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Since my ECU thread is not about ECU anymore as that one is fixed - I thought I'd start a new one about my ongoing nightmare with my lovely L322 4.4v8 from 2002.
All of the electrical ghouls banished from the vehicle I decided to bring it to the yearly tech check after doing a distribution chain replacement.
Only for them to put it in reverse, drive 30 meters, turn it off for it to never wanna catch ignition again. Soft start goes on for like 20 seconds, it does an attempt to catch on in the last 4 to 5 seconds and nothing.
So I thought ok, I must have screwed up on timing it. That said - I drove like 100km for a test with it just before I brought it to the official tech check garage - no issues, no misfires, nothing. I started and stopped it like a gazillion times that very morning.
Right, so there I am, valve covers off, top distribution covers off, GAS toolkit in my hands, pin in the flywheel. What.. the.. actual.. heck.. It's not "slightly off". I had to loosen both vanos and exhaust gears and turn the camshafts about 30 degrees before the locking got into place.
I did the timing thrice before that, cause every time I thought something was off. After the last timing attempt car started from half a rotation of the starter - sounded like music.. Until it didn't.
How could this physically be possible? Chains and tensioners are new (I didn't do vanos rebuild, didn't even pull those off). Tension on the chains is good, there's no chance in hell the chain can slip gears. Last timing session - I timed the vanos to the beeps (turn couter-clockwise, check with multimeter), fastened to spect (125 and 110nm respectively), put the ignition plates on, rotated the crank twice. Ignition plates were about 1mm off. I followed the instructions found somewhere on the net (I think GAS ones at the time), loosened the ignition plates, corrected their positions, fastened again (40nm), rotated crank twice again - it all came back into place as it should, so I built it up, it started, I was driving for 2 days and then... see above. Now that I opened it up - after I fix the flywheel with the pin - cams are nowhere near where they should be.
So I'm retiming the whole thing again tomorrow with a thought in my head - I'm f*n up somewhere. Badly. I don't wanna keep doing this every 2 weeks, although by now I can probably do it with my eyes closed, but still. What can I possibly oversee/overlook?
Any thoughts/ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Vlad
PS Fuel pump and pressure is good, I checked that. Moreover, while it cranks it reeks of gasoline, so fuel is being fed. Coils are all operational, so are sparks.
PPS There are 0 errors in EMS ECU, Trans ECU or Transferbox, nor are there any immo issues.
All of the electrical ghouls banished from the vehicle I decided to bring it to the yearly tech check after doing a distribution chain replacement.
Only for them to put it in reverse, drive 30 meters, turn it off for it to never wanna catch ignition again. Soft start goes on for like 20 seconds, it does an attempt to catch on in the last 4 to 5 seconds and nothing.
So I thought ok, I must have screwed up on timing it. That said - I drove like 100km for a test with it just before I brought it to the official tech check garage - no issues, no misfires, nothing. I started and stopped it like a gazillion times that very morning.
Right, so there I am, valve covers off, top distribution covers off, GAS toolkit in my hands, pin in the flywheel. What.. the.. actual.. heck.. It's not "slightly off". I had to loosen both vanos and exhaust gears and turn the camshafts about 30 degrees before the locking got into place.
I did the timing thrice before that, cause every time I thought something was off. After the last timing attempt car started from half a rotation of the starter - sounded like music.. Until it didn't.
How could this physically be possible? Chains and tensioners are new (I didn't do vanos rebuild, didn't even pull those off). Tension on the chains is good, there's no chance in hell the chain can slip gears. Last timing session - I timed the vanos to the beeps (turn couter-clockwise, check with multimeter), fastened to spect (125 and 110nm respectively), put the ignition plates on, rotated the crank twice. Ignition plates were about 1mm off. I followed the instructions found somewhere on the net (I think GAS ones at the time), loosened the ignition plates, corrected their positions, fastened again (40nm), rotated crank twice again - it all came back into place as it should, so I built it up, it started, I was driving for 2 days and then... see above. Now that I opened it up - after I fix the flywheel with the pin - cams are nowhere near where they should be.
So I'm retiming the whole thing again tomorrow with a thought in my head - I'm f*n up somewhere. Badly. I don't wanna keep doing this every 2 weeks, although by now I can probably do it with my eyes closed, but still. What can I possibly oversee/overlook?
Any thoughts/ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Vlad
PS Fuel pump and pressure is good, I checked that. Moreover, while it cranks it reeks of gasoline, so fuel is being fed. Coils are all operational, so are sparks.
PPS There are 0 errors in EMS ECU, Trans ECU or Transferbox, nor are there any immo issues.
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