Hello all!

I will first confess, I have not thoroughly looked around the engine bay to give a lot of feedback yet - though finally have a whole 3 days to get some quality time with my 4x4!

My Panda really doesn't like being started ... you have to turn her over for a long time with plenty of pushing on the accelerator pedal to get her to start, and might need to start her 3 or more times before she will run. When she is at normal temperature then she will idle, but then still not very smoothly. She runs reliably (if not efficiently) when warm, she brought me back from Penzance without any problems!

I have roughly done the timing, and cleared oil from the 2nd spark plug that had been collecting from the engine breather pipe (after recent horrors with a Vectra with knackered stem seals I'm really hoping this isn't a sign of this! More just a need for a good hose clip). Having asked around I'm lead to believe that it might be a buggered vacuum advance unit, though I'll confess that is the 1st job for tomorrow .. when I find out how!

She has a 999 FIRE btw.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Jon

Just needs a bear hug and maybe a new vacuum advance unit lol.

3 days and counting.....

Goodnight jon!! (I'm not lasy, honest)

Si

well, the vacumn unit is only a few quid but when they're fecked they tend to make the car a bit of a pain to drive hot or cold.

The easy way to check is to follow the carb hose from the vacumn unit to the carb, pull it off and then blow down it towards the vacumn unit (don't suck, you'll never know what seen in there, lol)

Anyway if you can blow down it then it's fecked. Dead easy to fit another one as it's only 2 screws.

But give it a service, you know, plugs, filters oil etc and see if that makes a difference

Jim

Easy way round the vacum advance if faulty is to remove the pipe from the vacum unit and plug it with a large screw/small bolt. It should run much better as the manifold won't be sucking in any extra air...Temp fix till you get a replacement.

this plug, was it oily on the electrode and around?

The other thing with a failed vacuum advance, apart from the air leak giving problems, is the 10 degree retardation the timing gets. It's a big problem.

In another life I had an early injection Panda which had the same distributor arrangement as the 4x4, that is real distributor with electronic module instead of the points and a vacuum advance unit.

That Panda was a PITA to start unless you gave it part throttle while cranking to start up. The thing which finally made it go well (apart from replacing the vacuum advance unit) was to advance the timing until it pinked under heavy acceleration and then back it off the least ammount to stop the pinking.

According to the timing marks I could see it was way beyond the expected 15 degrees or so at tick over (with the advance connected), but it started fine without pressing the accelerator, and went surprisingly well - pulled like a train, and felt like you needed another gear to change up into..

Your experience may be different to mine, and the figures I've remembered may not be entirely accurate, but the principle is sound: timing advanced to the point of pinking, then backed off a gnats.

Hey, thank you for you'r great response guys!

This plug was indeed oily everywhere! When I went to fetch it it wasn't firing either, so it was cleaned and then I set off with all 4 firing from Penzance.

I know I haven't serviced the 4x4 yet, though I believe that it has been serviced regularly enough that this would not seriously hinder solving the engine starting problem I'm on now ... though before I start to run her regularly she will definitely be serviced.

I think for now, just change the vacuum advance (if faulty) and then go on oldernowiser's recomendation.

If anybody else get any other brainwaves on this mind, feel free to chip in

Many thanks again!

If the plug was oiled up on the electrode then its unlikely its because oil has seeped past the threads onto it. More likely a plug fault or valve/piston problem. Put a new plug in its place and see if that oils up, if it does you have trouble.