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[Guzzlyjoe]

First things first, the car. Its a 1995 rover sprite 1.3 Spi with a tad under 75k miles on the clock and no engine mods appart from a straight through stainless exhaust. Its been 'restored' in the past by a previous owner but im unsure of the details, it looks like it was mostly bodywork, probably accedent damage, but either way it did the job and it drove fine when I bought it off a friend. It then stood for ~2 years while I repetedly tried to pass my driving test, it was started and driven during this time and went straight through the MOT when I finally passed in jan this year (after 4 attempts...) since then a number of problems have crept up.

The list in short;


Its overheating
It smells like its overfueling
Theres a funny clicking noise when I change gear
Flashing the headlights turns the sterio on and off...
The starter motor seems to be on its way out
It randomly starts pinking every now and then
And its pulling to the left

The list explained!

The overheating! - Doesnt happen during short journeys but after an extended period of driving, usually more than 25mins or if im carrying more than 2 passengers (or 1 'large' passenger) and then coming to a stand still the temp gauge will rise rapidly, the aux fan doesnt seem to help much either. I thought it might be the thermostat so I bought a new one only to find that there wasnt one installed, what I did notice was even though the rad was full, the head was dry inside. So I filled the coolant up via the themostat housing and this cured the problem for a short while. to me this points towards a blocked rad or a dodgy water pump, any ideas?

The overfueling! - Im not sure if it really is but theres a slight petrolly smell, the exhaust pops when coasting in gear and its using more fuel than it used to. normally Id just fiddle with the carb and see what happens but seeing as its injection I cant! any tips?

The clicking! - Not really a problem, just mildly annoying. It goes like this- *press clutch* *select gear* *release clutch*CLICK** it only happens while moving, on about 90% of gear changes. it might be my aftermarket exhaust tapping against the gear linkage case thingy under the gear lever but it sounds like its coming from the pedal area. Is it falling to pieces?

The sterio! - Made me say "wait...what..." aloud in the car while on my own. I flashed my headlights to let somebody pull out and the sterio turned off and then came back on a few seconds later. This happened every time I flashed the lights. It is an aftermarket sony unit which I installed myself but everyone knows that you dont have to go anywhere neer the light circuit to fit a sterio, it started happening today so ill have a poke around tomorrow on the hunt for loose wires.

The starter motor! - This might be related to the recent battery issues I had. When I go to start the car it will make the rapid clicking noise as if the battery is dead but then start cranking over normally and fire up. Solenoids going? or a bad earth perhaps?

The Pinking! - Might be related to the overfueling issue, but this is intermitant. Pinking starts sometimes when the engine is under load, (accelerating/going up hills and so on) it has the normal dizzy setup and I have a timing strobe but would the ECU affect the timing at all?

The pulling! - This seems to be the mother gremlin and is kind of my own fault. Nothing was wrong untill this happened. In short I lost front traction going round a bend whilst doing the speed limit (maybe). I hit a high kerb at around a 45 degree angle on the nearside hard enough to break a minilight into 3 pieces and put a crack in the offside front one. The subframe took a heavy hit aswell bending the nearside tie rod mount and denting the floor after crushing the rear mounts. I replaced the sub mounts and straightened the floor but the tie rod mount refused to go back into place even after some 'gentle perswasion' with a sledge hammer. Do I replace the front sub or would a pair of adjustable tie rods do the trick?

oh yeah and a couple of ball joints and a radius arm have play in them but ill sort that. eventually.

All in all alot to keep me busy over the weekends! Any advice on these issues would be much appreciated.