fkv 98y new owner!

[harryhill]

Hello to you all

I have joined the club today after purchasing a maestro 1.6 VDP fkv 98y
in superb condition for year.
only problems at the moment are Speed not registering suspect I need a new speed transducer on the gearbox, any help in locating a replacement gratefully received.
fuel flow transducer has been bypassed i need to get some fuel pipe and reinstate it and see if it works.
neither front nor rear washer works.

this looks like it could be a really good club so I joined today. anyone out there has any info or history on this car please let me know thanks

[G51 NAV]

:welcome:

Hmmm so much for the car being advertised as "everything works" :banghead: Sorry you're having teething problems.

Fuel-flow transducer has possibly been bypassed because it went faulty like a lot of them do with modern unleaded fuel. This *can* cause running problems if the fuel is not passing through properly.

As for the washers, if the pumps are working there's a good chance the jets have become blocked, either from the outside with polish ( :o ) or from the inside with algae. A poke with a needle sorts any front blockages, while to dissolve ingrowing algae I found I had to boil them and suck it out from behind :laugh: And yes it did taste like drinking stale fish-tank water

[G51 NAV]

...oh and speaking of fuel, I am not aware that Lyndsey (Skatiechick) or its previous or subsequent owners have had the engine converted to unleaded, so if I were you I'd stock up on some fuel-additives. You need the lead additives, not just the simple octane-boosters. These *may* also help to prevent any new fuel-flow transducers you fit from dying quite as soon.

[tony]

And yes it did taste like drinking stale fish-tank water

but how did you know what drinking stale fish-tank water tasted like?:giveup:

[G51 NAV]

but how did you know what drinking stale fish-tank water tasted like?:giveup:
...from the past experience of helping my dad syphon our six-foot-long tropical fish tank as a kid. If you don't change the water every couple of months the fish die through contamination. Huge plastic bin, top of which must be below the base of the fish-tank, sawn-off piece of hosepipe shoved in the tank, suck the other end til the water just starts to come through, quickly dump the end of the pipe in the bin. Of course you need to have moved the fish into another spare tank before that point (otherwise they block the hosepipe ;))...

[Beaker]

Hello to you all

I have joined the club today after purchasing a maestro 1.6 VDP fkv 98y
in superb condition for year.

More than superb it is the best Y reg Maestro I have ever seen!

only problems at the moment are Speed not registering suspect I need a new speed transducer on the gearbox, any help in locating a replacement gratefully received.

a) The speedo trandsucer is brand new. Unplug and replug in the connecter to the sender several times. If that doesn't work unplug and reseat the connecter on the N/S suspension turret which should make it work. Failing that you will need to reseat the wiring behind the dash.

fuel flow transducer has been bypassed i need to get some fuel pipe and reinstate it and see if it works.

b) I see the previous owner but one didn't fix the plumbing then. The fuel flow transducer is bypassed because the car decided to spring a leak on the way home from a classic car show. We tried to source the correct piping, but Austin-Rover never make anything straightforward. The piping needs to be larger on one end compared to the other. If you try standard re-inforced petrol pipe from the local motorfactors it fits one end, but not the other and you can't make it fit either.

neither front nor rear washer works.

c) Washers jets someone has probably waxed over them.

anyone out there has any info or history on this car please let me know thanks

If you email me with any questions I will do my best to answer

[Beaker]

Oh yes as G51 says. It isn't converted for unleaded, unless the last couple of owners converted it. It is best run on optimax and some additives.

[MCi Automotive]

Welcome to the forum:)

It's a fantastic car- look after it, and enjoy it.

[harryhill]

thanks for all your comments
I will look after the car, I intend to make it as good as I can.

Thanks to skatiechick for your help, I would really like to get some fuel pipe that fits , but that may prove difficult it seems. unless any member out there knows different please let me know, who would supply some.

Thanks
again

[E_T_V]

What you need is non reinforced fuel pipe. I had the same problem with the breather pipe on my turbos tank. If you can get some non reinforced fuel hose then it is just a case of plumbing it back in. It was bypassed as it split coming back from a car show. I didn't have the right pipe in the garage so I just bypassed it for safety. The transducer does work however not all the time. It is a bit temperamental but then they all are! The fuel hose connector is larger on the fuel transducer than at the fuel pump/carb ends which is why you need non-reinforced hose. The reinforced hose just won't stretch large enough for the transducer. If you search around I'm sure you'll find some suitable stuff.

The speed transducer is indeed brand new. We had a similar problem with it being intermittant when we had it. Unplugging the wiring and plugging it back in usually cured the problem. I think the connection behind the dash is probably the one that needs reseating but I never got round to doing that one. There is a similar issue with the low oil pressure warning too! Its fine until you go over a bump and then it'll tell you you have low oil pressure until you tap the dash when it'll go quiet again which is why I suspect that the dash connector is a bit dirty (it was a common problem). Otherwise it really is a very very nice car. All the problem bits of bodywork which it had have now been done so it should look pretty immaculate hopefully.

Oops I should probably point out if you've not guessed yet that Skatiechik is the missus (Geoffrys old owner) and I'm her spanner monkey-cum-boyfriend so I've spent a while tarting up various bits of that car :D

[harryhill]

fkv 98y
1.6 VDP

I cannot get any reading from the speed transducer, have tried disconnecting and reconnecting it but at the moment it still don't work.

