Never a straight line

[EuropaTC]

No magic bullets from here I'm afraid, I just used the Mk1 Eyeball to set mine up when I replaced the original with a 17ACR model. I think they will take a bit of misalignment without a problem but I could see the acceptable amount being dependent on the type of belt you're using.  Mine is a deep V belt like the original (in fact it's exactly the same belt) but maybe a modern, flatter belt needs better alignment ?

Brian

[BDA]

Well that's what I ended up doing. I made a slight adjustment that probably didn't make any difference so I'll see it I have better luck this time.

[BDA]

Well, I thought my electrical problems were because of a dead battery but they've popped up again.

After replacing my old Optima battery with my new conventional battery, the car came back to life. I installed a new alternator belt and made extra sure it was well adjusted and straight. The car ran for a few days with the only real issue being the ammeter bouncing around (which is not new).

The other day, I went to start it and the lights that indicate the car is alive flashed briefly and then nothing. I figured there must be a charging issue so I hooked up my 3 amp charger (while the battery was still hooked up. The next day, I tried to start it and got nothing again. I checked the voltage between the battery posts and it was 14.4V. The voltage between the positive post and a chassis ground or even the bolt on the negative battery clamp where the ground cable is attached was 4.5V. (This is what I saw when I had my Optima battery was in the car and figured that it meant that the battery was dead.) I disconnected the ground from the battery and hooked up my 3 amp charger again and checked it about five hours later and the voltage between the battery posts (the ground cable is still disconnected) is now 15.5V! That sounds really wrong...

Does anybody have any idea what could be going on?

[rascott]

sounds like nothing wrong with your battery.
i would suspect a poor connection. mabe right at the starter motor, 'cause that is where the hot leg going to ammeter probably comes from(?) probably jumpers off the ammeter to feed key.
although if voltage across the terminals is good, but bad between +term. and chassis(-), that sounds like a bad ground cable or corrosion.
cables and clamps can look good, but not be.

you probably looked already.

[BDA]

Thanks, rascott! I'll check the connection at the starter. I think my battery connections are good, but I'll check them too.

I thought lead acid batteries only gave 12.5 or 13.5V or something like that...

[EuropaTC]

Hmm, something sounds wrong there BDA.  I recently made a chart up for the workshop with battery voltages vs state of charge and I think from memory it was about 12.7 for 100% on a lead acid battery, but slightly higher (13.1 ?) on the modern low maintenance things.  If you measure it within a minute or so of removing the charger then you'll get over 13v on anything but holding the meter across it you'll see it dropping slowly back to 100% charge.

14.4v is full charge rate, 15.5v sounds like the meter is like all us Lotus owners, extremely optimistic      At that sort of voltage you'd probably be hearing or seeing bubble formation inside.

I know you've got a very custom Europa, does it still follow the same basic wiring diagram or did your new engine involve lots of modern electrics ? 

My Elise had electrical problems and at around 3-4 months old it was randomly draining the battery.  I didn't get a week without having to either charge it or get someone to give me a jump start to get home.   It cost a fortune in warranty time and replacement parts until finally they found an electrical connection plug which wasn't sealed properly. This had corroded a few terminals which caused a current drain whilst the car was standing.  The lesson I learned there was to pull & clean every connector on the circuit if I had similar problems again. If you have modern electrical loom connectors, that's one place I'd look.

The other is for current drain with nothing switched on. I'm not convinced that's the problem but based on my experience it's a box to tick anyway. I'm more suspicious of the flickering ammeter, that sounds like an intermittent short and is going to be a real pain to solve. The starter solenoid would be my first check as well just in case something is bridging the +ve cables when the car's in motion. Does if ever flicker when stationary and just revving the engine apart from the first few seconds of start-up ?

On the earthing, I have a proper belt & braces approach with a lead across both engine mounts to the chassis at either side, the bolt on the battery side of the car also holding the main lead to the cut-off switch and on to the battery. Earth leads are cheap and it balances the car for better handling 

Brian

[BDA]

I chose to use a pretty thick cable to ground the engine to the frame on the passenger side. I figured it would balance the car better! 

