Friday 3 February 2017

Lucy: 1KZTE Fuel Pump Rebuild



For about a year I'd had a single misfire when on long motorway journeys - an hour'ish into driving and BUMP, then calm again - only ever once through the trip. Recently I'd come back south from Leeds and the single bump manifested itself into a series of them, forcing me to the hard shoulder to restart the ignition, upon which she fired back into juicy diesel chugging life.

I knew I had to strip the fuel pump next time I was in the shop, but days after getting home from Leeds I get a call from my brother to tell me Mum's gone into hospital. We need to get down to the Riviera - Paignton - straight away. I leave that afternoon, heading down the Fosse way to join onto the A46 and then the M5. By the time I reach the motorway the motor has already stumbled, and the token gesture of a half litre of redex I poured in at a service station was contributing nothing to the party. I made it to junction 14 before the stumble became a splutter, and the truck resigned from duty.

Recovered by a nice west country guy, called Andy, we make it back about eleven pm, direct to the farm where my unit is to offload the truck and pickup the Panda. I take that home and sleep well. On leaving the next morning I make it as far as the edge of Coventry before realising the car has no road tax. That debacle felt like the last, until, two hours later, on a downhill and twisty section of the A38, the rear brakes fail - pedal goes to the floor, then starts kicking back at my foot, bouncing up and down. The final twelve miles are horrible, but I make it to Mum's, where she's now returned from what thankfully turned out to be a false alarm.

Later inspection reveals the friction material to have delaminated from the shoe backs on the rear brakes, so two floating crescents of it were battering their way round the drum. I use Mum's bike - operational but small for my frame - to get to the local factors to purchase new shoes and a breaker bar for the shaft nut. I get a couple of strange looks loading my parts into the handlebar mounted wicker basket and peddle off up the road.



Onto the point of the post - removing / cleaning and repairing / replacing a 1KZTE fuel pump. 

Electrical diagnosis with multi meter and power probe showed all sensors and solenoids to be working OK - I could even hear the spill valve plunging at the right time but, still, no fuel got past the pump output. I spent hours checking out the circuits between ECU, ignition and the pump, then more hours confirming my results with the wiring manuals and scrawling the forums for experience of the same symptoms. As my sense of logic and patience drew to a close, I realised that the spill valve was getting louder every time I applied voltage. It's controlled by a pulsed signal so direct feed is not the ideal way to test, though in this case it needed just that in order to unstick itself. After multiple 12V opens and closes, the harness was reconnected and she sprang into life on first turn of the key. Proof - spill valve is crudded up. Time to replace. The 36mm hex is slimmer than the valve body itself - i.e. no bloody sockets here - only spanners. I chopped a fan spanner to fit in the space next to the pump but there is very little chance of getting out without removing the pump - I couldn't manage it.

Remove everything on the LHS of the engine bay - air filter housing, ducting, battery, oil filter, and - once all the connectors have been removed - push the electrical harnesses out of the way. Access to remove the cambelt is required and can be done just with the fan and shroud off, but having the radiator out gives plenty more room and is a good excuse to flush the cooling circuit out.

Next - follow the manual - everything's in there and there are no real surprises, though depending on soiling it might be worth scrubbing around the mounting points on the pump to reveal the fixings - mine had been previously run on used veg oil which, regardless of filtering, cruds shit up and leaves nasty deposits that turn chewing gum like with some heat cycling.

A custom pusher tool is needed to force the pump out of the timing case - mount it off the M8 holes for the pump sprocket and remove the woodruff key from the shaft before pressing.



Once my pump was out I spent a couple of days dismantling and cleaning with a scraper, a soft wire brush, an electric toothbrush and scrubbing pad. It was painstaking but worth it to see it on completion. I did a set of seals and gaskets, the internal filters and the washers on the in and out ports.





























Pump cleaned, rebuilt and ready to refit - slide it back in. Make sure to pay attention to the scribed timing mark on the LH mounting flange and match it against the timing case. The injection pipes can be an arse to route through the intake manifold - take your time and thread gently.





I took the opportunity to do the water pump and all the belts while I had access.







Once all major fixings are back in, the cam belt is on and lined up, and the rad returned if it was removed, reconnect all the harnesses and any critical bits, and test it as soon as is practical.

The Sauna Build



I love saunas. I started in gyms in the UK and got hooked as I spent more time working in central Europe over the last few years. In the UK they often run as low as 55°C and usually insist on swimwear, whereas our cousins on the continent bear their whole bodies at closer to 85°C. You can get a sweat on at lower temperatures but it's not as effective.

