Age Old Running Gremlins!

[forbeslongden 32 13 Cars]

Hey all,

 

Tried and tested ground here but my 1.6 seems to be displaying some odd behavior, it went to my local garage to have silcon hoses fitted, oil filter / oil change / fuel filter / inlet manifold changed with injector rail and throttle body (all of which were refurb) and the power steering re-installed.

 

My garage said that the AFM needed replacing which was causing flat spots in my running and massively effecting pedal response as well as a choppy tick over.

 

I took a replacement unit up which apparently was fine but the car wouldn't idle nicely for a few minutes whist it warms up - trying to pull away would cause the car to kangaroo hop and give little pedal if at all. It seems to have got progressively worse and has got to the point where the car will refuse to tick over and cut out with the revs on key turn well under 1000. The thing is also jumping about all over the place with random performance from the pedal.

 

Is there a place I can start to seach for what has gone wrong? The car is pretty un drivable as it stands.

[PhilNW 44]

Check fuel pump pressures

Edited November 16, 2016 by PhilNW

[Alan77 78 1 Cars]

Treat it to a new coolant temp sensor.

[welshpug 1,661]

I would suggest as the garage did.

[forbeslongden 32 13 Cars]

The thing is, the first AFM I pretty much ruined as I used degreaser to clean it up which actually ended up sticking the air flap periodically, so I replaced the unit with another one which was the one the garage had said the screw was untightened too much (not by me this time) causing it to not be able to adjust. The third unit which is currently in the car is meant to be the one that's alright by all accounts, I'm just a little wary if I send the AFM away to ATP and sink £200 for it to not be that but it's a tricky one.

 

The fuel pump is certainly something I noticed sounds less vibrant on the key turn now though.

[welshpug 1,661]

they're nigh on 22 years old at the very least, up to 33 years old now so they'll need doing anyway, no point faffing with unknown items, especially with how many have had the tops popped off and messed with.

 

that and the distributor are the two main components that can have a significant effect on how a car drives even if every other part is new.

[hoodygoodwood 71 3 Cars]

I would be looking at what has been changed on the car when it went in for work . If the fuel rail was changed did they reuse the original fuel pressure regulator , a replacement one could easily be faulty and giving you only 1 bar instead of 3 for example .The same would apply to the TPS on the throttle body plus it could be set incorrectly . Did you have the injectors ultrasonically cleaned , when I had mine done they warned that it is possible for them to stick and would need a tap with a spanner to free them up . Is it possible that some of the parts were sandblasted , if some grit has got into the engine or injectors it could cause major issues .

The wiring loom connectors for the Bosch components can often be corroded or even broken inside the rubber boot and its possible for the connector to push back into the plug giving a poor contact , the square wire locking clips can be missing and the plug can work loose .

My no 1 suspicion would be that they used the wrong inlet manifold gasket when they refitted it , most kits come with 2 which are similar except the injected engines require the one with the cutouts for the injector to 'fire' through .

[forbeslongden 32 13 Cars]

I've managed to find a place local to me that is a Peugeot and Citroen specialist, I think I'm going to try and get the car there so they can go over it and find what's happening.

It's massively over fuelling which may explain the cutting out if it's flooding the engine, of course this'll make driving the car to where it needs to go interesting to say the least!

[hoodygoodwood 71 3 Cars]

Have you got the correct injectors and AFM , when they swapped/refurbed the parts its possible they fitted 1.9 items .

For a 1.6 GTI you should have blue injectors - 0 280 150 211 , the AFM should be 0 280 202 056

[tartanbloke 35 1 Cars]

Also, have you checked the distributor itself as this is often missed but when old and worn, can cause lots of running issues (loss of advance, retard etc).

[j_turnell 137 3 Cars]

When swapping the afm over did you get the mixture setup afterwards?

[forbeslongden 32 13 Cars]

So here's what occurred, basically everything was as it should be with the car when it comes to parts, the injectors were used from the previous rail as the replacement rail had 1.9 yellow ones on it, and the AFM is the correct 1.6 one. The distributor looks to have leaked oil into the dizzy cap from what I can see which I'm aiming to tackle next but as it stands, the car is now running again.

 

I adjusted the throttle body screw which lifted the idle speed to around 1800-2K on warm tick over as this was really the only way I was going to get the car anywhere and I replaced the Ignition Amplifier with a new one I had laying about which helped it somewhat, when I took it to the specialist garage they tweaked the C02 output from 9 (which no doubt was my doing getting it to at least move) down to 1 whilst getting the car to evenly idle at >1000 and although the car is a tiny bit grumpy from cold for a minute or so, it's now running far far better although I've still got a misfire or two in decend from 3rd gear. What's amusing is how much of a power drain the power steering can be!

That being said, I've ran the car in traffic, at night, with the lights on and it hasn't cut out so that's progress!

Edited December 6, 2016 by forbeslongden