Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Kam’s Column - 15/04/03
Hello again!
It’s Dr Raj here with you for this week – Dr Kev was last seen going out to a Datsun in distress and I haven’t seen him since! In fact I am surprised that I’ve seen him at all, we’ve been that busy.Of course, this week’s news has been dominated by the end-stage of the war. Well, I hope it is the end stage as it really is time that it all got wrapped up. In the midst of all the battles, bullets and bravado there was one cause for amusement – the Iraqi Information Agency. Apparently, they believed all of the news that their front line generals were sending back to their HQ.
‘Yes Minister, the Americans are being driven back.’ ‘Yes Minister, the Americans are shooting themselves at the gates of our great city.’ I would love to have seen the look on the Information Minister’s face when the coalition forces started to roll through Baghdad and he realised that he’d been duped – a shock of the rudest sort. It was actually a very clever move by the Iraqi generals; had they surrendered they would have been seen as traitors, but by sabotaging the intelligence in this manner, they assisted the coalition forces while still remaining true to their troops. Well, that is my view anyway…
Back to Heanor and this week’s tale of head scratching mechanics. Mr Fowler (name changed to protect his identity) brought his Escort in to the workshop on Monday morning, after having spent the weekend trailing around tuning shops. The problem sounded simple enough – the Escort was running (or should that be stumbling) like an obese three legged Dachshund. I rubbed my hands in glee once I’d put the phone down – something straight forward after a week of pure problem cars.
When the Escort arrived, I could see that it wasn’t going to be that simple. Whereas I had optimistically hoped for a 1996 1.4, Mr Fowler had an RS Turbo. But not just any RS Turbo – oh no. This one sat a full three inches nearer the floor than you’d expect and had been severely modified. He’d done everything possible to make this RS fly, and it was rewarding him with poor running, lethargic acceleration and a frightening array of pops and bangs.
“I had the timing belt done about five weeks ago, Raj” he said, “the car was in for a few more modifications so I thought that it would be a good idea.” At least this wasn’t going to turn into a belt story.
Mr Fowler then went on to list all of the modifications that he had carried out on the car (which took quite some time and a few pages of my notepad), complete with dates and even some costs! Once I’d built up the case history, I dispatched him in one of our fine courtesy cars and rolled my sleeves up in preparation.
Obviously the first thing to do was to hook it up to our superb new diagnostic computer and have a look at the resulting engine data. One problem became immediately apparent – the RS was having difficulties breathing. Plus it looked like it was over fuelling and the timing was slightly out as well!
The air flow was sorted out in a few moments. Basically, the sensor inside the air can had been squashed behind the new high-flow filter that Mr Fowler had put in. he had mentioned the new filter to me, and that the problems seemed to start when he installed it – but they didn’t go away when he put the original filter back in. This was because, while putting the new filter in, he had managed to detach one of the wires that fed into the sensor. Two minutes with a soldering iron and all was hunky dory.
Then onto the over fuelling. The uprated fuel pump was pushing the go-juice through at an astonishing rate – but no more than you would have expected from that particular unit. The injectors were oversized items and appeared to be working fine, letting fuel through in the proscribed amounts for the application. After checking everything I could think of, I was stumped – everything was working perfectly. Time to move onto the timing – and all that required was readjustment and the tightening of a few bolts. Once this was done, the Escort purred as it sat in the workshop; no more pops or bangs.
So, back to the over fuelling and a nice hot tea amazingly provided the answer in a blinding flash. Have you ever noticed that a stationary mug doesn’t seem to steam as much as when you’re walking around with it? Well, the principle is sort of the same with fuel injectors – they behave differently at idle to how they do under high load when you’re moving. Hooking the RS back up to the computer, I gradually increased the revs to a figure well above idle – and the problem was suddenly self evident. Injector number three was being held open for longer than needed – and that was courtesy of a tiny piece of corroded wire connecting it to the ECU not letting the signal through properly! No wonder it was over fuelling and running so poorly!
Once I’d given the car a thorough road test, I called Mr Fowler to say that it was ready. You should have seen the look on his face when he returned from a trip around the block – “She’s not been that sparky in ages Raj – thanks!” He beamed broadly like a kid in the candy store.
It just goes to show that sometimes, a tiny little piece of wire nestling under the air intakes can cause plenty of expensive looking problems that can’t be tuned away!
Until next week, when Dr Kev may have returned from his Datsun rescue,
Dr Raj
