Karl’s Asylum

Well….what a fortnight. WHAT a fortnight. There’s no other way to sum that up!

First, to close the last entry off, my ECU came back repaired a few days later..Bluestreak Europe are god. No arguments, they were perfect from start to finish. The X reg lives again.

The blue one is at mums, on ramps awaiting my attention. Thus far I’ve found the exhaust to be a total bodge..bolts? No. Cable ties and ceramic cement hold it together. I’m shocked. The Brake lines that were “done” look like spaghetti…really shit job there. The pedal now goes to the floor..it’s not right.

Further investigations are on hold though, as after a 12 hour labour, and the longest and scariest night of our lives thus far, Jem and I have been blessed with a baby daughter! Named Isabel, she’s taking all of our spare time right now. I’m taking a fortnight paternity leave to support Jem and bond with them both..it’s great – Burping, nappies, changing, feeding, washing…it’s all good. Even when she won’t settle and we’re up to 5am, even when she’s giving the lungs a good workout, it’s not so bad.

Mum and daughter are doing well…Shrewsbury Hospital and Bridgnorth Maternity – I can’t praise them enough. The care and reassurance we were given before, during and after Isabels arrival was immense. We wouldn’t have coped without it. Driving Jem to there I can recall..crap weather, bad night, 4 minute contractions and 20 miles ahead. Good fun. After that, it’s all hazy. I know I was asleep on my feet come the delivery, and Jem was utterly exhausted.

They’ve been home for 6 days now. It’s truly nice to have everyone “home” safe.

We’ve moved! It’s lovely and peaceful here. Haven’t had time to appreciate it though. Sigh.

The Astra (X reg) died on us in traffic a week back. It’s looking like ECU failure. The Fuel pump relay turns off 15-20 minutes into a drive and won’t come back until the car has been sat for half an hour or so.

Using my OPCOM diagnostic unit and the TIS2000 DVD I got from eBay, I traced it all back and it looks to be pin 23 on the engine controller that should switch to earth, enabling the relay, has a problem. Not sure if it’s temperature or what, but it’s a pain.

If you short out the relay (I used tweezers), it runs perfectly. If you short pin 23 to earth, the relay works. Heyho.

ECU has been packed off to BlueStreak Europe for testing and repair (hopefully), with the keys and the immobiliser. They should be calling me tomorrow, and I’m expecting the ECU back in a few days..this company don’t hang about!

In the meantime we needed a vehicle as Jem is imminent to drop sprog. Automatics are hard to find..and I found a cheap MK3 1.4 3 door Astra a few miles away. “perfect” I thought.

Hmm. Yes. It’s done 76k. It’s MPi. The engine is simple. The car is simple. It’s covered in dents, has rust in them and has been neglected badly. It starts and runs…but as soon as you try to pull away at speed, you have lots of noise and no go at all. It really is alarming.

The Autobox has been refilled – it was near empty. It all seems OK in itself..it’s an AF13, like both the other Astras were. The engine is a C14SE, and runs nicely at idle. Yet working together it struggles to get to 40, and if you hit even a gentle hill, it drops off the speedo and roars while barely moving.

I popped the airbox open to check the airfilter. 3 things occurred. There was NO airfilter, the pipe from the box to the throttle body was split hugely, and the airbox fell off. Had to laugh.

I patched that up, we gained about 7mph. I cleaned the throttle body, we gained about 3mph.

Tonight I used the paperclip trick to read out the fault codes from the ECUs on the car. I can’t use my OPCOM, as this Astra has a 10 pin ALDL connector and is quite simply not advanced enough to plug into.

I got a “MAP sensor voltage high” from the engine, and 2 codes from the gearbox…one Selector signal issue, and one kickdown switch error.

I took the battery off to clear them, then I couldn’t restart the car! The battery earth terminal was mostly green and fluffy. I wire-brushed it, bits came off. After some gentle cleaning and praying, it works again now. But it does need chopping off and remaking.

All in all, the car is pretty damned solid. Underneath is near perfect. The exhaust has suffered a bit, but someone, sometime loved this car. Then someone else got hold of it and filled it full of dents, it got a smack in the face that resulted in a broken headlamp mount and an indicator held in with filler, and it got a “mutant” bootlid sticker.

Then it ended up in a dodgy backstreet dealership where it went through an MOT that HAD to be a bit iffy, and came to me much the worse for wear.

If I could sort out the “no go” problem, it’d be a decent little motor. I can fix all the issues with the other bits. If I could find the last owner, I’d beat them silly. Some people have no idea how to look after automatics.

Pics are here: Link