car starts then stalls

[Andy_1984]

well atleast it stoped misfiring for a few hours. when i replaced the ht leads it was fine but after leaving the car for about 8 hours then starting it up after work it started misfiring again!

 

from what i can gather a low battery can cause a weak spark too so need to get me that battery i must have jinxed myself by saying i hadnt spent a penny on it. i reckon the cars just jealous

[Worms]

well atleast it stoped misfiring for a few hours. when i replaced the ht leads it was fine but after leaving the car for about 8 hours then starting it up after work it started misfiring again!

 

from what i can gather a low battery can cause a weak spark too so need to get me that battery i must have jinxed myself by saying i hadnt spent a penny on it. i reckon the cars just jealous

A handy hint with LPG is to install a 6 volt ignition coil and a suitable resistor. The starter takes a lot of juice out of a good battery never mind a bad one and can reduce your feed to the coil to 9-10 volts. With a resistor and a 6v coil no probs, full power all the time!

[Andy_1984]

i feel like such a tube right now.

 

instead of doing spark plugs, ht leads, coil pack like last time and being £38 worse off than i would have been if i done it the other way around last time. so this time i did it the other way around and got the coil pack first.

 

turns out i never needed the coil pack to begin with!

 

the hose from the coolant was too close to the coil pack and was arcing from the boot on the ht lead (coil pack end) to the coolant hose. i moved the hose about 7 inches away from it and cable tied it in place. no more misfire and the car now runs nicely.

 

now i have to try and reseal this new coil pack back in its bag and try and get my money back

 

just out of curiosity though, it shouldnt do that if its too close should it. would it indicate something still wrong like bad lead or plug ?

[chesters1]

probably worth replacing the lead ,you can get a belt with the cheap ones but renewing them is always a good bet as they are poorly made carbon filled rubbish today not the copper ones of old.

i take it the coolant hose is metal? also check the coil pack securing bolts are clean and well earthed on the body if they are designed to be

what happened to the low battery voltage though

Edited March 24, 2011 by chesters1

[Andy_1984]

probably worth replacing the lead ,you can get a belt with the cheap ones but renewing them is always a good bet as they are poorly made carbon filled rubbish today not the copper ones of old.

i take it the coolant hose is metal? also check the coil pack bolts are clean and well earthed on the body

 

rubber mate, unless its got reinforced wire weaved in to it that i cant see. the leads i got on just now are genuine ford ones. the pattern ones i got last year arced in the same place too though.

[Andy_1984]

i have though thought that due to the absence of the cover that goes over the top of the spark plugs their may have been some sort of clip on it that held the hose out of the way.

[ColinW]

1. If your original problem ever comes back (starting OK and then just dieing and refusing to restart) try pulling the fuel pump relay out and then plugging it back in again. If it then starts it's a duff electrolytic capacitor in the "relay" (they aren't really relays). I had that problem on my escort, which has the same engine etc.

 

2. I bought one of those cheap OBD2 connectors. They work well, but unfortunately my car (Volvo) will only give me the information the makers are forced to give by U.S. emission legislation. (Reading the data is part of their equivalent to the MOT test.) This means that, although it's nice to be able to see that the engine is working fine, they aren't a big help in fault diagnosis! They also don't help you find the fault that actually causes a bad reading on any particular sensor. It's still fun to sit in the street with your laptop plugged into the car, impresses the local kids no end!