The continuing saga of my Lancia Beta Spider

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Not too much of an issue, we used to have 4800 pair cables at BT, that's 9600 wires in a cable.

How did that translate to fibre?

I'd left by the time of fibre street cabinets, but it's going to be 2 cores to feed a cabinet, telephone calls are tiny amounts of data, I don't know what codex BT use, probably G711, look up how much data a G711 voice call makes.

[mangocrazy]

After wingeing about delivery times to France yesterday, when I went out to the boulangerie this morning, there was a packet from VWP sitting by the front door. So the saga will continue after breakfast.

Perhaps.

[mangocrazy]

Well, no-one ever said it was going to be easy or simple.

And it isn't/wasn't...

I fitted the plumptious new earth battery cable to a new -ve terminal post and everything went together nicely. Battery positive connection went on first and it was with some trepidation that I then fitted the earth cable. But this time there was no drama, no sparks, no smoke and no burning smell, so all good. I'd removed the plugs and disconnected the electronic ignition box from the loom and then spun it over on the starter to ensure no nasty mechanical noises were apparent (they weren't, which was a relief). So then it was a case of pop the plugs back in, reconnect the ignition pack and fire up the fuel pump.

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And that was where it all went a bit south...

Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a slight movement down by the front crossmember on the RH side. On looking closer there was movement, fuel was dripping from the outlet port of the Huco electric fuel pump. At first I thought it was the fuel hose leaking from the spigot, but that wasn't the case. It was leaking from the body of the pump. Huco fuel pumps have a clever and simple method of allowing you to set the inlet and outlet spigots at any angle you like, to cater for all installation types, and it was from this junction on the outlet side that the leak was coming from.

Back on the bench all became clear when I stripped the inlet port down, to discover an o-ring in two pieces. The o-ring provides the seal and mine had cried enough and bifurcated itself. They're a 60p part and I didn't have a spare. So I guess progress has been made, but (as usual) not as much as I'd like.

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In the dim distant recesses of my mind I think I might have a spare pump of the same type, so time to start creating havoc and searching through cardboard boxes. If not, it's more time wasted getting inexpensive parts sent out from the UK. What joy.

[DefTrap]

I don't have much luck with French HighStreet (or even BackStreet) motor factors - I give them the benefit of the doubt as they have to cope with my Franglish accent, and I don't think they're really any worse than your average UK Halfords. You can't seem to order anything without having a carte grise first, and even then they're super reluctant to help you with anything like o-rings, seals, nuts, washers etc - the stuff that oddjobbers are always after.

[mangocrazy]

Yes, it's for that reason that I take as much stuff with me from the UK as I can. The idea of swanning into my local Roady and tring to get them to match up an o-ring is laughable, Unless it's on the shelf, they don't sell it and they won't try looking. That o-ring looks to be a very non-standard size as well, the cord is much slimmer than any I have in my o-ring variety box. If I can't find the mythical 'spare' then I'll wait till I'm back in the UK before ordering. Then it's either order ten off from Eurocarb, or order one, find out the exact size and order ten but in FKM (Viton) to resist the E10 muck that's everywhere these days.

[Newey]

I'm trying to understand the logic in that, but failing...

On an aircraft there are probably hundreds if not thousands of wires. You'd run out of colours!

"Connect the teal wire to the teal port, not the dark turqiose one!"

Not too much of an issue, we used to have 4800 pair cables at BT, that's 9600 wires in a cable.

The colour coding was repetitive, ( blue, orange, green brown, slate) with different binder colours ( white, red, black, yellow, violet) on different layers of wires , trying to identify a certain pair of wires in among the 4800 pairs would be impossible if the end was cut back and all the wires were just spread out like a huge fan as you wouldn't know what binder or layer it came from, unless you "toned" it out from the other end of the cable.

[mangocrazy]

For once I've been able to find what I was looking for in the assortment of cardboard boxes I have in the garage (and the house, for that matter). I found the spare pump with a viable o-ring. which was then fitted to the pump on the car, I energised the pump and all fluids were held inside and none made their way to the floor. So I'm calling that a result.

If the weather is decent tomorrow I'll try to fire it up. If it runs, the first task will be to get it outside in the road and give it a damn good wash. It's covered in dust and cat footprints and the windscreen is opaque.