Dying engine

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Dying engine

Postby benofbrum » Fri Oct 21, 2016 10:31 pm

A problem which has manifested itself the last 2 times I have used the Midas, usually occuring on a light throttle. Driving along and the engine will suddenly die, without an warning. No spluttering or missing. The engine would turn over fine, but no sign of life. The first time, I was about a mile from home, so walked home, rang the breakdown service from there, was told 11/4 hours, so had a cuppa before walking back. Still dead, so I took out all of the fuses and the 4 main fuses. Tried again and away it went, so quickly drove home and cancelled the breakdown callout. Went back out to the car and would not start, though it was fine the next morning.
That was about 3 weeks ago during which time I have acquired a Mk 1 so this evening was the first time I have used the Excelsior since, though I did check all connections to the ignition side and found nothing amiss. About 9 miles from home , it again suddenly died and no sign of life when turning over. When the breakdown truck arrived, after about an hour, it fired up immediately and continued to tick over. He was all for signing off the job and leaving, but I insisted he follow me home. It died again within a mile, so he loaded me onto the truck. At home, it still would not start, so we pushed it onto the drive. I went out a short time ago and it fired up immediately.
On both occasions, the first thing I did was to remove the filler cap, in case the vent was blocked. There was no hissing when I did that.
The car has the 1.4 8 valve engine with carb and no cat. The donor was a 1990 Metro Si
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Re: Dying engine

Postby Hans Efde » Sat Oct 22, 2016 7:51 am

benofbrum wrote:A problem which has manifested itself the last 2 times I have used the Midas, usually occuring on a light throttle. Driving along and the engine will suddenly die, without an warning. No spluttering or missing. The engine would turn over fine, but no sign of life. The first time, I was about a mile from home, so walked home, rang the breakdown service from there, was told 11/4 hours, so had a cuppa before walking back. Still dead, so I took out all of the fuses and the 4 main fuses. Tried again and away it went, so quickly drove home and cancelled the breakdown callout. Went back out to the car and would not start, though it was fine the next morning.
That was about 3 weeks ago during which time I have acquired a Mk 1 so this evening was the first time I have used the Excelsior since, though I did check all connections to the ignition side and found nothing amiss. About 9 miles from home , it again suddenly died and no sign of life when turning over. When the breakdown truck arrived, after about an hour, it fired up immediately and continued to tick over. He was all for signing off the job and leaving, but I insisted he follow me home. It died again within a mile, so he loaded me onto the truck. At home, it still would not start, so we pushed it onto the drive. I went out a short time ago and it fired up immediately.
On both occasions, the first thing I did was to remove the filler cap, in case the vent was blocked. There was no hissing when I did that.
The car has the 1.4 8 valve engine with carb and no cat. The donor was a 1990 Metro Si


I have owned a Rover 214SI. I had starting problems as well. Without warning and then it would start again. Eventually I replaced the TDC sensor and it cured the problem. If you have the same electronics (ECU ignition) you could try this one. The ECU can not be read out, so it was a bit of shotgun trouble shooting.
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Re: Dying engine

Postby fozzza » Sat Oct 22, 2016 11:27 am

Hans Efde wrote:
benofbrum wrote:A problem which has manifested itself the last 2 times I have used the Midas, usually occuring on a light throttle. Driving along and the engine will suddenly die, without an warning. No spluttering or missing. The engine would turn over fine, but no sign of life. The first time, I was about a mile from home, so walked home, rang the breakdown service from there, was told 11/4 hours, so had a cuppa before walking back. Still dead, so I took out all of the fuses and the 4 main fuses. Tried again and away it went, so quickly drove home and cancelled the breakdown callout. Went back out to the car and would not start, though it was fine the next morning.
That was about 3 weeks ago during which time I have acquired a Mk 1 so this evening was the first time I have used the Excelsior since, though I did check all connections to the ignition side and found nothing amiss. About 9 miles from home , it again suddenly died and no sign of life when turning over. When the breakdown truck arrived, after about an hour, it fired up immediately and continued to tick over. He was all for signing off the job and leaving, but I insisted he follow me home. It died again within a mile, so he loaded me onto the truck. At home, it still would not start, so we pushed it onto the drive. I went out a short time ago and it fired up immediately.
On both occasions, the first thing I did was to remove the filler cap, in case the vent was blocked. There was no hissing when I did that.
The car has the 1.4 8 valve engine with carb and no cat. The donor was a 1990 Metro Si


I have owned a Rover 214SI. I had starting problems as well. Without warning and then it would start again. Eventually I replaced the TDC sensor and it cured the problem. If you have the same electronics (ECU ignition) you could try this one. The ECU can not be read out, so it was a bit of shotgun trouble shooting.