I didn't change the wiring much except to add things like revlimiter, fuel pump relay, etc. Since the BDA is a 1970s engine, there aren't any electronics to it. With my phobia about wires, I think my head would have exploded if I tried to swap with a Toyota or Zetec motor! What I wish I had done is soak all the connectors in vinegar or something before hooking everything up... Maybe my next restoration/rebuild...

I checked the battery voltage when I came down this morning (after reading your post) and it is about 13.5V so the maybe I was getting the high readings because I had just charged the battery.

One of the things that baffled me was that the voltage from the + post to the - post was one value but if I checked it where the ground cable was attached to the battery clamp, I only got 5.5V. When I thought about (actually when I stopped thinking about it and then thought about it again, I was dumbstruck! How stupid I was not not seeing it! There must be something bad about the connection between the ground cable and the battery clamp. I tested the resistance between the two and got no resistance. Oh well...

I stopped thinking about it again and then thought I would just try making damn sure the post and the clamp were clean so I cleaned them even though they looked pretty. I checked the voltage between the + and the - battery clamp - good! Then between the + and the engine - good again! Turned the key and got the fuel pump. That seemed to be the problem as strange as that may be. Then, just now, I tried to start it. I got the fuel pump but the starter wouldn't turn over. I checked the battery voltage (13.45V) and then between + and the ground cable - I watched it drift down from 12 or so down to below 5V. There is obviously more to it than just dirty battery connections.

Sorry for the long post, but I didn't want to miss any details.

[Grumblebuns]

BDA, how new is your cable from the battery positive to the starter? If there is corrosion of the copper strands inside the insulation, that could be causing some high resistance from the battery to the starter connection lug. 

[BDA]

That should be as old as the car so it could be a strong possibility. I'll be jacking the car up to take a look at those connections and the condition of the cable will be part of that. Thanks!

[rascott]

I checked the battery voltage (13.45V) and then between + and the ground cable - I watched it drift down from 12 or so down to below 5V.

this makes it sound like the problem is still w/that battery grounding, and must be at the clamp!
mabe "shellac" on the post or clamp?
should be able to follow that voltage to the chassis connection..... to block.

[blasterdad]

Based on what you are describing, my guess would be something going on with the starter/solenoid.
When, not if you figure this out, () and your slow battery drain is still occurring, you can just put a battery disconnect switch on the battery.
My dad put one on his Corvette that was doing the same thing...
He doesn't drive it that much, so it kind of "fixes" it without fixing it.
That's his philosophy anyway...

[BDA]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Blaster!

A battery cutoff was something I considered when I was building my car - actually, IIRC, I was thinking of an ignition cutoff. Anyway, that's not a bad idea to have, but I think I'd like to find out the cause of this problem.

I installed a digital clock where my ash tray was (I was looking for some slick computer gizmo but in the late '90s, there weren't many of to choose from and there was no such thing as a radio with a detachable screen or a GPS!) and setting that thing is a minor PITA every time I disconnect the battery. I would really like not to have to bother with that any more!

I'll probably jack the car up tomorrow and check out some of the suggestions y'all (that's "you all" to most of you and "youse guys" if you're from New Jersey!) have given me. A friend of mine is an electrical engineer for Caterpillar and if I don't figure it out soon, he's offered to take a look at it when he has time. Stay tuned...

[BDA]

Well, things were going pretty smoothly for me after I got my electrical problem solved. Of course, that just made room for another problem! This time, it's my tranny. I have an NG-3 that I got from Richard at Banks. I've had the same setup as far as mounts and linkage is concerned since I put the car on the road - at least 6000 miles (but unfortunately many years) ago. Richard modifies the end cover to make it a side shifter and I use the rod type shift linkage as opposed to cable shifters. I went for a drive and when I put it in 5th, it hopped out of gear and made a scrapping sound. I tried holding it in gear but it just made the scraping sound so I backed off. This happens at low rpms (2000 - 2500) and low load - no real acceleration or climbing. I have no problem with any of the other gears.

I posted on the yahoo group and a couple of the suggestions were to check that the detent was holding the shift lever in and to check the linkage. At the end of the shift linkage, there is a rod end with misalignment spacers. This is bolted to the selector shaft coming out of the end cover. I found that I had lost one of the misalignment bushings. I made a temporary replacement that should work as well as the original and tested it. It wouldn't stay in 5th at all and still made the scraping sound. I discounted the detent idea because that doesn't seem to explain the scraping sound.

