scanned copy of the test results over night so called for his advice.  He believes that the engine is running too lean and suggested that I go through the set up routine again to confirm nothing had moved.  Whilst the hot idle was now reasonable okay the cold idle is very rough and still cuts out unless the engine is rev'd.  Mark suggested I set the overall idle higher to give the Omex more room to make it's idle adjustments.  I went through the routine again but I wasn't confident that I was making any difference and without a synchrometer that I can trust I can't give accurate feedback to Mark.  My synchrometer is now packed up ready to be posted to Mark for him to compare it with the ones in the factory and remark the 4 and 5 kg/hr which is the range that the TBs should be set at.

How not to wire the speedo sensor!

I also discussed the exhaust and steering column rattles with Mark and he said that the factory used lithium grease before installation and that the exhaust shield was the most likely source of the rattle.  I also needed to investigate a problem with the top UJ bolt so I decided to grease up steering column.  On removing the UJ bolt I found that the nut had stripped it's threads so I replaced it however having removed the dash I discovered the speedo sensor earth wire had become detached so I soldered it back on and covered it with heat shrink to provide it with more support.

While I had the dash removed I attempted to tidy up the wiring loom ready to ty-wrap it to the dash support tube once I'm happy everything is working.

Mark also confirmed that my replacement alternator was being shipped today and he'd include a replacement head light bulb, so no need for me to trek down to Halfords tonight.  Hopefully Adrian will also include the front grill and then the car will be fully complete.

2.5 hrs today - total build time now 225 hrs

Note: see post dated 18 Sep 12 for the correct speedo sensor wiring