The car that doesn't want to be driven

I won my ebay engine crane, and managed to drive out and pick it up on a Tuesday afternoon. It's incredible I thought I'd be driving this car round on a Sunday evening and then be going on a short holiday during the week. Neither of which happened, because,

1. My car is a cunt

That's it, no further points. It has got to a stage where it's just making problems to piss me off - I'm totally sure I don't even want to drive it anymore, there is not an ounce in me that is eager to drive it to and from work everyday, or even go to the shop to buy some KY Jelly for it to rape me up the arse again.
I changed the engines over in two hours. I then spent two days getting the gearbox lined up and bolted up (which has to come out again due to somehow damaging the clutch fork in the gearbox). Another day connecting everything and realising the same problems existed as previous, it can't idle and can't take any load. It's a fuelling problem (yawn). The slave cylinder on the gearbox for the clutch has also imploded. I change the filter and it runs until I decide to change the cylinder for a new (expensive) one, which doesn't work, and then I presume the filter gets blocked again and I have to spend more of my life working to pay to replace parts that last 15 minutes in this fucking wretched heap. It would piss me off to see someone getting their hands on this car and getting it driving thanks to putting a pipe on somewhere, which is why it's not dismissed from my life, and I don't have space to dismantle and sell the parts, so I am stuck with it. The two things that scare me is the time taken on car (99% of day/evenings free) and money spent - just over £1500 so far.

New engine arrives

In keeping with the theme of this 'restoration' of the Starion, the retrieval of the engine went about as smoothly as a graph of my blood pressure/anger level throughout the day.


I was meant to pick it up on Monday, however, ended up picking it up at noon on a Bank Holiday Sunday. This meant arranging a van and an engine crane within three hours of getting out of bed. This was pre-arranged a few days before, but both were un-arranged such is life. This meant I had to get my engine and wheels in the boot of my Astra, which is already scraping on the arches. You can imagine what it was like on the unbelievably crappy un-kept poverty spec roads of Rock Ferry (where I picked it up).
I shredded a tyre, the cabin stank of rubber. I now have the space saver on the back, and the car looks muscular and impressive (yet, strangely, handles better than the widey spare???).

So, I finally get my poor car back to my folk's house, which must now be feeling a bit worn out by now. I remove the wheels from the car and put them alongside the pile of wheels in the corner of the driveway. This was going to be tricky I thought. While I've lifted heavier engines, I've never had to figure out a way of removing an engine from a boot two foot off the floor. I considered taking the seats out, and moving it out of the front doors, but instead got some wood and a chain.
Levering the engine out resulted in a snapped plank, and nearly breaking my neck thanks to the stack of tyres I was levering the wood against. By now, the engine had puked the remaining oil out of the dipstick pipe, and had flooded the boot and the rear sear well with the remaining coolant. I swear I am never using this car for these types of job again. I miraculously gained some strange stamina and manouvred the engine around the boot in preparation to pull it out, and over the lip of the boot. I built a platform using tyres and a board of wood. I then pulled the engine from the car, and eased it onto the platform! It was out of the car! I then moved the car forward, to prevent the bugger engine from somehow easing itself back in the boot. Another platform was built further down and the engine was eased down onto this. It was now 1 foot off the floor! A bread crate was produced, and the engine dropped into this and dragged to the safety of the corner of the driveway! Success!

In the mini-hiatus' of desperately trying to remove the engine, I changed the wheels over. I am pleased with the girth of the wheels at the back. There are two 1mm spacers on the back, but they're going to scrape on the arches (probably), but they're wide enough without. :)

I removed all my old wheels to my garage and tidied up. Tommorow I will pick up my ebay win engine crane and continue with the transplant!

Engine removal #1

With the nights starting to close in, I have about two hours after work to do little bits.
I have removed the inlet manifold and basically all the piddly the stuff that needs to stay in or I don't need. I did this in 1/2 an hour, and I'm not sure if I'll even have to get under the car to do the gearbox, but probably will. I can see the mounts from above, it should be not as hard as I thought.
I then remembered I was going to try the ECU on this car to see if it's faulty!!
I'll clean the bay up and give it a quick spray and check all the wiring is okay before I put the new motor in.

I also bought a new fuel filter!

The Astra is still running, though I drove it through a Fjord (thanks to local flooding) and the temp reader now reads about 75 degrees celcius. It is also spluttering a bit, it is past a good servicing! One it will get those new panels on the back and it'll be as good as new. It'd be nice in white as well. If I could get the new panels prayed white, all it would need is the roof spraying...

FAIL

I finally got a Boost Sensor, or MAP Sensor ... actually, I got one off a local Starion user, and two more off someone in Australia, along with three Knock Sensors/E101 Ingitor units.
Bear in mind, THIS WAS DEFINATELY THE PROBLEM with the car. I eagerly plumbed it into the vacuum hose and the connector, and got it running. A few laps around the block and a quick trip to the petrol station to fill up with Super Unleaded and everything seemed fine.
It was until I arrived at the same place it always cuts out (a left turn at the top of a hill), it cut out. Same thing, same place, same problem. It's not the sensor.

A couple of things since then have pushed me towards getting a new engine for the car. To be honest, I have about 20% of the passion to get it back on the road as I had when I bought the car. I suspect the problem is with the ECU, but try getting an ECU for realistic money, so the person I bought the sensor from is breaking a car near me. The second thing is, if you hadn't noticed, the engine is knackered. It spits water and soot from the exhaust, it varies from white, to black, to blue smoke on start up, which then disappears before it cuts out, it has sooted up new spark plugs, and for some reason, gauged a bit cut along the length of the cam belt. I can live with this fiendish overfuelling, but the cutting out thing is impossible to live with. I will try the ECU just to confirm my suspicions.

I now have a plan - I plan to take a week off start from Friday 22nd August.
I will buy engine prior to this, pick engine, ECU and alloys up on weekend.
Try ECU.
Car breaks down, because it's some wiring problem ...
... but in theory, it will be the ECU, and then drive it round until the overfuelling destroys the engine, at which point I will replace it with the new one!

I will keep you informed of the progress