Auto electrician has tested it and he can't get it to show any signs of life either.

If I do need a replacement does anyone know of one for sale?
Cheers

[Beaker]

Which connector did he unplug and reseat?

Try putting it into test mode too, sometimes that makes it reset itself.

[E_T_V]

The speedo sensor was brand new (as I replaced it as I thought that the item was faulty - It wasn't).
I can't remember how they work off hand, I think they are a hall effect sensor rather than an electronic switch. Someone will have one to test I'm sure.
The problem when we had the car was the connection between the sensor and the dash rather than the sensor itself. I'd be looking at the connection on the back of the dash as they are a common problem point, as people with autochoke problems often find.

[harryhill]

Thanks for your reply, i will have a look at that during my couple of days off, will have a look to see how to get to it, i need to replace a bulb for the odometer anyway.
i could also do with replacing the speakers, so I may end up taking the dash out! - hopefully not though.

Thanks again

[E_T_V]

The speakers on the dash remove from the top so no need to remove the dash to do them (or remove the instruments either!). Be very careful removing the speaker grills as the plastic often goes brittle with age, especially the A pillar trims. Once the trims are removed you just uinscrew the speakers and replace them with newer ones (not sure on the size but I'd guess 4.5 inch).

[Ricky]

IIRC the speakers are 10cm ones, thats roughly 4.5 inches, isnt it? You also need to be careful to get ones that don't have much of a protrusion from the front of them - quite a few of the speakers on the market have a tweeter in the middle of them that sticks out too far to be able to mount them satisfactorily onto the drivers side speaker grille. While I'm on that subject, take great care when taking the old speaker off of the grille, as it is all too easy to render the cover useless by mangling the thread on the plastic with the metal nut.....!

[E_T_V]

10cm is roughly 4 inches, So that is probably the ones I was thinking of. I can't remember which they are for sure, but once the grill is off then it is very easy to measure them.

Good point about the speaker "height" as the grill is straight across the front of the speaker so those with centre mounted tweeters etc may well not fit.

i.e. Something like this would probably fit:
http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/kenwood-kfc1050s-p-4912.html

Whereas something like this probably wouldn't:
http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/dynamics-td402-p-5510.html

[harryhill]

The speedo sensor was brand new (as I replaced it as I thought that the item was faulty - It wasn't).
I can't remember how they work off hand, I think they are a hall effect sensor rather than an electronic switch. Someone will have one to test I'm sure.
The problem when we had the car was the connection between the sensor and the dash rather than the sensor itself. I'd be looking at the connection on the back of the dash as they are a common problem point, as people with autochoke problems often find.


Gona have a look at this, was wondoring if you could tell me the easiest way of getting access to this. Dont want to break anything in my quest to get the speedo working again.
Thanks in advance to your reply

[G51 NAV]

The dash surround is held on by clips which have a habit of breaking when you pull it off. Having removed it, you'll find the solid-state display and everything else is basically just screwed in.

Dismanting the mk1 dash is covered very well in the early Maestro Haynes manual (and the Autodata manual with my HLE's clone on the front). I heartily recommend either of them. Ebay is saturated with them, particularly the Haynes ones, even though some sellers list them as "rare". *Click Me* (http://search.ebay.co.uk/search/search.dll?sofocus=bs&sbrftog=1&catref=C12&from=R10&satitle=maestro+haynes&sacat=9800%26catref%3DC6&sargn=-1%26saslc%3D3&sadis=200&fpos=FY5+3QZ&ga10244=10425&ftrt=1&ftrv=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&fsop=1%26fsoo%3D1&coaction=compare&copagenum=1&coentrypage=search)

[harryhill]

Ta for that
Got instrument panel out, thats about it though.
does the multiplug for the speedo contain the speed transducer wiring?
:confused:



Have changed the speakers now got pioneer 10cm/4inch ones from argos £14.99
sound still distorted though, have a new cd player on order hopefully that will sort it out.

[G51 NAV]

There should be plugs from the main loom and others which branch off to the voice computer. Try breaking/making all the connections and see if anything jolts back into life. With the plugs off, and assuming you don'thave a can of Switch Cleaner, try squirting the contacts with some WD and clean everything up with a cotton-bud.

[E_T_V]

Yes as said above. Clean the "circuit board" type connections on the unit and remove and replace the plug a few times to freshen up the connection. If you have a haynes manual you can probably identify the wire that controls the speedo from the speedo sensor and check that the wiring is intact all the way back to the dash. My bet is that the connection will be dirty as it was always a bit tempremental when we owned it. The same went for the oil pressure switch connection too. (when you went over a bump it told you you had low oil pressure even though the light told you you didn't and I had replaced the sender too).

[harryhill]

re: speed transducer

Well after taking dash to bits and doing the above it still didn't work.
however the speedo has just started working again on it's own, just as quickly as it stopped. weird!
tempremental or what ;-)

[BikerGran]

It's called 'character'.

Don't let the car hear you say 'temperamental' or it'll prolly come up with a new fault that no-one's had before!

[Oli]

Or visit - http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/ , how can you seriously believe that theory:rolleyes: