The Connectedness Of All Things

[johnsimister 10]

Thought the forum might be interested in the following. A few weeks ago, just before the snow, I pulled very smartly out of a side road to turn right and, realising that I'd cut it a bit fine re the approaching car, kept hard on the power. The road was wet and the right front wheel tramped violently. I backed off, then accelerated again, then more violent tramping. Then, when I was driving more calmly, the 205 started to shunt and snatch just like it used to when out of tune and not fitted with a Superchip. Had I broken something?

 

Next day, it wouldn't idle properly from cold, and once warm the idle speed had dropped right off. Had the violent shaking done something to the airflow meter or throttle body? The performance had lost its edge, too. So I tweaked the idle screw to get the speed back up, and got out the Gunson's Gastester to check the CO. Somehow the mixture had gone way too rich so I set it back to 1.5 per cent. That was better, but there was still the shunt.

 

Further investigation revealed the gearbox mount to be broken. The metal plate on top had torn away from the rubber. That will be the shunting problem, I thought, and fitted a new mount. Better again, but it still wasn't quite the car it had been - still a bit snatchy, and not the smooth, sweet-revving thing my 1.9 normally is.

 

A few days later, with a Clio 172-owning mate in the passenger seat to ensure maximum embarrassment, the 205 did something it has never done before. It spluttered to a halt and wouldn't restart. 'HT lead from coil,' I thought, and it was. It had fallen off the distributor cap, presumably loosened by the violent shaking a few weeks ago. Easy fix, then, and off we went with the 205 feeling a lot livelier than it had felt before. But even now it wasn't quite right, still slightly snatchy and feeling, well, a bit uninterested in life.

 

So today I checked the CO again. It was way too weak. So somehow the dodgy HT lead contact had made the CO reading appear too high, which made me lean it off. It's now back at 1.5 per cent again, and this plus the new gearbox mount has given me back the 205 I knew and loved. Two morals to this tale, maybe. Don't fiddle around with mixture settings unless you know the ignition system is in good shape, and never overlook the obvious.

 

John Simister

[DrSarty 90 1 Cars]

A good read, and I'm glad 'she's back'.

 

It goes to show this connection your talking about; to me it's something very 205: full of character, and telling you everything about what's going on.

 

Admittedly they can be tempremental too, and rather like a person you know very well that you can spot when something's affecting them.

[hengti 2]

happy days

 

i remember once limping home in mine as i was convinced that the head gasket had suddenly gone again (it'd recently been replaced and i was unhappy with the post-repair running temps) - but it turned out it had just lost a lead off the cap and was running on three cylinders; didn't even think to bother checking - just assumed the worst!