Stupid but elusive little problems

[Calaber]

Most of us have experienced problems with our cars at some time, which have driven us mad trying to locate and fix. Some of them even elude experts.

A few years ago, I had a car with a solenoid actuated fuel shut-off attached to the carby. When you turned the ignition on, the solenoid opened a valve to permit fuel to flow into the carb.

For a while, the car developed a miss which I could not locate. I tried all the typical things like plugs, leads, fuel filters etc and even took the car to an auto electrician. He couldn't find the fault either.

I put up with it for weeks, constantly trying to nail the problem. One day, I removed the air cleaner and was fiddling around with the back of the motor (front wheel drive) and had the ignition on to test a circuit. I bumped a wire at the back of the carby and noticed a smal spark. It was the power feed for the solenoid. The snap-on fitting was worn and flopped around on the solenoid. Just driving the car was enough to make the wiring vibrate and the poor connection meant the solenoid was shutting on an off as I drove, starving the engine of fuel. Five seconds work with long nose pliers had the connection back in shape and the problem was solved.

Any other stories of piddly little things that were affecting your sanity with your car?

[DannyboyDS]

too many to name :P

I replaced the throttle position sensor on my car the other day which fixed heaps of idle issues, also improved a few other things like smoother acceloration and gear changes in the auto. For a long time I just figured the car was a piece of shit..... oh wait it still is, :Sigh:

[Dayvo]

I had one with my old XY Falcon panel van .The gearbox poo'ed itself so i bought a changeover box .Everything lined up but the box wouldn't butt up to the bellhousing . I tried for two days to get the bastard in but the box wouldn't go it the last 75mm . Then i decided to pull the bellhousing off and written on the inside of it was "XT/XW falcon", so at sometime the bellhousing and the box were changed over. I rang up the place where i bought the box from and the salesman said that the input shaft on the XY box is longer than the one the XW box thats why it wont fix .So took the box back and swapped it over and had it back on the road in no time .