engine and drivetrain Embrassing Drive Home With The Lady

[osbourne]

Well, the others have covered the girlfriend issues.  But, like I've told others: no matter how beautiful and appealing a woman is; somewhere in the world, there's a guy who's tired of her.

 

It sounds like your Tii was out of service for some time, right?  It could be something as simple as bad gas.  I'd give it a fresh tank of gas to work with.  Sure, check the fuel pressure, too, but if you can her the pump whirring back there, it's probably OK.  Not sure how the fuel pump is activated (it's only been 38 years since my Tii met it's unfortunate end), but is there a relay that might be malfunctioning?

[Honolulu]

I cast a vote for a vacuum leak.

Great stories BTW. I note a common thread, that includes myself... we frequently make the things we "fix" a little or a lot worse at first. Experience is a great teacher.

BTW if anyone cares, my Beemer fire was finally traced to a hole in the tank, relatively common on that bike. There's a low point, water sinks in gas and accumulates there... and we all know the electrochemical process that occurs under standing water....

[Simeon]

Sure you got the injection belt back in correct time?

Didn't touch the linkage when working around the engine?

Vacuum leak around manifold? Anything else disturbed?

My wife is a reluctant driver but she loves to look at and appreciate classic cars plus she is massively sentimental so any objects/pets/cars etc that hang around long enough gets absorbed into our family and is fiercely defended against all comers by my wife.

[Beck180]

Well I have to say I am very glad to have seen this thread continue to grow. I'm really happy others have shared their similar experiences with their significant others.

 

To give some closure on the issues with the car, the problem has been sorted and has never run better.

 

After the Tii faltered following my timing system rebuild, I dropped the car off to a local German mechanic. I was planning on being out of the country or most of June so I thought maybe he could have it done by the time I got back. Despite having rebuilt the timing and swapped the transmission myself, ignition still baffles me.

 

The mechanic had never seen my 2002 Tii before, but my father takes his 78 Porsche 911 SC there so I wasn't too worried. We talked on the phone before and before i could ask him how much he knew about Tii's he asked me when and where the k-pump was last adjusted. So I figured he should be alright.

 

After dropping off the car, I soon got a call back from the mechanic telling me that my distributor was burnt out and needed rebuilding. This seemed odd since the distributor had just been overhauled less than a year and a half before by my favorite mechanics Sean Casey and Tom Jones in Petaluma.

 

So the mechanic replaced the burnt distributor and test drove the car. I picked it up after retuning to SF a few weeks later. After an hour of driving I knew there was a problem with the car. The Tii began stalling at red lights again and the engine stuttered a few times on acceleration. After an hour, the engine backfired once and refused to start again.

 

I wanted to tow the car home and take apart the distributor myself, but since I thought the mechanic may have made a mistake, it was best for me to take it to him and see what he thinks.

 

After having the car for a while for a second time, the mechanic called me up and tells me that the distributor is busted again and now the coil has gone bad too (also replaced 1.5 years ago). He also found a ground wire on the starter motor dragging on the floor and thinks it shorted out. This could explain the distributor and ignition coil failures since supposedly they are daisy chained through the starter.

 

The question is how did the grounding wire on the stater come off? Well, rewind back to the timing rebuild I performed, I didn't mention that I swapped in an S14 starter while working on the timing. One of those "while I am here" projects.

 

I was 100% sure that I rehooked all appropriate wires on the starter when I installed the new one. But maybe it came loose, shorted itself and blew the ignition.

 

But here is where it gets weird. When I picked up the car for the second time (now with a new coil *ouch*) the wire which the mechanic says shorted itself is purposefully not reconnected to the starter. He claims that the new style starter (the S14 starter) doesn't require it so he covered it up and zip-tied it to another wire to keep form dangling

 

I kept trying to ask him why the new starter didn't need the grounding wire and he couldn't give me a straight answer. Does anyone here know what he was talking about?

 

This does have a happy ending in that this was the end of my ignition issues (for now). I can finally enjoy the fruits of my labors with the timing rebuild. The Tii motor sounds so incredible now. No ill noise from the engine bay at all. She really sounds amazing above 4500 RPM!

 

I took her out for a 3 hour drive up to Sonoma and back for work and the Tii performed perfectly. The mechanical bits are nearly perfect on the car. Now time to deal with the body. First stop... euro bumpers!