1990 3.9 - one step forward and two steps back

Hi all,

This afternoon I fitted a secondary battery to my Classic. Well I bought it and put it in, opp where the main battery lives. This involved moving some little round vacuum resevoir thing (not sure what this is for?), taking the "trumpet" of the front of the air filter, so it is just running straight to the filter, and moving the power steering pump, which is currently cable tied in place but I will make a bracket for it. The battery is not connected yet though.

Took it to the shops, a 5 mins drive, and as I was coming back up the hill to my aunts house I floored it (engine sounds quite throaty without the trumpet on! ) and it got to about 4000 rpm then cut out.

Now it has occasionally cut out on me before, usually when braking or on rough tracks. In the past it has always fired straight back up again so I hadnt got round to looking into the problem. This time, it wouldnt restart. So I popped the bonnet and had a look, thinking that I must have accidently knocked a wire off or something.

Had a tinker, couldnt see anything obvious and it restarted. Drove for about 10 secs and it cut out again. Managed to get her going, and she died. This went on for a few mins, and I manged to limp back.

Now I couldnt see anything wrong, but it was idling rough, sometimes it would randomly rev up to 2000 odd then back down to 500.. then stall. Also I disconnected the plug off the side of the air flow meter, and aside from a momentary shudder it didnt seem to have much effect, I had expected it would cause the engine to die?? I had a look here Range Rover Remedies and followed some of the remedies described for stalling etc. Checked all the connections to coil, dizzy. Took off and cleaned (with WD40, it was all I had ) the idle air bypass valve. The flame trap that screws into the top of the left hand side rocker cover was loose, so I tightened it up.

Anyway I started it up, and it seemed to be idling fine. Went inside for 15 mins or so and came back out and It was still running fine. So I took it for a test 5 mins round the block, no probs at all, if anything running better than before!!

So any ideas what the problem might be, might I have fixed it or is that optimistic thinking

Chris

did you see my post titled the almost thesame as yours? get stuart down he can plug in the fault reader for it and find out.

My guess would be maybe the amp as they can get to hot but then when they cool they work again.

or the airflow meter as I have heard that can cause the up and down revving.

fett said:

did you see my post titled the almost thesame as yours? get stuart down he can plug in the fault reader for it and find out.

My guess would be maybe the amp as they can get to hot but then when they cool they work again.

or the airflow meter as I have heard that can cause the up and down revving.

Click to expand...

mmm, dont think Stuart will go to Melbourne somehow mate :doh:

lol, my other comments still stand you old fart

well it broke down again! was goin down a biiiiig winding mountain hill, and noticed the steering getting heavy, tried accelerating and it was lagging, not really pulling. Then saw the dreaded ign, lights on the dash telling me it had stalled

this time though i couldnt get it going again, rang the RACV (luckily I signed up to breakdown cover last week when it was playing up!) , they came out. Had a look and the man said the coil was working fine, but it wasnt sparking past the dizzy so he reckoned it was either the distributor or the module thingy on the side. Im guessing if it is either of these it would be fairly cheap on labour to fix, but maybe parts would be a bit dearer?

Anyway they recovered it back theyre garage and theyre looking on it now. Meanwhile im on the train home with a huge backpack, daypack, shoes, laptop and binliner with sleeping bag and pillow in it. Its easy to take for granted when you can just chuck ur **** in the back of the car!

plus to top it off, the ticket machine was broken at the station so i jumped on the train without a ticket .

when the lady came along i explained the machine was broken, and she (clearly not beleving me) was like "its a computer" well i know but the ****ing computer was broken!!! "oh well there are 2" yep but im ****ed if im walking around the station looking for another machine carrying all these bags. its ur bad for having a faulty machine (sorry computer) anyway she sold me a ticket but clearly didnt beleive me , not that i can blame her i guess people prob do often try it on. But its just another thing to wind me up on what is clearly a ****e day!

Dont try thumbing a lift from any utes, that could REALLY **** yu up .

haha.

well this is a good result, im now on the train back to warragul where they took it, as they have fixed it already! and its under $200 .


i wasnt expecting to get it back until at least tues as this weekend is a long weekend over here in oz, queens bday weekend so monday is a bank holiday!

must be early over there MHM... what u doing up!

Getting ready for work and getting my wellies and brolly out. Glad it was a cheap one.

Uh have I missed something or not? What was the problem in the end?

Andy.

sorry. faulty ign. coil. the mechanic reckoned it mite have been failing intermittently which could have caused th symptoms last week. im still not 100% happy though... it has been idling to low for my liking. just have to keep goin and see how she does!

$180 mite sound a lot for a coil (well it is!) but prices over here arnt really comparable . im earning $300 a day for a job that i mite earn 80 quid aday for back home, so i think of $180 as about 50 quid. as opposed to the 100 odd quid it is really! exchange rates are a load of ****e if u ask me.

preparing for the drive of shame

If you got low idle might be worth checking the throttle potentiometer. How is the throttle response? Also check how the air flow meter and base idle are set. I presume the ignition timing is spot on.

woosh!

in dummys terms please?! im still learning!

Mmmmm not sure how to make it really easy with a short post. I don't suppose you got a Haynes book of lies for the beast?

Here, have a look through this one!

http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/f10/fooks-sake-its-2-steps-forward-3-back-108299.html

If you look you can find lots of info on 14CUX hotwire injection on the forum. I know coz I read most of it in the 12 months it took me to get mine to run.

cheers mate il have a read through and a search.

No worries, we all got to start somewhere. Part of the problem is that the various threads/post/info are scattered right across the forum and running/starting issues on the V8 are a very common theme.

You might try searching for starting/running issues, then say 14CUX, then ignition problem. Trust me there will be lots to read but by the end of it you should be able to strip, rebuild and tune a V8 with hotwire injection in your sleep. All you really need is a half decent multi-meter and a lot of patience and then some more patience!

If you can source them get hold of a spare ecu, air flow meter and distributor. Always use genuine Lucas rotor arm and distributor cap, change oil & filter every 5000miles and regularly check for coolant leaks. It'll be fine (honest!)

cheers matey, very helpful . that can be this evenings job then, few hours of reading and searching (perhaps with a beer or two for company! ) .