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My 1984 Jaguar XJ12 decided a few years ago to splutter to a halt on a cold night. It wouldn't restart, though it seemed to be trying to. After getting it towed back home. I checked all the wiring and wiggled all the bits, and it started the next day. I checked all the relevant connections, and couldn't find anything wrong. Over the next few months it repeated the experience several times and I was fast running out of things to fix. The last time, it died just outside my house, so it was pushed into the garage. I decided to bring home all the good test gear the next day. The next day, without any action by me, it started. At this point I pulled the ECU and opened it for a good look. No dry joints, all looked good. I decided to replace the four electrolytic capacitors on spec, as I had fixed a few Japanese ECUs that the capacitors had died in. It has never failed since then, and I have repaired a number of these Lucas ECUs for other Jaguar owners, and some Land Rover ones too, by the same method. It costs almost nothing, and I wonder how many thousands of pounds work have been caused by these old capacitors. Over time, the liquid in them dries up, and this allows the internal voltages to be unstable. In contrast , the fault in the Japanese ECUs was mostly that the fluid had leaked out and dissolved parts of the circuit board.
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I had a Fiat Uno FIRE on a 'A' reg plate.It would start perfectly and run, but once the engine had warmed up it stalled and would not start again until it had cooled down.It turned out to be the fuel pump was heat sensitive.I traded it in as it was but the garage was 5 miles away.I had the heating system on hot and the air blowers on full(in the middle of summer).It stalled just as i pulled into the garage.I quickly locked it up and went in to the garage and did the deal and drove off in the new car.
I saw the salesman a few days later and he commented on how the car wouldn't start.I just smiled,knowing that i knew and was glad it was his problem now.Its nice to get one over on a car salesman.(They do it to you the other 99% of the time)
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1600E came to a halt with dead engine.
Eventually found the copper carb float had sunk. As a temp fix I used a needle drill to enable me to empty the petrol out and then I soldered it up so I could drive to the spares dept for a replacement.
I kept the float and experimented heating and cooling it but the petrol stayed it it for many years. Most odd.
!600E clutch "failed". It allowed drive but the release although it appeared to be OK was not disconnecting the drive. On advice from a M4 service centre "expert" we managed a carpark clutch fluid change to no effect.
We had to complete our trip to a family funeral and then home - 150 miles, fortunately mostly M4. It was a failed spigot bearing grabbing the gearbox shaft.
We had to undo the clutch bolts before the bell housing would split.
1600E loosing power. Stopped, switch off, waited and OK for a while.
I had paid for petrol and got some water in the tank. The rust from the tank eventually blocked the fuel line and even got past the filter into the carb.
Mondeo almost totally dead electrics when attempting to start it whilst on the drive.
No dash lights, no external lights but internal light working so battery seemed OK.
Happened very rarely and corrected itself.
At the time it was difficult to gather enough details as it always happened of course when a trip was wanted "now".
Studied Haynes and eventually found a big fuse had blown and the fuse link had fallen down and it was left touching the leg of the support. On first inspection it seemed OK but only a close look provided the answer.
I often wonder if the previous owner got rid of it as "unreliable"
I do not know which was the hardest to fix. The Mondeo was the most difficult to track because it was so infrequent and intermittent.
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As a contrast, a stunningley easy one to diagnose and fix at no cost.
Got turned out one nice day in the 80s by Britannia Rescue to a house call locally.
Took details down, Ford Escort Mk2, Red, Manual, Petrol....fault? ' Tries to jump sideways when I try to start it '.
Jumped in, saw it was l in gear with the handbrake hard on....into neutral, started fine.
Car could only react to the starter motor by trying to turn the opposite way....try it !
One embarrassed lady owner ! Mind you, if she hadn't put the brake on she would have ended up in her hall !
Ted
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a leg out of bed on the m62
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a leg out of bed on the m62
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LOL a long time since I last heard that expression.
Reminds me of the same 1600E one dark Fri evening 100 miles from home and unbeknown at that time a main bearing cap snapped.
IIRC A piston did not follow its proper path causing rings to go and a hole in the crown
Discovered an engine bay dripping in oil.
Only competition main caps available ( Caps come with the block Sir!)
Plus line bore, rebore etc.etc. so a Ford exchange engine was the only option at 25K miles.
Car was recoved by a flat bed truck and we travelled home sitting in the 1600E which was strapped onto of the flat bed.
How things have changed ! Can you imagine the elf n safety bods view of that?
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whenever i used to pull a car on the back i could never get in to these peoples minds that hawsers broke
then one day one did
thankfully no one was hurt
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My old citroen xsara HDi went 'dead' while undergoing a routine service. The car wouldn't start, and it couldn't be moved off the garage ramp for a couple of days, which caused a lot of problems for the garage.
Turned out after much head-scratching by the mechanics that an electrical connector on the fuel pump had been dislodged slightly, and wasn't making a proper connection.
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1968 - A friend rang up having just completed a a journey from Nottingham to London. The car ( a side valve engined 1172cc Ford 100E) is making a funny noise.
He brought it round and a quick listened pointed me in the direction of something knocking, bordering on terminal, from the top end of the block. He then admitted that he had driven over 100miles in that state.
Took the head off (about 20minutes in those days) and could not believe what we could see. 3 Pistons at the the top of their travel! Turning it over by hand revealed that one piston did not appear to move as the others behaved normally.
One piston had fully fractured around the gudgeon pin, and the knocking was the bottom half of the piston slapping around in the bore and hitting the remaining section at the top of its stroke.
