Hi - I`ve got a bit of a strange issue - my old engine had some major go in it and i`ve replaced it for a 2nd hand one. I had a problem with the old one where it never got hot - water temp stayed right down to the left and only ever rose to the middle if i sat in a traffic jam for a while where it would stay until i got moving again. At this point it would drop right back down to the left again. The oil temp on the MFA never worked. I just presumed maybe the thermostat was at fault and maybe stuck open Well, i put in the 2nd hand engine at the weekend which runs fine - only thing is is that it has the exact same issue! My MFA oil temp is working now and then when driving normally oil temp stays around 52-54 degrees all the time - when i stopped, it started to rise a bit. I did notice when i had it idling for a few minutes, the fan kicked in on its low speed which iwouldn`t expect until the oil temp reached about 88. I can`t believe i`ve got 2 engines with a stuck thermostat - is there anything else it could be? Is there some vital peice of cooling plastic that sits in front of the engine to keep it warm!? cheers, mike
the only things i can think of and i have no idea if this would affect it is - 1 - there is a small cylinderical device (about 3 inches long) sitting behind the drivers headlamp - this has 2 wires on each end - one is broken. I`m not sure what this is even for! 2 - there was a small earth strap wired to the corner of the rocker cover - this was broken and i`m not sure where it was meant to be connected to so i left it as is 3 - there is a similiar small earth strap connected to the corner of the underside of the bonnet (passenger side) which is also not connected - not sure where this meant to go either.
1. its the dim dip headlamp resistor 2. earth strap goes to coil bracket/rocker cover...id reaplace 3. bonnet earth strap ...not really needed could the garage have swapped over your old temp sender to the new engine?
garage!? That`d be me then! Didn`t swap the senders over - only things swapped over were the inlet manifold and throttle body, alternator and a couple of pipes. thats good to know about the headlamp dimmer. Whats the earth strap from the rocker to coil for then?
additional earth for the clocks i believe, sometimes they go a bit funny with that off. reconnect it and see! I wrote a coolant faq for a reason you know
id heard it was for clocks too...but how can it be ? its between the coil bracket and engine id replace it anyways
maybe it makes up for the shoddy gearbox earths on early cars, where the main earth is on gearbox bracket rather than rear stud. it seems to help MK1 boys more! On the pre-90 MK2 and MK1 the clocks are earthed direct to the cylinder head for some reason
had a look at your coolant faq johnny and have used it in the past past - its very helpful! unfortunately i`m still a bit stumped! i checked the radiator pipes and the bottom one stays cold for a while the top one gets hot then warms up later so looks like the thermostat is ok. i noticed that the radiator fan kicks in at 58 degrees on the MFA oil temp - i`d say the water temp guage was just above the white bar on the left. Could both guages be underreading? When sat in traffic the water guage does go up to just above halfway and stays there until you driving. Any ideas? Cheers
hmm, since problem as remained and stat & fan both seem to be working, id say perhaps yes you have a problem with the temp gauges under-reading. do you have a spare set of clokcs to try? I'm thinking there is an earth or power issue, or the clocks are kaput. could be the volt reg on the back of the clocks: To test the voltage stabiliser, connect a voltmeter between the terminals shown (see illustration) with a 12 volt supply to the remaining terminal. A constant voltage of 10 volts must be registered. If the voltage is above 10.5 volts or below 9.5 volts renew the voltage stabiliser.
i can`t test that now but i do remember when i first got the car a couple of months back that the rev counter had an intermittant problem where it would get a bit jerky then stop working all together for the rest of that journey. i`ll see if can get chacne to test the voltage in the next few days though. thanks