I'd often thought about how I could make better use of my garden and spend more time outdoors, and I frequently longed for the ferocious heat of the saunas I experienced in the Black Forest and the Carinthian Alps; my hot bath on Sunday night couldn't cut it. I searched tentatively on eBay and for the right tongue n groove at timber yards, eventually placing an only half-serious bid on a used sauna not so far from my home. If you baulk at the word 'used' then consider what description you'd give to one you'd find in a gym or a health club or a spa. I missed out by a tenner this first time and rued my resistance to impulse buy, until the same sauna got relisted and I made a deal with the seller.


When I got to the house I found the unit installed tightly in a downstairs bathroom with no more than 100mm between each side panel and the walls - I still can't figure out how the hell they built it up in there. Their house was hot and, after three hours removing screws and carefully shuffling panels, I had one hell of a sweat on. I loaded everything onto the roof rack of the truck and made my way home.

Work to do:
  1. Sand Down
  2. Treat Exterior
  3. Make a Base
  4. Make a Roof
  5. Assemble
  6. Wire it In
  7. Water Source


Sand Down Everything
Work on the inside and out, including benches - 80 grit then 180 - made easier by 18V Makita Orbital 125mm sander. This one is made of Aspen wood and each panel has two layers of tongue and groove with 35mm of celotex or similar insulation sandwiched between.





Treat Exterior with Wood Preservative
I chose Sadolin Classic base coat followed by Sadolin Extra Durable - which is expensive but non water based, applies easily and looks fantastic. I used 'light oak'.



Make a Base
This sauna had no floor as is typical - so we need something to walk on, to lift the panels off the ground and provide some level of insulation. Think posh pallet. I used decking boards as the floor, sat on top of 4*2s run perpendicularly, which in turn sit on slim cut gravel boards which have been pressure treated and preserved for longevity as the contact patch to the slabs at the back of my garden. (NB treated wood is a no-no anywhere else inside a sauna other than the floor as the heat will cause whatever is in it to weep out).









Make a Roof
The sauna has insulated panels as a roof already, but of course they're laid flat and expose the channels in the top of the sides. I made a single pitch simple construction using lengths of 4*2 sandwiched between slim ply - preferably marine and between 9 - 12mm. EPDM rubber and the right glue ordered but not yet applied.




Assemble
Cart everything outside and put it together slowly. Do not tighten the panel fixings as you go - make them secure but you'll need a bit of play to get everything properly aligned. The panels on this one sit astride a 2*2 frame that I screwed to the new base and sealed with all weather sealant to the decking. I applied another bead to the top of the frame to create a seal to the bottom of the panels. Once all the panels were on I ran sealant on the vertical joints and on the top against the side channels (the roof will cover these, but they're worth sealing fully for insulation purposes). Some of my interior trim pieces had previously had hooks screwed into them so needed some light repair - I made up a filler using the clean sawdust from the sander bag and some D4 woodglue. The sauna already had vents in the side panels; I used stainless steel vent grilles with the ducts removed to provide weather protection.











Wire it In
A 4.5kW sauna heater will draw about 19 amps (I=P/V=4500W/240V), which is a lot, and means it should have it's own breaker in your consumer unit and must not be spurred off any existing circuits. My sparky, Ryan Lambert, installed this for me as part of a new RCB-O consumer unit, replacing my 80's special as part of a partial house rewire. From that breaker at the front of the house I ran 6.0 mm² twin and earth to the kitchen at the back, into a large IP55 junction box on the inside face of the back wall. From there I ran 6.0 mm² Steel Wire Armoured (SWA) cable through the wall and into 25mm flexible PVC conduit. The conduit is not necessary if you are willing to bury your SWA more than 200mm below the ground which was not possible along the full route to the outhouse (yes, originally a toilet). I terminated the SWA inside the outhouse in an IP65 garage consumer unit so I could designate an RCD each to the sauna, and an outdoor plug circuit. From the 32 amp breaker I routed my SWA through the wall and round the back of the sauna into an IP65 junction box, finally connecting to my heater. All SWA terminations used exterior grade glands which take some finesse to fit properly at first but are worth the effort.













Install a Water Source
Cold water is a must for drenching yourself between sessions. The outhouse already had a feed for the water closet which still remains poking out of a flower bed next to it, behind where I installed the sauna. From there I've run 25mm MDPE pipe connected to a tap on a wall plate, which feeds a shiny new hosepipe. 

I have a lot of work still to do but it's now operational. Running figures below:
  • 30 mins to reach 60°C
  • 60 mins to reach 85°C
  • Daytime usage works out approx £0.50 per hour
  • Evening/Night usage approx £0.25 per hour