Mark II – Engine woes

[philcoyle]

Re: Mark II – Engine woes

Well done, you could put some injector cleaner
Y

[PaulW]

Re: Mark II – Engine woes

Have been following this problem out of mechanical / electrical interest and can only congratulate Andy and Phil for their epic perseverance and knowledge - Brilliant !

[philcoyle]

Re: Mark II – Engine woes

Thanks

[cameronfurnival]

Re: Mark II – Engine woes

brilliant thread! Havent understood a word but brilliant!

[David]

Re: Mark II – Engine woes

brilliant thread! Havent understood a word but brilliant!

Me neither! Thank god for old Triumph engines... fuel, electricity, timing = bang.

[stevejgreen]

Re: Mark II – Engine woes

She’s alive! Wahoo!

But only just. I was adjusting the timing when I realised that one of the cylinders was firing. So the only possibility was that the injectors were jammed and one had decided to free itself. I played a heat gun on the others to encourage them into life. The engine now runs on 4 of 6. With luck the other cylinders will wake up when the engine warms up. I’m hoping if I don’t wait 14 years the injectors will still be working next time I try to start it.

Thanks to all for your help and encouragement.
Paul

Pleased you are on the way with a remedy.

As said earlier by someone, its probably worth removing the injectors and trying them, under pressure, off the car. It will also give you an idea if one of them is partially blocked or faulty with a visible spray pattern.

[philcoyle]

Re: Mark II – Engine woes

Steve
you cannot test a petrol injector like you could a diesel injector on this type of engine due to the fact that they sit in a common rail, and by removing an injector would leave a blooming big hole and fuel at 3 bar, plus no way of sending fuel through the loose injector. Does that make sense.

[milliemarlin]

Re: Mark II – Engine woes

Latest status:
1. I tidied up the garage, took the car off the build trolleys.
2. Fired up the engine and reversed outside onto my driveway.
3. Left it on tick over for about 10 mins.
4. The oil and paint on the exhaust manifold caused lots of smoke.
5. Held my breath and checked the timing. Looks to be about 13 degrees.
6. Cylinder 3 started to run on (5 cylinders running). Yippee!
7. Cylinder 3 manifold branch caused yet more smoke.
8. I kept topping up my “fuel” tank.
9. Cylinder 4 is still refusing to play.
10. After 15 mins I started to run out of fuel.
11. Switched of and let the smoke dissipate.
12. Drove back into the garage.
Apart from the uneven cylinders and the exhaust is not yet properly installed she sounded pretty good.

I need to connect up the coolant temperature sender and the cooling fan. Get some more petrol. Then run her up to normal temperature then check the timing. I am still hopeful that the sixth cylinder, number 4, will wake up like the other 5. This might have to wait a few days.

Thanks for the complements about this thread. By its very nature nobody fully understands it.
Paul

[milliemarlin]

Re: Mark II – Engine woes

One more question. Did anybody drive a Granada? Does it have an engine fault light?
Paul

[cameronfurnival]

Re: Mark II – Engine woes

[milliemarlin]

Re: Mark II – Engine woes

The continuing saga...
I had a chance to run the engine up to temperature earlier this week. My optimism that the last cylinder would spring into life was misplaced. Dag nam it.

So after some research I found that a screwdriver could be used as a sort of stethoscope and you can hear if the injector is working. Sure enough I could hear a metallic click on all injectors except number 4. A number of web sites suggest that tapping the injector with a screwdriver can free them up. I tapped it gently; nothing happened. I tapped a little harder then harder still. Eventually convinced myself that I could now hear the click but still no fuel was getting through.

Next I managed to disconnect the connector and checked that it was working using my trusty LED. Using a connector from my spare loom I hooked up the rotten injector and checked the resistance: 14.5 ohms – spot on. I also read that the injector can be tested using a 9v battery. Some sites suggest only activating the coil for less than half a second to avoid burning it out. Others believe that at 9V the coil will never burn it out. I did not have a battery but using a bench power supply I tried activating it with 9v pulses. Nothing doing; so I gradually wound the voltage up to 12V. Still no fuel was getting through.

I resigned myself to taking out the injectors. Drat and double drat! There are far too many backwards steps in making a car. My cunning plan to install the engine undisturbed is unravelling hideously.

The injectors are angled towards each other like skew nails so it was a pain to take apart. As always Haynes had no suggestions as to how to make it easier.

Having got the injectors out I made up a test rig. The rig allows me put a little petrol in a small reservoir and pressurise it using an old tyre valve and pump. Then using my trusty 9v supply I test fired them. By placing a clean sheet of paper under them I could check the spray pattern. 5 of them had had nice round patterns with number 5 having the widest and number 3 the narrowest.

I still had no joy with number 4. So I gradually increased the pressure from 3 to 5.5 bar (80 psi).

I pretty much decided that this patient was dead. With nothing to lose I decided to increase the voltage. Rather like one of those cardiac defibrillators on a medical drama. Shouting “clear”, I increased the voltage up to 20V. I made certain I was getting a good connection with a pulse of a couple of seconds; still no sign of life. I checked again the resistance which was still good. I guess the coils are more robust than people think.
It is at this point I decided the injector has been dead for too long and the only thing left is a post mortem and burial.
I have ordered up a replacement.

The picture shows an injector firing in the test rig.

[cameronfurnival]

Re: Mark II – Engine woes

ingenious! This thread is so interesting - sorry things arent working out well - but for us readers things are brilliant

[milliemarlin]

Re: Mark II – Engine woes

Engine woes are over!!!!!

At least for now.

The cheapest injectors I could find were a pair of new old stock on FleaBay. Slated to arrive Tuesday or Wednesday next week but surprised me by rocking up Saturday morning.
I gave them a quick test and they did seem to flow about the same amount of fuel as the best of the old ones. So I replaced the worst of the old ones with the new pair giving me one working spare. A slightly better picture showing the new injector firing is attached.

After reassembling the engine it fired up first time.

A couple of my neighbours were out enjoying some afternoon tea in the sunshine. I am always a bit conscious of the fact that DIY can be a bit noisy and annoying so I thought I better wait for them to finish. They must have caught me peeping at them and came over to check my progress. They were quite insistent that give the engine a good test so I backed the car out and gave them the low down on my project. This allowed it to warm up for half an hour or so.

At this point a lesser man might have backed the car out into our quiet close and had a little fun with it. But that would be illegal. I did manage to drive it up and down my short steep drive a few times and can report that the engine seems to be fine and has plenty of oomph.

A triumphant day but I could have done without all this rework.

Injectors seizing sometimes after just a few months seems to be quite a common problem. I mentioned that I used clean paper to check the spray pattern from the injectors. I am very surprised by the amount of residue left on the paper after the petrol has evaporated. A few years ago I had a lawn mower, which would not start, serviced. The mechanic blamed the lead substitute in modern fuels settling to the bottom of the tank. It seemed an unlikely cause. I have since heard it a few times since but put that down to it becoming an urban myth. This experience makes me wonder if there might be a problem with modern fuels. I think I might try to keep my tank fairly full when the car is going to stand for some time and be sure to fire it up at least once a month.

My thanks to all who contributed. Special thanks to Phil C who furthermore gave me lots of useful information behind the scenes.
Paul

[andyf]

Re: Mark II – Engine woes

Have you put some fuel cleaner through it yet, if not it might be worth it. Did it to my son's yaris and it made it rum a lot smoother.

[lil_red_roadster]

Re: Mark II – Engine woes

You can get injectors professionally cleaned.

http://www.asnu.com/centres.htm