Finally Fixed My Mi Running Problem

[GLPoomobile 958]

Procrastination is the bain of my life. So what should have taken no time at all has taken me a year to fix (touch wood). But it looks like I've finally tracked down the elusive little s*it of a problem that has left my car abandoned for yet another year

 

To recap:

 

A year ago I finally got my new home made loom in the 205 and got it MOT'd. Did all of 3 trips in it (MOT, over to Essex for tracking, and up to Edinburgh and back). All was fine.

 

Then it started to go wrong. Would stutter and die and not restart.

 

Initial investigation was a problem as I needed the fault to occur before I could start checking things. I knew it wasn't injecting as I'd had the fuel rail off once when it happened. Then in Nov I had to move the car 5 minutes up the road as I was going on holiday and in that week our road was going to be shut for re-surfacing. It cut out again when I got up there and this time I had my multimeter with me and managed to identify that I was getting no voltage (apart from the permanent live from the battery) to either of the relays.

 

Trying to get my head around the possible causes, I posted this topic.

 

Procrastination kicked in and my car sat up the road until a few months ago when I moved it back to outside my flat. Typically, I could not replicate the fault again, and I faffed about with other things instead.

 

 

So what happened next?

Yesterday, having not started the car for a few weeks, I put the freshly charged battery back in, and after doing some other work I went to start it. Nothing. Numerous attempts, and nothing. I'd disconnected and reconnected the CAS plug earlier, was it that? I'd moved the relays slightly, was it that? My alarm had been clicking furiously when I disconnected the battery a few days earlier, was the alarm FUBAR leaving it immobilised? Wiggled lots of wires, still nothing.

 

So I came inside and grabbed my spare relays, and swapped the brown one over. Started first time! Success at last I thought, and confirmation of what I'd suspected for a long time, a simple failing relay (I could have just put 2 new ones in long ago, but I wanted to wait for the fault to appear to do this so I could be sure).

 

With confidence that I'd solved the problem, I decided to take the 205 for an hour's drive at 3am this morning. The idea being that if I broke down, I'd rather do it with no traffic around and no traffic wardens. Being typically British, I was confident, but still reservedly pessimistic

 

0330 today. Starts fine. 5 minutes and a couple of miles later, I approach some red lights and I get the tell tale stutter. It's a milli second cut out that it always does right before it fails. Lights go green, I pull out and turn the corner, on to the main road and it cuts dead. Just drops like a stone. So there I am in the dark checking again with the multimeter and I have no voltage to the relays. Then I remembered something (duh ). What about the coil? I peel back the boot, get the multimeter in there and I have no voltage on any terminals. At this point I can't remember much from CAPS or my wiring schematic, but I do know that there should be voltage (with ignition on) to at least one of the coil terminals. I wiggle lots of wires, wiggle the loom inside the car, disconnect and reconnect the ECU and still nothing. In desperation I call the AA (I'm parked in a red lane and have no hope of pushing the car anywhere. Breaking down in London is not good!). I'm not a member and they have no one available in the area for new joiners, but they give me a local company number. Local company wants £105, I tell him I'll call him back. So I give it one last try, reach under the dash, grab the 2 brown plugs and I wiggle the f***ers again, check the multimeter and the coil now has voltage. Relays have voltage too. Car starts. Thank f***.

 

I get home at 0430. I'm now convinced it's a dodgy connection at the switched live going through the brown plugs. Well, I say convinced, but I'm British You know what it's like fault finding on these cars, they always throw anomalies at you and frazzle the brain with ever changing symptoms. Some things just weren't adding up. Never the less, it should be an easy check, so I headed up the road earlier to have a look.

 

Off with the lower dash trim so I can see the plugs. Ignition on, check the coil and I already have no voltage! I haven't even touched anything yet. So I balance the multimeter on the rocker cover so I can see it through the windscreen, grab the plugs and I wiggle. Immediately I see voltage and hear the relays click. So I wiggle some more, and I find the sweet spot. With the plug in a certain position I could get the connection to break. With the engine running, it was enough to make it stutter and nearly die, over and over again. So I definitely have my culprit isolated now. This 'sweet spot' was absolutely minuscule, the plug literally had to be in millimetre perfect position to break the connection.

 

Separating the plugs I could see my wiring was fine and the terminal secure, but the thing about these plugs is the terminals are free to move quite a bit. So obviously when the plug moved in one direction it was enough to just cause the terminal to move inside the plug and break the connection.

