Been a busy few weeks with the Duchess had a number of problems linked to the ignition and idle challenges. When I bought her I knew that I would have to get back into rolling up my sleeves and getting greasy. As a teenager always worked on my motorcycles, then graduating to driving cars I never really worked on any of them, always took them to a garage.
Recently the old girl ( not her indoors
) started to die on idle or not restart after a stop or would run very rough in a limp home mode. My first challenge came when the battery unexpectedly died and had to knock on doors to get a jump-start. Humble pie time indeed very shiny car that won't start, anyhow a couple of very eager teenagers lept at the chance and she fired up straight away, got home OK. Then spent two days trawling around tinterent to try and find a suitable battery as I couldn't fathom Halfords range. After a lot of phone calls to many well known dealers all quoting 10 day lead times, I phoned SGT who couldn't have been more helpful, took my details and phoned back in half an hour and said would have one by 10am next day! Result, picked up and then jacked up the car and swopped out the battery, started her up and went for spin in the countryside.
Feeling pleased with myself, went out a couple of times with her in doors and then on the Saturday took the Duchess to the local County fair to show her off. As I entered the show ground I was directed to the line up she stalled on me and took several attempts to restart. Little nervous about being stuck in a field at the end of the day, but all thing went well and we had a good day out and made it home.
The following weekend her indoors and I were set to go to Lyme Bay in Dorset to meet family. I fired up the MOG and went to get fuel and she started to run rough so decided to take her around the block to see if it would settle down. It did by coming to a complete halt at the road side! In the past the ignition amplifier had played up and come loose causing an intermittent earthing problem, checked that and it was indeed a little slack, quick cable tie sorted that, she started up and went back home.
Feeling confident that all was well we set off and made it a bout one mile to the center of town when she died idling at the roundabout and refused to restart! Some more local lads jumped out of the cars and helped push her into a bus lay-by. Despite a lot of novice poking around and pulling leads etc, she just wouldn't start. Had to get son in law to bring a mates flat bed to tow us home. We decamped into her indoors MX5 and went to Devon, at least we could have the roof off
On our return I spent many hours trawling TM and Gomog looking for answers, I invested in a diagnostic cable, multimeter and downloaded Rovergauge and set about looking for the problem. Roverguage reported no sensor problems so it had to be some thing simpler like relays or dodgy wiring. I had previously replaced the coil, distributor an leads for an RPI upgrade kit so was reasonably sure it was not them. A chance comment from the son inlaw who peared over my shoulder was that spade connectors on the coil looked dirty, so I replaced them and cleaned the terminals. Jumped in an she started straight away
diagnostics on and capturing, let her warm up and run for 15 minutes. Idle was great in the 900 range, happy days stopped the engine restarted straight of the bat
decided to leave her overnight and try again in the morning from cold. Next day all good and went for a spin, happy camper took her home parked up. Later that day collected her in doors an went to the pub, all is well in the world again.
Two days later starter motor would not turn over, now armed with a landrover Haynes Manual set about diagnosing with multimeter and thought maybe solenoid had packed up but no it appeared to be getting requsit volts, so had to be the starter motor. Just for for the hell of it I pulled the earth wire of the Solenoid and cleaned the spade terminal. She started up straight away and has done consistently for several days now!
It's been an interesting journey and I now realise how much I have to learn, and quite pleased with what I have absorbed so far.
Without TM, Gomog and Haynes I would have had a hefty garage bill.
Thanks to all who post it sure helps and reassures.
Best Regards
Lumpy
