993 EFI weirdness!

Hovis has been running with no issues since the head gasket/head skim end of last year.
done 2 big trips in the last month, checked water/oil etc and did top up both mind you.

today it started doing some odd things:
started and ran fine for a few miles then seemed as if i had bad fuel or plugs.
pulled in to a petrol station, put £10er of fuel in & checked if a HT lead had come loose/off (one does tend too!).
i noticed oil on on of the HT leads & one of the rocker cover bolts is missing!
all seemed fine after that.....
a couple of hrs later i went to work, we have to drive 15-30mph on a Military base.... half way through the base it sounded as if my fan belt was loose! now going THAT slow i did tip open the passenger seat to get a better listen to the engine... i doesnt sound like the typical worn belt sound..!
after i parked i checked the belt, it Looks tight, cant see much wear/cracking etc as we did change the belt (+cam belt) when we did the head in October.

i am going to get a set of new plugs, nick another rocker cover bolt and see if my bolts guy has one i can get. clean the area/HT leads up, check oil levels... see if that helps..

any suggestions?

The noise could be the water pump maybe? Or maybe the tensioner pulley.

Sounds like a few things mixed up to me - like the rocker nut maybe fell off a while back, maybe the thread in the nut was on its last legs, very easy to over tighten rocker nuts on civics and charades, thus your oily plug lead.

This might have made one of your leads go bad. If they don't grab the plug nice and confident then it might be time for new ones anyway.

I'm stabbing in the dark here really, time to get your paws grubby

Hi take the top cam belt cover off and check the bearing in the tensioner as ours fell apart but for about 3 months every so often we had a little squeal like a belt slipping but it was so short each time that by the time that we could stop it had stopped making a noise and when it let go I had to take the head off again and straighten two of the valves.

Deffo worth checking the tensioner, though i'd be changing it anyway if i did a belt? My Mazda 6 recently had it's belt changed at 75k, the belt was fine but both the tensioners were on their way out.


(then again, seeing the price of Hijet stuff it'll prob be cheaper buying another van )

New plugs in, found a bolt for the rocker cover out of my bolts collection, yes all the bolts were loose! Cleaned the leads/area of oil, oil level fine, topped water up again.
Took it for a slooooooooow drive to recreate base speeds, nothing! No squeaks
Drove on base and no weird sounds!

How bizarre! Maybe the funny noise was the crank case pressure whistling through the rocker cover gap???

i'd have thought id have lost more oil as well.. between the lines on the dip stick! no oil patch under van or burnt oil smell in cab.

True, maybe (i use that word way too much) it was on the top side of the rocker cover maybe, the side that gravity's on your side.

Also, crank case pressure isn't positive, its more like a wave, in and out, due to the reverse side of the pistons pulling and pushing the air.

But anyway, is it still behaving ok?

yeah seems to be... still sounds like a sewing machine ever since we did the head last year.. lol...
not been using it much last few weeks due to being on the bike more :0)
but shoes on other foot, one of my bikes header studs sheared off & left a stub as i had to take the pipes off... bike shop too busy this week :0( & i dont have the gear to get it out.

Easy outs are well cheap, get a set for about £8 in halfrauds.

Drill it, point blow torch at it, then easy out it.

If you get easy outs use the smallest possible or don't get them and use a torx or spline bit from the your tool box again use the smallest possible, easy outs expand the end of the stud where as a torx bit or spline will only do that if you make the hole to big.

it left a stub of bolt thats well corroded in to the head, i have eazy outs but cant use em for this job.
to top it off i wanted to change my front brake disks as they are warped... couldnt undo the ruddy hex bolts as they started to round off.. & from everyone i have spoken to (mechanics) i wont do as the bolts soften over time & are lock threaded in!
i dont have the kit to do this & seeing as they have the bike to get the header stud out weld a nut etc etc
so bikeless for a week so far, looks to be the same till its done.. MOT end of Oct as well.. at least its the same shop who work on my bike who MOT it so they know things do get done. shop i take it too (on the very rare occasion) are a proper bike workshop. no bikes for sale bar cards up, rack of tyres/oil and the counter... no accessories, no leathers or poncy sales people. take them a bag of chocs/biscuits & they'll love ya loads...

Might just be me..........
I don't know why they're called Easy Outs? If they will remove it it's slack anyway, i broke one in a MK1 Cortina caliper years ago, try drilling that b*&&£r out

Logi wrote:Might just be me..........
I don't know why they're called Easy Outs? If they will remove it it's slack anyway, i broke one in a MK1 Cortina caliper years ago, try drilling that b*&&£r out

I snapped one in the crankcase of a GPX250 & made a real mess of it trying to drill it out. In the end I stripped the engine & changed the crankcases.

Luckily for me i knew a guy who worked for a firm that did spark erosion, managed to save the caliper.

Heat is your best friend. You know that screeching noise when you undo a bolt that's cherry red? That's the sound of the magic happening. Just go a bit easy with the heat on alloy, or it melts into a pool on the floor

2 weeks later........ bikes back in my hands & its probably STILL gonna fail MOT next week! dont even know if i should bother with MOTing it & wasting £35
all bolts sorted, one brake disk had too much lock tight on it. exhaust bolt came out ok..
but the original problem that started all this.. is still a problem!
the crack in my headers is now welded.. but when they welded, the heat warped the pipes out of shape as they'd clamped the top/bottom. this has caused all sorts trying straighten them out. also the headers flanges are mild steel.. 7 years of rust & they are bending instead of pulling the header pipes in to the head & crushing the washer to seal so bike sounds like shite!
the headers are a special set copied from a HRC NC29 spec bike, i have contacted the guy i bought them from & they now use SSteel flanges & i am going to have to send my pipes back to get them cut to get the old flanges off.. put back in to his jig & re-welded.
cant be done by MOT + nor can i afford it this month.
BOLLOX is all i can say! been a shite year for me riding, no accidents mind you.

good news... they can fix the fecked up pipes.. they have to remove the 2-1 join section (my pipes are 4-2-1) and replace it, new sump mount bracket & the jig will show where they need to bend the 4 pipes back in to place...
cost £105..... for a simple sodding weld job...
& i have had to cancel my MOT which runs out 5th November.. not getting pipes back in time.