Technical Tempra 1.6 i.e. misfire

[tommo1]

I took the plunge on a 1993 1.6 i.e Tempra a few days ago, it has developed a severe misfire but it is intermittent. It will start and idle fine as long as you like, but when driving it will start to cough and judder. It will then fail to even idle. Sometimes it restarts but usually has to be left for hours before it will.

It has done very few miles in the last couple of years but I put over 25 litres of fresh fuel in it and it was fine for the first 100 miles. It still indicates 1/2 a tank (about 1/8 when purchased).

Could it be just the old fuel? Perhaps it is a blocked injector? I'm sure it is single point injection but I haven't started full strip yet. There is a receipt in the history for a coil pack and a fuel filter in 2014 so 2 owners ago, it seems it may have happened before.

My next suspect is the fuel pump but the fact it sometimes runs OK has led me to be unsure. I suppose I'm avoiding the issue that I may have to take the tank off and clean it out.

Any others cured such a fault?

 

[SFB]

Is it fixed yet?

 

[tommo1]

Possibly. I gave a longer post on the Tipo (classic) thread, but it looks like it may have been the distributor cap centre carbon brush being almost worn away, and no spring!

I'll give it a long road test when the dashboard is back in, sorting out the sticky black s***e on it.

 

[SFB]

That certainly would be a problem and cause the condition you describe initially.
I dealt with a few like that on Beetles when I was in the business, but it's not something that readily springs to mind, it's part of a checklist when its not the obvious.

There's usually a reason for the carbon brush wearing away, the rotor arm centre contact is possibly rough and ready for replacement.

 

[tommo1]

Sorted. It WAS the distributor cap. I'd removed a lot of bits for access and checked out the water temp sensor for the ECU unnecessarily.

As you say, I went through it all methodically to find it was the distributor cap and after driving and messing with cars for over 30 yrs, you can still learn something! Drove in heavy traffic, fan kicking in and out today, ran perfectly.