What the hell?

[neil_1821]

Over the past few weeks my car has developed a problem, it's only done  it twice but the engine just seems to die while driving. Only thing is i usually have my music on to drown out the road noise so i dontknow if it's sudden or not. Now the thing i cant understand is when it happened last night, it started fine, did a 64 mile journey and just coming down the road in second gear rolling to the drive and it's fine, then i go to turn onto the drive and the sterringis hard and i know straight away my engines died. Any ideas what it is?

[EvilScotsman]

relays 30 or 167, sensor fault, throttle cable stretched (on 8v ADY motor), air leak from any thicker hoses.

[tommk3cab]

yeah the thick one i think its to the MAF (to the air filter box anyway!) can cause this i know that, but this problem is usually coupled with dodgy starting too, correct me if im wrong.

[neil_1821]

Ok, i'll have to check around, hasnt done it again as yet but i was having starter problems but that was the solenoid on the starter motor 

Have to go over the car with a fine tooth comb :embarassed:

[EvilScotsman]

my car started cutting out, and over a few weeks became worse until it wouldn't idle at all and became very hard to start.

I took advice here and stripped off the throttle body and cleaned it - perfect! You have to remove ALL traces of carbon from the bore and butterfly as the idle-air gap is teenyweeny and sooty fumes from the breather pipe will block it easily - then the ecu cant tell if the throttle is closed or not and the engine hunts when idling, finally it wont idle at all so when you dip the clutch while driving it cuts out immediately.

Hope this helps.

btw when doing it - just unclip the two heater hoses that run to the TB at the other ends i.e. one goes to the expansion bottle and the other goes to the thermostat elbow. Plug the little stub it goes to on this one with a small allen key or similar so as not to lose your anti-freeze/coolant.

Takes about an hour to do - the bolts holding the TB on are allen or torx headed and the bottom 2 are awkward - need a long key or screwdriver type torx tool to reach.

[neil_1821]

i've been meaning to strip the throttle body down for a while, to see if i get any better response and sometimes idelling.

Thanks for the advice.

[oneblueleg]

Join the clun Neil...lol

Mine idles perfectly at all times... does that mean it's unlikely mine is the TB?

[tommk3cab]

so you have all of the above but idles fine always?
a sure sign of a ganked up TB is if you thrapp the car a bit, take it up to about 5k revs (or as high as you want!) you should notice some progressive acceleration taking place e. g higher revs = more pull ( up to a point anyway, then it will start to tail off again) if not, it would be worth a clean, the dying problem though, the post about relay 30 would be a good place to start.

[oneblueleg]

so you have all of the above but idles fine always?
a sure sign of a ganked up TB is if you thrapp the car a bit, take it up to about 5k revs (or as high as you want!) you should notice some progressive acceleration taking place e. g higher revs = more pull ( up to a point anyway, then it will start to tail off again) if not, it would be worth a clean, the dying problem though, the post about relay 30 would be a good place to start.

It'snot the throttle body then 

[EvilScotsman]

Listen - the idle air gap at the butterfly when its closed is about 0.25mm....

If sooty crap builds up it blocks this tiny gap and causes the car to stall when idling or when the clutch is dipped say coming to a turn or junction. If it will rev ok but wont idle then this is proof positive that the TB is dirty.

A caked up TB ONLY affects the idle and very low throttle behaviour as when the throttle is open further the blockage is too small to affect it.

relays etc cause cutting out even at high revs. If you were doing 140 and the ecu or fuel pump relays jam - the engine will cut out and decelerate like youd run out of petrol. Then it wouldnt start for several seconds to several minutes till the relay drops back to normal postion, cools or whatever and works again (or not lol)