f) Electrifying Fun : Back on the road for a few days after the rear supension work & all was going well - until the car just stopped dead. I pulled over, waited a minute, then restarted & all went ok for a mile or so, then dead stop again. After 4 of these sessions, I finally got back home & plugged the PC in for some diagnostics - First, I pulled a log file from the ECU, but all it told me was that the engine stopped 4 times - with the Autronic, you can only log 16 channels/parameters, & naturally I was logging all the ones that told me nothing relevant. I spoke to a few mates who suggested that it sounded like a loss of power to the ECU (perhaps a faulty alarm/immobiliser), so I reset the logging channels to include ECU volts & a few other go/no-go parameters, & started it up again in the garage. Sure enough, after 15 mins, it just died - no coughs, spits - just plain dead. When I checked the log file this time, I could see that the ECU volts went from around 11 down to 8.4 - about half a second before it died. Ah-ha, I thought - they were right - but wait - the fan died at the same time as the engine, but then burst back into life 4 or 5 seconds later - ???? When I figured it out, I realised that the fan is not yet controlled by the ECU - just a manual switch on the dash, so the volts drop must have been further back toward the battery than the alarm, etc.
A couple of scotches / hours later, I had worked my way back to the main fusible links & found the problem - the one that provides power to the Ign Sw (& hence the ECU & fan control) had a badly burnt contact. I am not sure what type of setup most people use, but mine is a Holden Commodore / Ford Laser link block with male spade terminals, & the fusible links are modular units with female spade connectors which plug into the link block. Rather than use the original modular link units which came with my junkyard link block, I bought all new ones (4 x 40A) - I should have left well enough alone ! The new ones were some cheap Taiwanese jobs & had very little "grip" on the spade connectors - the old ones were a nice solid fit. I reckon that with such a loose fit, some arcing happened & once things got really hot, the connector went high resistance & dropped the volts. Given a minute or two to cool down, full contact was re-established until it all heated up again. It all then seemed logical, so I have 4 new links from GM/Holden installed & the whole problem has gone away - just goes to show what I should have already known from the wheel bearing exercise - don't use cheap 3rd party parts - ever, ever !!!!
g) Rear Clip Support Straps : After putting up with bits of fencing wire for months, I decided that it was time to set up some decent way of holding the rear clip open. I had previously toyed with the idea of gas struts & solid struts (to avoid having a gust of wind shut the whole thing on my head), but decided that it was all too hard. If there is a breeze, I'll just jamb a broomstick in place to stop a disaster ! I settled on a pair of simple 1" webbing straps with hooks at each end - these just fit into brackets on the clip & on the rear suspension posts (the latter also serve as heat shields to protect the nylon sway-bar bearing blocks which had started to bubble in the heat from the nearby exhaust pipes).
