What have you done to your vehicle today?

Nice weather to bolt it on too. Shouldn't take long. Think the longest part will be bleeding the brakes, and that's fairly simple if you have long arms...or legs.

Need to nip to garage with fiesta key so the can take a look at the bearing that failed on me on the way home, it wasn't safe to drive so had to get RAC, 3rd time I used them in 16years, and one of them times wasn't me.

Just gonna have breakfast, then start on the car.
 
Subaru past it's MOT today with flying color's
 
Not car related but we put our new tent up for the first time to make sure all was ok before our few days away in May :)
 
Not had a good day!
Fired up the Mercury, idles like crap! Once it warms up a bit (if you can keep it running long enough!) it randomly idles and revs beautifully, then for no reason the awful idle comes back and it won't rev and tries to stall, then it clears and good running resumes!
Then I noticed a big, fresh looking puddle under it, and some yellowish drips on the bottom of the steering arm! Looks like brake fluid. Sure enough I open the reservoir and it's totally empty. Master cylinder has failed and leaked all down the servo and onto the drive.
Credit cards taking another beating soon for yet more new parts!
 
well a thousand pictures better than a thousand words lol, well done bet you are pleased to get the car back but you will miss driving your FORD fiesta lol
 
73Mercury said:
Not had a good day!
Fired up the Mercury, idles like crap! Once it warms up a bit (if you can keep it running long enough!) it randomly idles and revs beautifully, then for no reason the awful idle comes back and it won't rev and tries to stall, then it clears and good running resumes!
Then I noticed a big, fresh looking puddle under it, and some yellowish drips on the bottom of the steering arm! Looks like brake fluid. Sure enough I open the reservoir and it's totally empty. Master cylinder has failed and leaked all down the servo and onto the drive.
Credit cards taking another beating soon for yet more new parts!
Click to expand...
Hope things start to look up for you.
 
Had another day on it today, unfortunately it won't start at all now!
Really just can't work out what the problem is. I've checked everything and all I can think of is possibly the petrol has gone off, it's been in it since September. I'm going to try some fresh fuel next week fed straight into the carb but if that doesn't work I can't think of anything else!

There's a spark, the fuel filter fills up when cranking so it's got fuel, doesn't seem to be any air or vacuum leaks, tried cleaning the plugs and a second set, new coil, points seem ok, dizzy cap/ rotor arm are new and good, leads all good.
The plugs get very wet with fuel but I think it's only because it just won't fire as apposed to a flooding issue. When cranking it sometimes almost tries to fire but can never quite catch. The battery's gone flat now aswell from excessive cranking. I just don't know!
 
AmericanThunder said:
So now you have a servo full of brake fluid? Nice!
And you have to bleed the brakes through too, but at least you don't have an ABS pump in the way.
Click to expand...

Yes, the servo has brake fluid in it! The last time I got it running it puffed white smoke for a bit on start up! Cleared after a little bit though once it burned off. New one is on it's way but to be honest it's the least of my problems with this car at the moment.
 
You seem to have the requirements, so if the spark is at the right time it should fire. Check the distributor isn't loose and throwing the ignition timing out, and see if you can get a timng light on it. If that looks ok I'd question compression. Maybe it's time to do a compression test.
You seem to have covered the essentials!
 
73Mercury said:
Yes, the servo has brake fluid in it! The last time I got it running it puffed white smoke for a bit on start up! Cleared after a little bit though once it burned off. New one is on it's way but to be honest it's the least of my problems with this car at the moment.
Click to expand...

Pull the vacuum hose from the servo to the intake and plug it so you don't have a vacuum leak and so you aren't pulling brake fluid through. Re charge the battery and try again.
I don't know how combustible or compressible brake fluid is!!
 
It's a weird problem, when it did run last the idle was awful. It was a real job trying to keep it running, the throttle had no response at all. But as it warmed up the idle started to improve to the point it would run perfectly and rev cleanly for several minutes then randomly the bad running came back for a minute or so then it ran fine again!

The timing was checked and set late last year and nothing has moved, dizzy retaining bolt still tight. It can't be anything serious as it has run so well?
 
The brake reservoir is empty now, it was a big leak! I'll try blocking off the servo vac hose as you suggested.

If the fluid could leak out and into the servo vac system (and into the intake system) could I be losing vacuum pressure that way now the brake fluid is all gone? As now it will be able to suck air instead?
Could that be adding much more air to the engine and weakening the mixture?
 
73Mercury said:
The brake reservoir is empty now, it was a big leak! I'll try blocking off the servo vac hose as you suggested.

If the fluid could leak out and into the servo vac system (and into the intake system) could I be losing vacuum pressure that way now the brake fluid is all gone? As now it will be able to suck air instead?
Could that be adding much more air to the engine and weakening the mixture?
Click to expand...

Yes, it's possible. I doubt the resevoir cap is airtight.
Until you can fix the leak, just plug the line and see if the engine runs/starts.
 
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