That is virtually the same as what happened to my sons Vauxhall Corsa some months ago, It would cut out for no reason and was difficult to start again and that ended up being an engine sensor.
Roy
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Re: Dying engine

Postby Hans Efde » Sat Oct 22, 2016 11:50 am

I have a nice story about this. On our Rover we discovered that if we shook the wiring to the Mems computer a bit somehow the car would start again. No idea how that was possible, but it did. I had taught my (blonde) wife to do this in the event of the car not starting. So one day it didn't start again, while roadworkers were working in the vincinity. So they leaned on their tools watching how my wife popped the bonnet, shook the wiring, started the car, closed the bonnet again and drove off. She told me the roadworkers were in complete shock and awe witnessing this! Ha ha.
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Re: Dying engine

Postby benofbrum » Sat Oct 22, 2016 11:51 am

Thanks guys. The early carb engine does not have an ECU, so electronics seem to be ruled out. I went to the garage I sometimes use for work on it, he specialises in Minis and preparing Rover 200's for competition, and his thought was that the coil overheating was the most likely culprit, since the car works normally again after having had a chance to cool down again. The breakdown guy also thought that the coil might be the problem. The amplifier on the side of the distributor was another possibility, though these tend to stay failed once failed. I have bought a new coil to put on
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Re: Dying engine

Postby benofbrum » Sun Oct 23, 2016 12:02 am

Fitted the coil and then ran the engine for over an hour at 1500-2000rpm without a problem. The one that came off was pretty rusty. Hopefully the car is now OK to go down to Shepton Mallet for the Classic Show, but will give it a good workout on the road first.
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Re: Dying engine

Postby Jin » Mon Oct 24, 2016 7:19 am

Hopefully you've sorted it, but if it does happen again swap the fusebox, when I had problems and did some research, the fusebox is the cause of many an issue.
https://easywider.co.uk/ universal flexible wheel arch extensions
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Re: Dying engine

Postby benofbrum » Wed Oct 26, 2016 6:28 pm

Just given the Midas a 60 mile workout, some of it at rather high speed. Sweet as a nut, apart from wind noise around the hood. A project for another day. (week? month?)
Next project is to sort the lack of fuel level indication in the Mark1
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Re: Dying engine

Postby benofbrum » Sat Nov 05, 2016 10:05 pm

Damn things done it again en route to the Classic car show at Bath and West showground. It died just before J22 of the M5. I pulled onto the hard shoulder and coasted. When I was down to about 40 mph I tried the starter and away it went only to die again about 10 miles later within sight of J23. The breakdown mechanic checked the ignition circuit. There was power going into the coil, but nothing coming out. When I bought this replacement coil about 2 weeks ago, I was told I needed a 9V coil for a ballasted ignition circuit.
What I took to be a ballast resistor, must in fact be the resistor for the dim-dip headlight circuit.
However, looking through the various Haynes manuals, there is no mention of ballast resistors in K series circuit diagrams and for the A series, they are only mentioned up to 1985.
So I think the original coil died of old age, probably from the 1990 donor and I have cooked the new one by putting 1/3 too many volts through it. That equates to almost doubling the power through the coil.
However, Haynes gives detailed instructions for checking coil resistances and the pre-amplifier outputs, so bit of detective work with the multimeter tomorrow.
Sorry guys for not getting the car on the stand.
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Re: Dying engine

Postby benofbrum » Wed Dec 20, 2017 12:51 pm

A new 12 volt coil and amplifier sorted the problem and the car has been fine since, except that if it has not been used for 2 or 3 weeks it is reluctant to start, churning over for some time or giving a cough of life just as I release the key. At the Classic Car Show at the NEC I was talking to the guys on the coil specialist stand, is it Performance Power or similar, and they suggested I had again been given the wrong coil.
Apparently for an electronic ignition system the coil impedance is around 1.5 ohms, whereas for a points system it is around twice that.
I have just started the car after 2 weeks, including several days under a blanket of snow, and it fired up instantly.
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