 

So why this particular terminal and not the others. If they can all move, why it the switched live giving me grief? Well, I shall illustrate for you (see pic below). The section of the plug that the switched live fixes to is double the width of the other sections. On my original loom the fixed live was jammed in to the plug with a 2nd empty terminal next to it. I had no idea why it was like that, and it looked s*it, so I didn't replicate it. Now I see why it was like that, to stop the terminal moving. As A quick fix I hunted through the car and found a little tag of broken plastic that I have shoved in to the plug to stop the terminal moving side to side. Now when I wiggle the plugs the connection does not break

 

[jimistdt 1]

Well f'cking done, now go give someone some grief!!

 

 

 

 

 

[DrSarty 90 1 Cars]

Here endeth the lesson.

 

Welcome back to the fold dear brother.

 

Now get out, perhaps with Ian, and rag the f*ck out of it.

 

Well done Steve.

 

P.S. Did you go see Alex (Sweetbadger)?

[A2TheA 0]

congratulations. as sarty said go and enjoy it

[Veero 1]

Just last week I got my new DIY Mi16 loom in and running. I had made the CAS plug with two pins the wrong way round. Since then it's been running great until last night, the rad fan didn't kick in and it boiled over in traffic, cut out and refused to start. Now I have the exact same sounding symptoms, no live a the coil and just the injector relay clicking on ignition, not the fuel pump relay too.

 

Which plug is that by the way? I removed the Pug brown 9 pin plug and got a new 11 way one from VWP so totally re-did my sensor loom and alternator/starter circuit too, however I am still using the original smaller 5(or 4?) pin plug that the fuel pump feed, switched live and an earth go through and am wondering if this is a similar problem. I have my loom going between the steering column and the lower most piece of interior trim panel and I'm sure on turning around slow sharp corners I can hear something clicking and sometimes a splutter.

 

Now of course it won't start at all. After getting a tow home from the AA I was ready to break the car and sell the bits off but the cold light of a new day I know I must fix it instead. AA man said it was the crank sensor but I still have 600 ohms across the signal pins. Should there be any other signal or readings across any other pins?

[GLPoomobile 958]

Which plug is that by the way?

 

The one pictured is the 9 pin plug under the dash next to the steering column.

[taylorspug 7]

Sweet!

[GLPoomobile 958]

Sweet!

 

Sitting there this morning wondering what to do about recovery I was thinking to myself, if I don't get to the bloody bottom of this I'm just gonna send it down to Dan on a flat bed and see if he can work out the problem Lucky escape for you then eh (although you are probably packed with work since everyone heard about your 4 hour GTI6 swap ).

[maturin23 10]

Yay - I'm very very pleased for you!

 

We've got to go for a wee blast in South Herts.

 

Plus I'm an AA member

[GLPoomobile 958]

Yay - I'm very very pleased for you!

 

We've got to go for a wee blast in South Herts.

 

Plus I'm an AA member

 

So am I as of this morning Joined up as soon as I got home.

 

Definately up for a blast once the MOT is done next week - I called RPM today but they could only get me in on Friday, and since I'm going away Sat to Tues I didn't want to go in then just in case it does need any work. Not that I think it will.

 

There's still plenty of jobs to be done, but I think I'll just put some miles on the car and try to enjoy it before getting bogged down in anything else.

 

There was a moral to this story too, by the way. Something that I always fail at, and which we should all take heed of as 205 owners. The moral is that whenever you are faced with a problem, check all the simplest things first and try to remain logical about it. I always go about things arse faced, and always end up getting fooled by the red herring symptoms that lead me down the wrong path. So in this particular case, if I'd checked the switched live in the first place, I could have had this in the bag months ago. Hell, even if I'd not thought of that, seeing no voltage at the coil should have been enough to point me in the direction of the switched live But no, I got obsessed with the relays and examined the 'circumstances' too much, which convinced me it wasn't a dodgy connection.

 

So as John Fashnu says "focus", and check things sensibly.

Edited September 30, 2009 by GLPoomobile

[DrSarty 90 1 Cars]

Not being a c*nt helps.

 

[kyepan 291]

well done!

[Veero 1]

The moral is that whenever you are faced with a problem, check all the simplest things first

 

Damn right Mr Poo. There's me thinking my wiring's shot. So have the panel under the steering column off and checking connections. Doug turns up with a known working coil and blam, it fires into life.

 

FFS simplist things always are the way. Just needs some new HT leads and I reckon it'll be sweet as a nut.