Taxi Driver Online

It could be the batteryis weak and has finally been killed off by its hibernation.I've had one do the same thing even after charging there wasn't enough life in it to turn the starter,although it would run lights and glow plugs etc.

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Selling Imperial tools for old cars.

Battery was new (and expensive!) last year. Oddly, it has been on charge all night and will not charge full with the leads attached. Charger is new and showed full after a few mins yesterday when only the charger was connected to the battery. Since then I have added/removed the leads a few times, added a extra ground to the metal casing that holds the battery and removed the small red connector cable that goes to the positive. I am pretty convinced this is the noiuse it makes on low battery though and that I have some sort of discharge going on. I'll just have to keep plugging away and eliminating things.

Electronics were never my strong suit and I'n not paying Swedish rates to get someone to fix it ! They wanted 200 quid at the Skoda garage today just to LOOK at why the main beams come on at start and swap with the dash light.....

I put an extra earth on my fairway which helps turn it over a bit quicker on a really cold morning.
I also own a Mk1 transit and a year or two back fitted a new battery,after a while it would sometimes turn over rather slowly on a clod start and a few times cold as well.I spent hours cleaning connections and pulling starter motors to bits only to find the battery was faulty.One cell of it (and it was only a few months old had a lot of black sediment in it and this was occasionally shorting it out (I guess).

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Selling Imperial tools for old cars.

I saw your post on that yesterday and ran a jump start lead from the negative terminal to a part of the engine casing and I didn't notice and difference. I already have a fat, uncoated cable coming fro the battery down into the taxi engine casing and can't believe it would not be good. Left battery unconnected last night and voltage dropped from 11.65 to 11.45. Not sure how normal that is. I am going to leave it a bit longer.

If it ever stops raining I will try and get the taxi out of the garage and jump start it. At least I might be able to hear the buzz noise better too. It is kind of close and echoey in the garage.......

I'd say that voltage is low,a batter fully charged should read over twelve volts.(around 12.6) on charge it would read over 13 volts (engine running)

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Selling Imperial tools for old cars.

More news. I managed to get the taxi out of the garage and ready to jump from my ailing Mazda (oh shoot, the leads are in the back of the Skoda, which is at the garage 20 miles away as they can't get the part to fix it for a week, apart from the black lead, which I used for an earth, but one lead is no use so off to the shops and 159SEK later we really are ready......) AND, the brrrrrrr, buzz noise thing does not happen. My gut feeling and hope was that it wouldn't - I HAVE heard this noise before and it happens when the battery is low. Phew, so now she will just start of course........NOT. Clickety, tippety, rippety click trills the starter motor, but no poof of engine start up. I pump the disel pump. No use. Grrrrrrrrr. I reconnect the red cable thing to the battery that I took off. I switch the fuel cut-offs one way and another....then decide one small success each day might be enough.

But, of course, this means my 6 month old, 200 quid, hardly used, heavy duty, Varta, battery is duff. With the jump leads on, I get a steady near as damnit 14v. Without we start at about 12.56 an see it drop every 2 seconds. So, I guess I'll have to take that back to the Swedey garage and hope they are kind.

Meanwhile, and being rather lazy in not thinking hard, or looking it up, any offers on the non-starting? The belts turn OK. The plugs glow (well, the yellow light comes on and off) and there is fuel.......

Is it turning over at all ? If so sounds a bit like fuel problem,you could try and look if any fuel getting through by unhooking a pipe somewhere.Does the fuel filter prime up ? i.e it should get hard when you pump it.Good luck

Yes, it gets hard, but I had problems before with that (refer earlier in thread) and it was sorted with a new filter, which then showed up a flaky cable. I'll take a closer peek tomorrow, however the previous problem was that it started and cut out after 20 seconds or so. Downside of it now being out of the garage is that I cant do much when it rains !

Why not try towing it with said Mazda to get it started

What a auto ,give it up skippy FFS

It does not really fix my problem and after my one experience in life with towing, I vowed never to do it again. I can just see the mighty Fairway crashing into the back of my beleagured Xedos !

slot it into 2nd get it up to 35mph and it should fire up.
Thats what we used to do with the FX4 we had here

LOL. I'd be breaking the speed limit ! The swedes would have kittens if they saw that happenng - back burner of an idea. I have to get the thing to start normally.

We used to light a fire under it to get them started !

For a long time I worked on diesels in boats.It wasn't possible to light a fire under trhem but we sometimes would heat the manifolds with a blow torch and,in desperate times play the flame inside the intake whilst turning it over.Doubtless these days H and S would have sixty fits but I've seen knackered engines with icicles on them started in this way.
We never used "Easystart" as it seems to wash away any oil on the bores reducing compression still furter on an old engine,if anything we'd use a spray oil like WD40.

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Selling Imperial tools for old cars.