Hi Folx, Anovver Nooby?!

Great to find your forums - I need a bit of help with my 1999 Marea 1910 TD100 ELX Weekend.

When it is ticking over, it misfires & starts to smoke quite badly, so starting is a bit lumpy (but it had the glowplugs checked several thousand miles ago, before I got it). The smoke smells like diesel and it's not using much oil. When driven at higher revs it takes off when the turbo comes in and misfiring stops (accelleration is enough to get worried about the front tires). It loves the motorway but would probably be a lot happier on the autobahn! When I slow down again for traffic, it smokes again.

I will soon have to change the timing belt, as it's done about 140000 miles (not looking forward to this, but I have done it on Peugeot TU3D & TU5D engines). Could the timing belt have slipped?

I,m not quite a nooby, as I'm a retired engineer - electronic, computer and mechanical, but have not worked in the motor trade since I had to service Morris 1000 Travellers!!

I'm not exactly an ECU hacker, but would like to know if the ECU could be sick, as it seems to think the cold start solenoid on the Lucas injection pump should be ON all the time (I disconnected the cable, but smoke continues!). The temp guage shows reasonable readings - no overheating or too cold. I can get access to a comp to connect to the diagnostic socket, if needed.

I could do with help on where to get a new belt and tensioner etc at an affordable price for a pensioner and how best to manage without the special Fiat tools?!? I have access to a workshop manual on CD.

I like to say that I have driven half a million miles WITHOUT a seatbelt!!!
My dad was a very good driver before seatbelts were invented... but my 500,000 plus miles were on a Motorbike!

How do you tell if a motorcyclist is happy - dead flies between his teeth! . :yum:

Nicl

sounds like a timing issue - if you can get access to diagnostics (that will actually talk to the lucas system), check the timing advance values - i.e. the requested and actual values. if these are wildly different (there may be fault codes if so) check the crank sensor, the timing solenoid on the pump, and the coil on the sensor injector (injector with wire coming off it). can you hear the timing solenoid ticking rapidly when you turn on the ignition ?.

If the belt had slipped a tooth it would probably be running very badly - so unlikely but at that mileage it prob needs to be done now anyway, unless it was done after 100k. If you don't know when it was last done then replace the water pump also. Its not too expensive. shop around for the whole lot, try some motor factors and FIAT themselves, or shop4parts.co.uk.

Its fairly easy to do, you can lock the pulleys with bolts/pins and make up a crank locking tool if needs be.

Update!
Just in case anyone else has similar problems.....
I changed the timing belt on my smoky Marea and it coughed like a 100 year old cigar smoker & got a bit overheated. I was advised to check the pump timing & a bit of a tweak made it run much better than before the belt change - but it still smoked a bit. The tick-over is 1000 RPM - faster than it should be - and will not adjust to any lower speed.
Recently, cold (very cold!) weather starting was difficult and smoking at low speeds getting worse.
Now we come to it - the darned thing developed cooling system airlocks and overheated! I checked for diesel in the water and - here we go - it appears I have a leaky cylinder head gasket (the water getting in causes misfiring & the gases getting in the water makes it BOIL) and most of the smoke is antifreeze!. So - HELP -I am driving an Italian Coffee Machine!!! :bang:

Nick