Sump off and con rod out, new single piston fitted and car back on the road by the end of the day. It certainly lasted for quite some time , but could never be described as 'quiet and smooth running' thereafter.
p
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I have posted this before, but it fits well into this thread, and have good laugh at my expense!
1996 Fiesta Zetec 1.25cc 16v in 2004
The battery finally succumbed after another 2 months of non use.
Jump started ok but battery would not hold charge (8 years old so not complaining). Alarm became very confused to the irritation of neigbours and did not want to reset properly until I discovered that manually opening and closing the passenger door would reset it permanently! Trick worth remembering.
No problem , new battery, and now fires, starts and and ticks over at first touch. HOWEVER for the first 2 -3 minutes engine refuses to 'pickup' when any load is applied or acellarator is opened anything other than very slowly. It then runs and drives perfectly. Ambient temperature is not a problem 22 deg C down here today!
I first thought that ECU was retraining itself (after flat battery) but have now done about 50 miles and fault still reoccurs. Petrol is now all fresh. It is worse if car has not been used for more than about 60 minutes.
It does need servicing and plugs are 35k old (previously they were good for 50k) and has never exhibited any sign of misfire or similar problem in the 85k since new.
The problem persisted despite new plugs (just about due any way at 35k), search for sensor connector problems and vacuum leaks. And then problem started to manifest itself as intermittent loss of power at about 3500 rpm in 5th causing loss of about 10mph, which could be cleared by dropping a gear temporarily and then changing back. No problems in round town driving after the 4 -5 minute warm up period.
ECU diagnostics showed no error codes. But the mpg had apparently dropped from a normal 44 mpg.
Open Air filter box and find that some animal had made a nest incorporating large non degradeable eucalyptus leaves and bits of air filter in bottom of box and air inlet piping. No sign of animal tho' but probably frightened off by mechanical activity. Presumably the intermittent nature was due to animal adjusting its position for added or less warmth as car warmed up. New filter and all cleaned out and ran almost perfectly. A small hesitancy continued to exist, but this was solved with a replacement MAF.
I should have included in the original post that car had been unused for about 6 weeks before the problem occurred, and somebody would probably suggested it. The flat battery (and ECU power down) and battery replacement was just a red herring!
p
Edited by pmh2 on 24/05/2009 at 10:22
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Trouble
1) Hole in piston - Honda C90 - in 1966, near Bridlington (only time stranded to date!)
All the following are roadside fixes
2)Zenner diode - lead vibrated off - fixed - Triumph Twin (of course) (1967)
3) Bond mini car - chain leaping worn sprockets (fixed 200 times) or was it 500?
4)Bond 875 - throttle cable snapped - fixed
5)Old Mans Victor 101 - distributor lead - soldered at roadside. Fixed
6) Mini - electrics gone - cleaned an earth - fixed
7) Bedford CF - throttle cable - extended with string. fixed.
7) Fiesta 1982 - clutch assembly collapse- drove without clutch. then fixed
8)Maestro 1994 - clutch cable - fitted spare. (thus vindicating years of carrying a spare)
Wow! I hadn`t realised it but nothing since - although I carry a spare clutch slave cylinder, wiper linkage, spare (old) alternator belt and Genden code reader. But no tools - just an AA card.
And a full size spare ;-)
Nearest miss? Maestro Clubman D spewing diesel over the engine bay (leaking lift pump diaphragm) and exhaust in a cloud of stinking fumes - Sheffield to Leeds in 1995. VERY near miss that.
Fitted a new pump and also carried a spare from then on - never needed.
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Had a SIII Landie with the 2.25 petrol quite a few years ago that although never breaking down completely threw up a problem on just about every long run I used it for - after 50 - 70 miles at motorway speeds the engine would lose power and start misfiring intermittently, no overheating or oil loss, or obvious electrical fault. Slowing down to 50 for a few miles or stopping for 10 minutes invariably cleared the problem, so I never had it looked at properly. I did all the usual replacements and checks - it had a new Weber carb, all the engine electrics replaced, fuel filter changed, air filter cleaned, and the oil was changed regularly.
Still a mystery - the Landie was still doing it when I sold it (buyer was a friend who knew about the problem).
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^^ sounds like carb icing
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Another tricky one we had was a Volvo 164E with the then new-fangled fuel injection.
The car would either run correctly or stop due to lack of fuel.
Quite a few people in the garage were keen to blame the injectors or injector pump.
Turned out to be a relay bolted to a slowly rusting inner wing.
The relay depended on its mounting for its earth and the fuel injection system depended on the relay.
Problem solved by resiting said relay onto a bit of the wing that was not rusting.
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^^ sounds like carb icing
I agree. Quite common in the days when you could point the air intake to the front of the car (summer) or down to the exhaust (to get warm air in winter).
I remember a 2-year old Orion which had exactly the same symptoms. Main dealer maintained that it couldn't be icing as the car didn't have one of those adjustable air intakes. After a little detective work I realised that the car chose where the air came from via a little servo. The servo had failed.
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>>> Another tricky one we had was a Volvo 164E with the then new-fangled fuel injection. <<<
Wonderful car - bet it was an auto!
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to Ash t
i reckon it had a foreign body in the fuel tank being sucked up over the fuel pickup pipe under certain conditions
had this on a mk 3 fiesta a few years ago,took days to fathom out (it was a plastic sheet small but big enough to cause mayhem)
Edited by bell boy on 25/05/2009 at 11:33
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^^ sounds like carb icing
>>i reckon it had a foreign body in the fuel tank
Could be either I suppose - the guy I sold it to only used it for running around locally and the problem never recurred as far as I know. Could carb icing happen in Summer though? It was a year round problem.
I've always wondered what the cause was, and regretted selling the Landie..
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