Hi everyone. I'm very new on this forum. I've been looking for a while as a guest and found it VERY useful. Thanks to all for sharing.
So... Like most people (I guess) I signed up to this because I have a problem that I can not solve so I need to ask for advice!
I have done a bit of work on engines before but only carb'/distributer petrol engines and a bit of diesel. This is my first experience working on a SPI with ECU.
Im afraid this is quite a long post but I want to tell the whole sad story so that everyone can know and understand the full chain of events that have led to my current problem.
Just under a year ago I bought a Cinq sporting in pretty poor condition. It's never run nicely but just acceptabe and often unacceptable!
I have had 2 coil pack failures. Replacing those helped but it never has run nice, even after replacing those parts.
Pretty soon after buying it I noticed that the (No'1, I think. Far left end when looking under bonnet standing in front of the car) spark plug looked odd and appeared to be not screwed in properly. Since owning the car it has really grown on me and despite it never running nice and some obvious signs of bodged repairs in the past (Threaded screws, nuts and bolts not done up tight enough, some nuts/bolts/screws replaced with incorrect fitting ones. I can only guess the correct ones got lost during previous DIY "repair" work) I made the decision to keep the car and try to solve some of its problems.
And so to the spark plug. I removed it and, yes, it had been cross threaded. I tried to get it back in and catch on to the good threads but it didnt work and the plug never went all the way in. It ran a bit better at first but gradually got worse again and I suspected the spark plug. I bought one of those reverse rethreading tools that you put into the hole and recut the thread from the inside out. It didnt work! I ended up with a hole that was a little too big and the plug felt like it was barely held in place. A bit concerned, I took it for a test drive to the shop. It ran okay and seemed a bit improved (as if that plug was now giving a spark and that cylinder was finally firing reliably). When I came out of the shop and started the car back up (I can only guess that the plug had cooled and the head had not) the plug flew out of the head! Oh dear. I dont know if you have ever driven a car with only three plugs in place but I can tell you it is VERY loud and unpleasant sounding. I dont have a lot of money so couldnt really afford recovery so I decided to try to drive it the 2 miles home as it was. I did nurse it home okay but halfway home the engine warning light came on (the red light with a pic of an injector).
I bought a proper plug repair kit and removed the head, cut out the spark plug hole to a larger size, fitted the insert and fitted a new set of plugs. I also gave the head a good clean and de-coked it and lapped in the valves. Oddly the valves and seats on the inlets were worse than the exhausts and the valves were pitted a little. No's 2&3 were much worse than 1&4 and needed quite a bit more work. I also fitted new valve stem seals. I measured the gaps between the cam lobes and the shims and found that they were not perfect but some of the exhaust gaps were too big and none were too small. I ordered the new shims and then fitted the head back on with a new gasket. The gasket kit I bought also had 2 TB to inlet manifold gaskets so I fitted those, even though my car didnt have gaskets there before and the fat plastic spacer appeared to have its own integrated gasket. Upon starting it ran really rough and I discovered the other coil pack had also expired so I bought another one and some new HT leads and fitted them and the car seemd to run good. My work is 17 miles from where I live (out in the sticks) so I thought id just drive the car to work for a week while waiting for the shims to arrive. It ran the best it ever has done but over the course of that week it seemed to gradually run a bit worse and worse until the end of the week it was running a little shoddy again. The engine warning light never went out.
When the shims arrived I double checked everything and realised that I had written down the spec wrong for the valve clearances. I had them as IN .030 and EX .040. So not only had I ordered the wrong shims, worse than that, it meant that all the gaps were .010 lower off the spec than I had measured. This means that whilst I had driven the car that week thinking that a couple of exhausts were not opening fully, what was actually happening was that the inlet valves on no's 2&3 had not been closing porperly! If I had realised, I never would have driven the car in this condition and now I got worried that I might have done some damage and I stopped driving the car immediately.
When the correct size shims arrived a week later I fitted them, did the swappy swappy shim dance and got all the valve clearances nicely well within spec. (IN .040 EX .050) Now worried that I might have done some damage, I give the TB a good look at and also removed the injector for inspection. It looked fine and I also noticed I had fitted the TB to In manifold spacer 90 degrees out of correct so I fitted that again properly and took out the 2 gaskets that came in my pack (thinking that my car was running before I fitted them so I dont need them). The car would not start or even fire and stunk of petrol. Looking again at the injector, I found that I had crushed the lower, smaller filter upon refitting, the rubber seal was not making a seal and the engine was getting massive over fuelling.
Here is a pic' of an injector just like mine.
It doesnt have the little rubber seal under the smaller filter that mine has.
I bought a Meat and Doria injector repair kit, 750-10001 that Auto-Doc says is the correct one for my car.
It came with the larger filter, 2 large seals and a small seal but it didnt come with the smaller filter which is the one I have damaged and need replaced.
I tried to fit this without the lower filter on the off-chance, but it obviously wouldnt start and fuel leaked out between the bottom of the TB spacer and the inlet manifold.
So, if you are still reading, thanks so much for staying with me and here are my questions:
Is the injector in the picture the right one for my car or has someone replaced mine for a Punto one?
If it is the right injector, where can I buy the smaller filter for it?
If it is not the right injector can anyone tell me what car this injector is from so that i can source a replcement filter for it?
What is the correct way to re-fit the TB to inlet manifold spacer?
Sould I use the gaskets for the TB to manifold spacer or is it better to just squirt a bit of liquid gasket in there?
What other damage should I be checking for now that I have driven the car for 130 odd miles with no's 2&3 inlet valves running with only a .030 clearance and therefore not fully closing once the engine has warmed up?
