Electrical gremlins

[russtik]

Last week was the first run out of the year for me in the Fury. Things we’re going well until part way round I got some misfires and then it cut out completely. Got out, had a poke around, nothing obvious so tried a restart and it fired up fine. When I sat back down in the seat however the engine cut again! Multiple attempts after resulted in the same thing when bouncing up and down on the car, you could hear the fuel pump cutting off. To cut a long story short, I eventually managed to limp home with an RAC van following for backup. It was spluttering all the way home and the gauges were jumping all over the place. I’ve since recorded a little video showing it:

https://youtu.be/TFrPckIg9aw

So this feels like a bad connection somewhere to me. I’ve had a poke around in all the obvious places, as have some others. Nothing seems out of place yet. I’m a bit stuck at the moment as my “generally poking and tugging on random wires” approach isn’t yielding results.

[DJ.]

Sorry you're having trouble

I think I would start by removing all the accessible earthing points, give them a good clean up and see what happens.

[Martin S]

I am with Duncan on this...earth wires...maybe earth to fuel pump

[Tony C]

The only time I had something similar in my Fury was when the lead had fallen off the alternator and I'd driven a distance on the battery alone, i.e. it was as a result of low volts. I notice your battery light is flickering too, so Duncan's suggestion sounds a good place to start, what volts have you got at the battery with/without the engine running?

[Flyingtiger]

The only time I had something similar in my Fury was when the lead had fallen off the alternator and I'd driven a distance on the battery alone, i.e. it was as a result of low volts. I notice your battery light is flickering too, so Duncan's suggestion sounds a good place to start, what volts have you got at the battery with/without the engine running?

I had similar intermittent problems a while back, was the alternator connection, quite common apparently. Once a bad connection starts (e.g. corrosion), it starts arcing which compounds it. Try cleaning up the terminals ...

[russtik]

Minor update:

I managed to steal an hour in the garage last weekend. Looked over all the obvious earth points and nothing seemed particularly out of order. I did notice that one earth wire, which I think is for the electric water pump display unit, was sparking on contact with the chassis, which I thought may be of potential concern. I'm wondering if this is somehow linked to the gauges going haywire.

I started to dismantle the dash but only got part way with it due to how it was all put together first time around (as is always the way with kit cars). Having not consciously disconnected anything in the process however I noted that I was now getting no power to anything with the ignition on - no lights, no starter, no fuel prime etc. The car is totally dead. So in an odd way I'm taking this as kind of progress as I must have disturbed something that was poorly connected (I assume).

Hopefully I'll manage to negotiate a bit more time this weekend to get back in the garage.

[DJ.]

It's usually easier to spot the problem if it just doesn't work at all, so fingers crossed

[leegav]

Replace all your relays before doing anything else Russ. I spent weeks chasing electrical gremlin in my new car that would cut the car out, sometimes it would start then it would cut out. I spent ages( weeks )proving everything else was ok. Finally changed a fuel pump relay and it stopped it for a while. Then started again. Chasing round for ages again.. turned out the fuel relay was linked to the power relay and it was the power relay that was faulty in the first place, intermittent internal connection. Spend the few quid on relays and change em all first. Sounds like a relay issue to me. Just don't make the same mistake I did during the process and fit a wrong relay... Make sure you get the exact same one with same internal layout.

[russtik]

So, nearly 3 months later...

After taking all the dash apart, tracing countless wires, testing relays, generally tearing my hair out, I found this:

That was attached to the alternator and supplies the entire car with power (I didn’t know this before). There’s a stretch of wire that goes from a fuse to that terminal and when tested it had really high resistance. Took the wire out and tugged on that ring terminal and came off in my hand.

Simple fix but what a PITA!!! Just got to put the rest of the car back together now, if I can find any time (as ever).

[DJ.]

What a pain, but at least you found it in the end. I hope you have time to rebuild and get our again soon Russ