EWP Guidance/Information

[ChasR]

Right, I may have bought (by accident, honest!) another Triumph in the form of the Sprint variety.



Surprisingly it comes with a number of goodies but also on the other hand a number of glitches too!

One of the extra items it comes with is an electrical water pump of the Davies Craig variety, although at the moment it is overcooling the car with the controller suggesting an error, although after further inspection I am pretty sure I know what the cause is.

My questions to you chaps are how hot are yours set to run on the Stag?

Second question is which ignition source do you use for the green wire? At the moment mine is disconnected, and I was planning on the ignition switch unless you chaps have other ideas .

Third is what is the purpose of the brass bung that is inserted? To keep the oil from mixing with the water or is it a restrictive device of sorts that is necessary?

Forth is do any of you use a thermostat or do you let the pump take control of the temperature of the car's running?

Still, it will be good when it's working well once more.

[KOY 23]

Hi Chas.

Looks a great choice, if only I had the room.......

Re the EWP.

1) I set mine at 85 degrees, I assume you have the electronic controller. ( I have an 88 degree stat).

2) can't remember but your choice sounds good. Disconnected wire may be cause of error mode.

3) Bung keeps oil and water separate.

4) I kept the stat.

I'm not sure of plumbing on the sprint but on the Stag the bypass and heater return feed into the suction side of the original pump. Moving the pump means you either have to move them to the suction side of the EWP or fit a small pump in the heater circuit. I initially had the pump and then replumbed.

Sounds like the system has gone into error mode and is running the pump at full speed continuously. I would connect the green wire and look at the temp sensor and connections. There is a fault finding guide on the website. Sorry did mine some years ago and can't remember the detail.

Good luck.

John.

[ChasR]

Excellent stuff to go on John, cheers .

I believe what has happened is that the controller is not getting a good enough supply of current (most likely down to it being wired incorrectly) and hence has failed into a full flow mode. It does indeed have the fan/pump controller built into it.

The Dolly chaps seem to have many different ways of putting the pump in. A number of people say to discard the 'stat and restrict the flow of water in the bypass hose, others of course conflict with this.

[flying farmer]

I had one on a Sprint engine, left the 'stat in place but with a one eigth hole drilled in it to allow water circulation as I completely blocked the bypass and that only left the heater to act as recirculation, obviously when the heater is off there would be no circulation on a cold engine.
Heater return has to be to the suction side of the pump
I only had the pump fitted with no controller, I reduced the speed of the pump using an ignition balast resistor as fitted to the MK1 Stag. This set up is currently fitted to the Stag engined TR after its pump started leaking.
I intended to fit a link to the cooling fan so the pump gets full voltage when the cooling fan is switched on, but have not got round to it in the three years since I fitted it, maybe this year!
Neil

[ChasR]

I may have to consider that option depending on how things pan out Neil regarding the use of a ballast resistor and 'stat!

ATM the issue it has is that it is displaying a low voltage error on the controller (Power light is flashing as is the 75 degree light) in addition to the remote LED being permanently illuminated (it is only meant to flash according to the DC literature). Since the test light is illuminated the pump is pumping at full power with pretty obvious results (the engine does not really warm up!).

It has the newer EWP & Fan controller (Part no. 8020) controlling the water pump although no electric fan is installed (it is still on the viscous coupling fan). I doubt that would trigger it, but considering it has 12.4V at the controller before the test mode (i.e full power to the pump) is engaged it is perplexing me (the car has around 13.6V straight after being started with it settling down to 14.1V, well within the workable parameters of the pump).

Whilst it may seem like I am despairing it did get me back from Fleet without a hitch in addition to driving quite well (although the brakes etc. do seem to have been rebuilt not so long ago).

[ChasR]

I thought I would update what was occurring with the Sprint and the EWP woes.

After working through the wiring and removing one too many bullet connectors in the EWP loom the temperature sensor was checked as were the voltage values once more. Talking to a number of suppliers it seemed that only 3 wires would be responsible for bringing on the low voltage error (the positive, ignition feed and ground wire).

I then decided to take a gamble after seeing the rest of the setup was fine (As Sherlock Holmes once said 'Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth') and ordered a new controller (despite being told that it is very rare of them to fail).

Upon plugging the new item in (on the now more solid loom) it was great not to be greeted by an array of amber lights and flashing error lights! For the first time the car has gone to operating temperature . It is set to 85 degrees (the target temperature at which the pump goes to maximum output) although it has not yet gone into it (75-80 degrees is where it seems to sit). I guess the combination of a new radiator and viscous coupling (maybe an electric fan run off the Davies Craig controller would be a better setup) probably help in keeping it cool.

KOY23, the Dolly owners do things a little differently to the Stag owners but quite a bit of it is the same (They do face the same problems however). The bypass pipe is restricted to almost a pinhole, and for those who are not happy with heater output they fit one of DC's booster pumps into the water circuitry.

Still, it is a cracking car. Not quite the same charms of the Stag I admit but it does have a few of its own .

[flying farmer]

The Davies Craig controller fitted to my V8 Toledo seems to have lost its ability to work the electric fan, which is a shame, no output to the fan relay, but since it was a second hand ebay cheapy I suppose I can't complain too much
The effort of switching the fan on manualy is much less than emptying my wallet for a new controller!
Neil

[ChasR]

You're not kidding! Whilst the controller was cheaper than an entire new Davies Craig EWP kit without the bung and restricted Bypass pipe, it still did empty my wallet of £130 worth of notes!

I think water was the cause of this controller malfunctioning (a water leak at the front), and it was odd that the MOT I took it in for it failed on the same point as last year on the indicators (relay was duff, which was in close proximity to the controller (The controller was situated on the parcel shelf (front)). Now that the leak is sorted I have moved the controller to a place where it should not get wet again .

I did attempt to dry out the original controller (it was fine inside from a brief and vague looksy inside) but I guess one of the input stages/chips went awry.