Went out for a long, 300 mile day trip to Cheddar Gorge with SKCC. The weather was supposed to be good and it was in patches; unfortunately, between those patches were torrential downpours!
A nice 7am start, and all started well - a good 80 mile thrash to the first coffee/petrol stop, nice chinwag with the others, then on our way again. Dark clouds loomed and there followed a series of 60 second monsoons. After the first couple, I decided to put my roof up, whereupon the rain stopped and the sun came out. Thinking it was clearing, I took my roof off and, yup, you guessed it; grey clouds, dark clouds, rain. During the day, I took my roof on and off about 5 times and only once did I time it right to save a soaking!!
Still, some great roads and reasonable traffic made it enjoyable - until my misfire returned!!!! Arrrgggghhhhhhhh!!!!
Initially, it was very gentle, just a slight hesitation, and I thought that might just be down to not having recalibrated the TPS after I replaced it but it got worse and worse, finally returning to pre-TPS replacement levels.
About 100 miles from home, I stopped and wiggled lots of wires, pushed injectors etc on and VOILA - no misfire for the rest of my return trip. So I'm returning to that perennial bugbear of mine - butt connectors instead of soldered wires. The wire to my TPS, I recall (need to confirm), has a load of butt connectors (I had to extend the wires because they weren't long enough) and I think one or more of them are just about in the connector but, after a bit of time vibrating, they are hanging by a thread - the same issue I had with my ignition wiring, which have been fine since I soldered them.
So, moral of the story: do NOT use butt connectors, they are cr*p!! Well, maybe they're OK if there is some technique for using them that I don't know but otherwise, steer clear.
Of course, this may be another false dawn but it worked for my ignition wiring which have been fine for months now, so it's time for the soldering iron on the TPS wiring. I'll let you know how it goes...
A soggy-looking picture of us at Cheddar Gorge (it wasn't actually raining, which you can tell because I have my roof up!!):
So most of the run was good fun, especially the last 100 miles after I fixed the misfire - I just set my sat-nav to 'scenic' route and followed it part of the way, until I recognised where I was. I took a route that is normally very busy but I must have just timed it right because it had a few cars as target practice but the rest was lovely and clear and when Zedster is running smoothly, he is a blast.
No comments:
Post a Comment