Oh I have been having fun trying to find the cause of this problem!
It all started about 5 months ago, so I did the usual and changed the blue temp sender
It still cut out
I noticed that when it happened you could not hear the lift pump prime but if I flicked the ignition switch it would kick in so I changed the ignition switch
It ran fine for about 2 months and then started doing it again
So I thought I would check the timing and re torque the knock sensor, whilst doing this a rather major problem was spotted thanks to the previous owner
some people should not be allowed to fix vehicles
They had fitted a new clutch and it was only lined up with one of the locating pins, Then tightened down, bending the pressure plate around the second pin in the process and meaning that the flywheel wasn't on straight and the whole bottom end was out of balance because of this ( I thought it was a bit flat above 3000rpm
)
So gearbox out, new clutch in (correctly) I figured perhaps the out of balance bottom end was something to do with it because this was followed by 2 months of hassle free driving until the other day
Same problem, it cut out, lights come on, on the dash, rev counter drops and with a flick of the ignition it would sometimes kick back in again. however when it didn't and you came to a stop you could hear that the lift pump was not whirring, flick the ignition a few more times and it would kick in and off I went again, sometimes for about 5 metres sometimes for 20 miles
I had the cover off the dash where the relays and fuses are and noticed when it happened I could hear a relay click and It turned out to be the number 32 (ECU) relay, If it cuts out sometimes you can just flick it and it kicks back in, I stripped the relay last night and it has that familiar burnt out electric smell and some white build up on the contacts so I guess its been arcing out a bit. I'm picking up a replacement relay tonight so hopefully that will solve my problem.
Any other ideas of what could be causing the relay to cut out other than perhaps a dodgy connection in the wiring loom/back of the fuse/relay box somewhere???