Thanks so much in advance. I cant wait to get this car running properly because I think Im going to really enjoy driving it once its all running nice.
So... Like most people (I guess) I signed up to this because I have a problem that I can not solve so I need to ask for advice!
I have done a bit of work on engines before but only carb'/distributer petrol engines and a bit of diesel. This is my first experience working on a SPI with ECU.
Im afraid this is quite a long post but I want to tell the whole sad story so that everyone can know and understand the full chain of events that have led to my current problem.
Just under a year ago I bought a Cinq sporting in pretty poor condition. It's never run nicely but just acceptabe and often unacceptable!
I have had 2 coil pack failures. Replacing those helped but it never has run nice, even after replacing those parts.
Pretty soon after buying it I noticed that the (No'1, I think. Far left end when looking under bonnet standing in front of the car) spark plug looked odd and appeared to be not screwed in properly. Since owning the car it has really grown on me and despite it never running nice and some obvious signs of bodged repairs in the past (Threaded screws, nuts and bolts not done up tight enough, some nuts/bolts/screws replaced with incorrect fitting ones. I can only guess the correct ones got lost during previous DIY "repair" work) I made the decision to keep the car and try to solve some of its problems.
And so to the spark plug. I removed it and, yes, it had been cross threaded. I tried to get it back in and catch on to the good threads but it didnt work and the plug never went all the way in. It ran a bit better at first but gradually got worse again and I suspected the spark plug. I bought one of those reverse rethreading tools that you put into the hole and recut the thread from the inside out. It didnt work! I ended up with a hole that was a little too big and the plug felt like it was barely held in place. A bit concerned, I took it for a test drive to the shop. It ran okay and seemed a bit improved (as if that plug was now giving a spark and that cylinder was finally firing reliably). When I came out of the shop and started the car back up (I can only guess that the plug had cooled and the head had not) the plug flew out of the head! Oh dear. I dont know if you have ever driven a car with only three plugs in place but I can tell you it is VERY loud and unpleasant sounding. I dont have a lot of money so couldnt really afford recovery so I decided to try to drive it the 2 miles home as it was. I did nurse it home okay but halfway home the engine warning light came on (the red light with a pic of an injector).
I bought a proper plug repair kit and removed the head, cut out the spark plug hole to a larger size, fitted the insert and fitted a new set of plugs. I also gave the head a good clean and de-coked it and lapped in the valves. Oddly the valves and seats on the inlets were worse than the exhausts and the valves were pitted a little. No's 2&3 were much worse than 1&4 and needed quite a bit more work. I also fitted new valve stem seals. I measured the gaps between the cam lobes and the shims and found that they were not perfect but some of the exhaust gaps were too big and none were too small. I ordered the new shims and then fitted the head back on with a new gasket. The gasket kit I bought also had 2 TB to inlet manifold gaskets so I fitted those, even though my car didnt have gaskets there before and the fat plastic spacer appeared to have its own integrated gasket. Upon starting it ran really rough and I discovered the other coil pack had also expired so I bought another one and some new HT leads and fitted them and the car seemd to run good. My work is 17 miles from where I live (out in the sticks) so I thought id just drive the car to work for a week while waiting for the shims to arrive. It ran the best it ever has done but over the course of that week it seemed to gradually run a bit worse and worse until the end of the week it was running a little shoddy again. The engine warning light never went out.
When the shims arrived I double checked everything and realised that I had written down the spec wrong for the valve clearances. I had them as IN .030 and EX .040. So not only had I ordered the wrong shims, worse than that, it meant that all the gaps were .010 lower off the spec than I had measured. This means that whilst I had driven the car that week thinking that a couple of exhausts were not opening fully, what was actually happening was that the inlet valves on no's 2&3 had not been closing porperly! If I had realised, I never would have driven the car in this condition and now I got worried that I might have done some damage and I stopped driving the car immediately.
When the correct size shims arrived a week later I fitted them, did the swappy swappy shim dance and got all the valve clearances nicely well within spec. (IN .040 EX .050) Now worried that I might have done some damage, I give the TB a good look at and also removed the injector for inspection. It looked fine and I also noticed I had fitted the TB to In manifold spacer 90 degrees out of correct so I fitted that again properly and took out the 2 gaskets that came in my pack (thinking that my car was running before I fitted them so I dont need them). The car would not start or even fire and stunk of petrol. Looking again at the injector, I found that I had crushed the lower, smaller filter upon refitting, the rubber seal was not making a seal and the engine was getting massive over fuelling.
Here is a pic' of an injector just like mine.
It doesnt have the little rubber seal under the smaller filter that mine has.
I bought a Meat and Doria injector repair kit, 750-10001 that Auto-Doc says is the correct one for my car.
It came with the larger filter, 2 large seals and a small seal but it didnt come with the smaller filter which is the one I have damaged and need replaced.
I tried to fit this without the lower filter on the off-chance, but it obviously wouldnt start and fuel leaked out between the bottom of the TB spacer and the inlet manifold.
So, if you are still reading, thanks so much for staying with me and here are my questions:
Is the injector in the picture the right one for my car or has someone replaced mine for a Punto one?
If it is the right injector, where can I buy the smaller filter for it?
If it is not the right injector can anyone tell me what car this injector is from so that i can source a replcement filter for it?
What is the correct way to re-fit the TB to inlet manifold spacer?
Sould I use the gaskets for the TB to manifold spacer or is it better to just squirt a bit of liquid gasket in there?
What other damage should I be checking for now that I have driven the car for 130 odd miles with no's 2&3 inlet valves running with only a .030 clearance and therefore not fully closing once the engine has warmed up?
Thanks so much in advance. I cant wait to get this car running properly because I think Im going to really enjoy driving it once its all running nice.
