Technical Smokey diesel and no power

[SillyBilly]

Hi
Car has been laid up on a SORN for 7 months while I swapped engine, gearbox etc. After getting the car through its MOT and taxing and insuring it I have a problem. Drove it about 20 miles yesterday to find any things still to do. Took my mobile with me in case I needed to summon the family with the other Multipla with A-frame, for recovery. Just a knocking antiroll bar! Rather than use a few nails I have ordered 2 bushes from Portugal which will cost £15 all told.
Today I went in to town about 16 miles to have the toe-in set to parallel after putting a new steering rack & tie-rod ends & wishbone on.
Drove OK. I was conscious of a slight reverberation like going over a new gravelly road surface, which I hadn't heard yesterday. Noone else said anything. Had the toe-in done. Then drove around town with my new tax disc and smiley face tax-disc cover, feeling rather pleased with myself. Should have held that back. About 2 miles later the same reverberation (but much more noticeable) came at about 10mph. Then rougher engine and lots of black smoke from the exhaust.
Struggled home the 16 miles apologising and waving to the poor s***s behind who couldn't overtake on our narrow A road.
Put the car on Fiatecuscan but no errors. Engine starts as usual.
Car has lost power and chucks out fumes. Anyone give me some pointers as to what to do.

 

[widemouthfrog]

Have you cleaned out the EGR? It may have jammed.

Can I ask where you got your steering rack? Mine's got a leak so looking for a new one.....

 

[SillyBilly]

Hi
EGR valve is one of the things I have been told to look at.
My rack was new on ebay £77
Good luck with that

 

[widemouthfrog]

£77, new. Jammy git! I'll keep looking....

If the car's been stood for a long time, a lump of the soot deposits in the exhaust may come adrift and find its way into the EGR. That was the thinking behind my comment.

 

[SillyBilly]

I was licky but have seen the leak sealers on ebay e.g. item 250815752318
I am removing the EGR tomorrow so will keep my fingers crossed

 

[SillyBilly]

Have now cleaned out the EGR valve. It was a bit gungy but nothing like the other one I did which was solid soot.
Unfortunately no difference. Still no power, hesitant and lots of soot out of the exhaust. What should I check next?

 

[Matthen]

MAF Sensor? Try disconnecting it, and see if anything improves... And have you replaced the diesel since you declared it sorn?

 

[SillyBilly]

Hi
When I diconnected the MAF it ran but was still throttled, but no smoke.
I suspected the MAF but swapped it with a good one on my other Multipla. Exactly the same symptoms so not the MAF
Have run Fiatecuscan and the parameters are a bit out but no errors.
Wondering about the 'throttled' engine and lack of power I checked all the parameters one by one. In particular the intake air quantity doesn't go above 80 while the desired air quantity is typically 300+ mg/i. The figures are typically between 0.1 and 0.2 of the desired values which shouts to me turbo but may should something else to you and others!!
The boost pressure is typically 1.004 mBar and the desired about 998mBar though these do swap around
The actual EGR varies between 1% and 50%
Boost Control dsays 75%
The second Boost Control says Not Active (Overboost strategy)
Fuel pressure says 290-300 and desired pressure 300

 

[widemouthfrog]

Have you checked the intercooler (and its' hoses) for leaks? Not quite sure of the best way to do that, but some soapy water brushed on might work. Or the intercooler itself might have something lodged in it.

 

[SillyBilly]

Hi
You should join NHDirect!
Having found that the butterfly wasn't stuck shut I then noticed that the other end of the large rubber pipe that is connected to it had come off the intercooler which gave me the symtoms described. The engine now runs as it used to but looking again at FIATecuscan the figures are still 10%-20% of the desired ones! Tomorrow I am going to see what figures I get on my other 115JTD Multipla!
Wouldn't mind if someone else checked them as well

 

[widemouthfrog]

I would help but I can't get my newly acquired cheapo ELM327 cable to work. The drivers are installed and port COM32 automaitcally assigned on installation (which I can't see a way of changing), but when I plug the cable in and fire up FiatECUScan, the highest port number it offers me is COM30.

If I get it working I'll post up my figures for comparison.

 

[SillyBilly]

Hi
Hope you get it working
The multiplaowners repairs forum has a whole section on the cable and software and installation.
http://www.multiplarepairs.co.uk/
You probably know you need to solder a switch to allow you to switch between the engine, abs and airbag ecus. You also have to set the latence
Having said that I have just noticed that there is an excel spreadsheet of someones use of the fiatecuscan which shows the figures for actaul and desired air intake quantity on a journet as nearly equal.

 

[SillyBilly]

Hi
As my problem has been partly resolved I have started a new clean thread
'What causes low Actual Air Intake Quantity on 115JTD'
Thanks for help so far