Information Project Y (Cobalt Blue 1.4 Petrol)

sciroccorrado

sciroccorrado

A2OC Donor
Afternoon folks, just thought I would start a thread for my latest rescue project.



Bought as a "just about" runner, this is specced as below:

1.4 Petrol
Cobalt Blue
Air Con
88k Miles
Blue cloth seats (in need of a clean)
Paintwork is generally very good, apart from usual stone chippings on the front panel, which were highlighted when I polished the car.

Main issue seems to be a refusal run for any length of time without going into limp mode, and mis-firing on Cylinder 2.

I'll be looking into it.

Once fixed, it will probably be up for sale as I really can't justify three on the drive, but it's waaay too nice to break.
 
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Specifications:

1.4l Petrol Engine
SE Spec
Black Leather Interior
Full Air-Conditioning
Concert Stereo
Cobalt Blue
88k Miles
Cambelt changed @ 72k Miles
 
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First update from Saturday just gone, it passed it's first MOT with flying colours (just a light bulb and new wiper needed), so treated the car to a polish. Unfortunately, this highlighted the motorway scarring on the bonnet.
 
If you are still chasing the limp mode, I spent hours with a 1.4 petrol AUA engine a few months ago chasing a misfire. I changed every sensor on the engine, changed the injector and still did not fix the limp mode

I finally changed two things at the same time, the last sensor the knock sensor located at the back of the engine a ****** to get too AND the plug leads
After this the car started from cold (which it had always done) and then ran perfectly. previously it had had started to miss fire as it warmed up (about 2 mins from cold)

It appears that the ECU monitors the mis fires and once they get to a critical level the ECU cuts the fuel to that cylinders injector to prevent damage to the CAT. This makes diagnosis of the misfire rather difficult

On very close examination of the plug leads I found a very minor hole in the rubber about 2" from the end, I think this was allowing the spark to track to earth and therefore causing the misfire, but it could have equally been a faulty knock sensor (but I have been advised by numerous technicians that the knock sensor NEVER fails.
I fitted some heat shrink sleeving around the damaged plug lead and then refitted these plug leads to the car and it ran perfectly afterwards, but I did not re fit the original knock sensor as that is a big job

Hope some of this info may help you as is took me weeks on and off to get to position were the car ran correctly

Cheers,
Paul
 
Thanks all, especially Paul for the advice, I'll be looking at it over the weekend. Having recharged the battery for a few days I had started it up and it runs fine for a good hour or so. It has just had new plugs and leads, so I'm thinking they might be fine. I was also going to check the earthing strap, and maybe get the battery checked out. From the description given by the original vendor it is increasingly becoming obvious that it is the intermittent nature of the problem that causes the effective shutdown of a cylinder.
 
Update for today. Gave that car a bit more love today. Cleaned up the earthing strap, which was a bit rusty, but possibly not too bad. Unlikely to have been the FULL cause of the problem. However, whilst doing this we noticed that the four bolts that hold the coil packs to the block were VERY loose. On investigation it looks like whoever earlier re-fitted the pack to the block used the wrong bits and had rounded the inside of the splines, managed to get these sorted out with a judicious use of a clamp and firmly tightened these. I've now run the car for over two hours and had no misfires recorded on the VCDS, so fingers crossed a number of factors seem to have been causing it, and we've now fixed it.

Whilst I had the bonnet off I touched up some of the pitting on there caused presumably by road grit. I noticed somebody had been there before me, but this is only really obvious when the car has been just polished. Might look out for a clean Cobalt Blue bonnet if anybody's got one spare somewhere.

In other news, nipping out to see Ross later on for the leather interior for the car.

It's now throwing it down with rain, so I can't put up any pics yet.
 
Todays work included taking the blue cloth out, giving the inside a good hoover, fitting the black SE leather and checking the battery.

The car was starting to show signs of misfiring again, so I had a friend pop over with a proper battery tester. This proved the decisive factor, it immediately came up with "Replace battery" - failing to charge. I'll get this sorted over the next couple of days. Out of interest, anybody got any recommendations on this (brands etc?)

Photos of the interior to come later, as by the time I'd finished it was too dark to take any decent photos.
 
Looking good, think the mrs might notice if I pinch her leather, guess I'll need to find my own. Which battery did you go for, needing one too.
 
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