Location: Mornington Peninsula
Registered: September 2002
Talk about bad luck!
Mon, 21 October 2002 06:05
Well here's my story of the troubles with my RA23 over the last 3 weeks.
(4th Oct) Driving along, I noticed the tempreature of my car was higher than normal so I stopped and there was no water in the radiator which was unexpected as I filled it less than a week earlier. I filled the radiator and went on my way. I noticed a bit of steam but didn't think anything of it as it was a cold night.
(5th Oct) The next day I checked my radiator and it was empty again. I started the car and water started coming out the exhaust and checked under the oil cap and it was all milky. Great, the head gasket had died.
(7th Oct) We pulled the engine apart on the Monday night and the gasket was intact so it looks like I'd cracked the head. We weren't too worried because I have a few spares.
(12th Oct) The next weekend we cleaned the new head up and put new gaskets in and put the engine all back together. It ran but we didn't have time for it to warm up so we could adjust everything.
(13th Oct. Bathurst!!!) I was watching Bathurst at a friends house and I get a call from my dad saying that the car ran beautifully until he heard a loud bang and the car stopped. He opened it all up and realised that he forgot to put the nuts onto the sprocket for the cam and it came flying off and put a huge hole in the front of the timing case. Luckily I had a spare of them as well.
(19th Oct) Not in a hurry to get the car running again because we're taking this opportunity to fix some rust, we left it until this weekend. Because we had to replace the timing case it broke the sump gasket so we had to drop the sump off to replace that. The car isn't designed to have the sump taken off unless the engine is out of the car. After getting the sump gasket in and the timing case back on and everything back together after a full day of work we started the car. It just ran like a dog. I took it for a drive up the road, the car wouldn't accelerate well and was shaking all over the place. We just parked it and left it for the night (Very pissed off at this stage)
(20th Oct) Sunday, we did a compression test on it and cylinder 1 wasn't working. Opened it all up and the valves are bent (I've just put the cover over it and leaving it for this coming weekend.
I've had some real bad luck with my car but this is the worst streak out of them all. I think my car is just a lemon, but I still love it. I'll let you know how the story ends, even if it is a trip to the wreckers.
Talk about bad luck!
Mon, 21 October 2002 06:05