So you know all the gory details, I have a couple of bell housing threads stripped. One where it attaches to the tranny case and one where a bolt goes through a flange on the block into the bell housing. It doesn't leak oil in the front so I don't think the first one is a problem - even though that bolt is on the top - and the bell housing seems solidly mounted to the block and all the bolts are safety wired so I don't think there is any misalignment because of any of those. If you're not familiar with Richard's rear mounts, they are very substantial with very thin rubber isolation bushings so it looks like there is really no independent movement in the tranny.

I realize this is somewhat of a long shot, but does anybody out there have any ideas I can try before taking the tranny out and having somebody who knows what they're doing look at it?

[EuropaTC]

hmmm....     

This is well out of my comfort zone but as no-one else has chipped in yet, maybe a bump for the topic might get some wisdom on board.

The impression I get is that this little "feature" seems to have formed overnight as it were, not something that's slowly festered and become worse over a period of months. That makes me think "linkage", either external or internal for some reason that I can't really explain or offer a logical reason for.  I don't have the same gearbox so I'm a bit lost, but my thoughts would be to get someone to put the car into 5th while I stayed at the back to see exactly what was going on.  It might just be that there's a bit of wear or maybe something loose that's not allowing sufficient travel on the external selector arm (or whatever it's called ?).

Before stripping the box out I'd like to see if there was any adjustments I could make to push the arm more in the direction it needs to go and see if that solved the problem. I didn't think these gearboxes were known for 5th gear problems unlike some - for example the Mk1 MR2 we had was known for jumping out of 5th but that took many miles before it became a regular problem and usually started on the overrun IIRC.  You could drive for months with a duff gearbox by holding it in, something that's not working with yours and hence me suspecting linkage I suppose.

Brian

[BDA]

Thanks for the thoughtful comments, Brian. This is something that at least seems to have come up pretty much all of a sudden. I certainly didn't think I had any reason to expect it. There were no noises or other indications that there was anything going wrong that I noticed. There are other reasons to do work on the tranny I'll get to later. I might have said that I was able to get it to stay in 5th if I drove very slowly (maybe 1500 rpm on level ground). When I increased the speed a little, it popped out again.

I think your idea to watch it shift is a good one. The linkage is pretty simple and has been working pretty well (up to now, if that's the problem). There is a linkage from the shift lever that goes to a rectangular/bell crank sort of thing similar to early Europa 4 speeds. From there, there is a link with a rod end at the end that attaches to an arm on a selector shaft. The shaft moves right or left in neutral, turns forward for reverse, 2nd, and 4th, back for 1st, 3rd, and 5th. Getting in reverse is a minor challenge and feels like it might be better to shorten (and thus turn the selector shaft further) the linkage, but it has never actually been a problem so I never bothered. Of course, shortening the linkage would make the travel for 1st, 3rd, and 5th shorter - certainly not what I need. But as I say, in spite of the fact that I've never really had any linkage problems, it is worth fooling with to see if it can effect a cure.

As I say, there are reasons for pulling out the tranny. My speedo gears shredded themselves a while ago (leaving me with only 3rd and 4th) so I gave it to a guy who knows transmissions to fix it in case there was more to it than that. He didn't see anything so he put it back together and gave it back to me and until now, it has performed as expected for about 1400 miles. The end cover is apparently difficult to align and install and his monkeying with it to put it back together introduced a pretty bad leak. I've tried some external sealers with limited success and figured it was worth the hassle of topping up the oil for now. The 2nd gear synchro is a bit balky. Red Line oil helped a lot for a while and then it got worse till I adjusted the clutch cable to declutch earlier. If I do a good job of double clutching in to second it works smoothly (good practice) but at some point, it might be worth replacing that synchro. Then, as I stated, there are some stripped threads in the bell housing that really deserve helicoils.

I've put out feelers on car-part.com (network of salvage yards) for a replacement - actually only for guts since Richard makes some modifications to them for use in Europas - and I've looked around for tranny shops who seem like they might be adventurous (the guy who helped me before doesn't seem to want to go into it again). Hopefully, if it is beyond the outside of the case, I'll be able to get it straightened out.

Anyway, I'll take a look at your suggestions. In the mean time, I welcome any and all comments ans