rewiring a 1997 escort sillouette

jan03

I bought a 1997 escort sillouette last week from a road side seller ( silly I know now!!). which on the outside looks mint for its year, taxed till april, mot till may, with 76000- odd on the clock and 1 previous lady owner on he papers( seller hadn't registered it himself) took it for a test drive of around 10mins and everything was great so bought it for £460 ( he was asking £495).
Drove it for around half hour that day and half hour next day no probs till steam started coming out the water tank, took it to a garage and turns out the wiring to the fan had been bypassed when someone had done some work to the car so the fan didn't kick in when it should have done.
The garage says that the car needs re-wiring, does anyone have a rough guess of how much that would cost me or even if it is worth doing on an old car???
I have recieved the papers for the car, would i be best scrapping it or selling as spares or repairs?

p.s, as you can guess the seller cannot be contacted, prob used a number just for that car that he binned straight away and no other contact details for him!!:mad::mad::mad:

michaelvintner

What garage did you take it to, why exactly does it need rewiring. Why would somone bypass the fan. If the lights and all the other electrics work and it doesn't keep blowing fuses then what is wrong with the wiring.

Just a few questions to ask yourself. Take it to another garage and see what they say.

jan03

Thanks micheal, as you can prob tell i'm a complete novice at cars, the lights work but there are a few electrics that are dodgy such as the back windscreen de-mister light stays on constantly and the side lights switch stays on.
Someone i know tried to combat the fan problem by conecting the fan to a switch inside the car so that i could manually switch it on and off myself but this over-heated and the switch broke even though it was a heavy duty one.

hartcjhart

sounds like there is a short circuit somewhere probably in the fan motor,if you know a local auto electrician ask them to have a quick look,but as you say it will probably not worth the cost,maybe best to out it on ebay(declare the faults)and buy something else

jan03

Thanks hartcjhart, I feel so stupid for even buyn it in the first place, can't believe there are people out there who knowing rip other people of, especially at this time of the year, but i suppose it's at least taught me a lesson not to jump in head first next time!
I think I am just going to do as you say( and of course declare the faults), gonna make a massive lose but at least I'll be shut of it.
I've got a 1997 citreon saxo to use in the meantime( bought it to learn in and pass my test, which i did successfully) but thats knackered as well, needs a new alternater( or just the casing) as it's letting damp into it causing the spark to fail. Been using a quick Wd40 spray on it the last few times it's happened but won't work now, grrrrrrrr!!!!

hartcjhart

are you sure it's the alternator or do you mean the distributor

goldspanners

jan03 wrote: »

I've got a 1997 citreon saxo to use in the meantime( bought it to learn in and pass my test, which i did successfully) but thats knackered as well, needs a new alternater( or just the casing) as it's letting damp into it causing the spark to fail. Been using a quick Wd40 spray on it the last few times it's happened but won't work now, grrrrrrrr!!!!

sounds like the coil pack. you can buy these for a tenner on ebay.used ones anyway.

acerazor1

jan03 wrote: »

I bought a 1997 escort sillouette last week from a road side seller ( silly I know now!!). which on the outside looks mint for its year, taxed till april, mot till may, with 76000- odd on the clock and 1 previous lady owner on he papers( seller hadn't registered it himself) took it for a test drive of around 10mins and everything was great so bought it for £460 ( he was asking £495).
Drove it for around half hour that day and half hour next day no probs till steam started coming out the water tank, took it to a garage and turns out the wiring to the fan had been bypassed when someone had done some work to the car so the fan didn't kick in when it should have done.
The garage says that the car needs re-wiring, does anyone have a rough guess of how much that would cost me or even if it is worth doing on an old car???
I have recieved the papers for the car, would i be best scrapping it or selling as spares or repairs?

p.s, as you can guess the seller cannot be contacted, prob used a number just for that car that he binned straight away and no other contact details for him!!:mad::mad::mad:

I bypassed my own cooling fan and made a switch because the water pump cutt out and i needed something to try and cool my engine.
It got me home so i can see why this may have been done... it depends how it has been done as to the price though, are there any wires going into the fan itself?

jan03

hartcjhart wrote: »

are you sure it's the alternator or do you mean the distributor

Lol, thats prob what it is, as I said I'm a complete novice. It won't start as the spark seems to be escaping before it can start the engine.

jan03

goldspanners wrote: »

sounds like the coil pack. you can buy these for a tenner on ebay.used ones anyway.

Thanks, I'm gonna book it into the garage and get it seeing to, the car int the best looking in the world but will have to be used for the time being until I save for another( this time I won't be buying from a road side advertiser either).

jan03

acerazor1 wrote: »

I bypassed my own cooling fan and made a switch because the water pump cutt out and i needed something to try and cool my engine.
It got me home so i can see why this may have been done... it depends how it has been done as to the price though, are there any wires going into the fan itself?

I'm really not sure how it's been done or if there was any wires connected to the fan before my friend did the manual switch on it, the fan works but only when the wires are touched together which isn't a long term option is it.
I've put it on ebay now, stating the problem so hopefully someone who knows how to fix it will buy it, even though it means I'm making a lose on what I paid for it.