1.9 DG Starting Problem

[Elsaetka]

Hi, would appreciate some advice please.
My 1.9DG is suddenly refusing to start from cold, plenty of fuel pumping through so i'm convinced this is electrical.

Exact details are it wont fire, maybe the odd tiny cough in 5 mins of churning. Leave it for a while, come back and it does fire in an instant, you would think it was flooded (it isnt).

Noticed in the weeks leading up to this, that it needs a good spin when hot starting, which again is not usual. Engine oil consumption is fine, van has done 200K plus. Fitted new leads distributer cap and rotor arm, but they did not look bad.

I'm thinking ignition unit or hall sender / distributer? One things for sure, its getting worse and is going to leave us stranded if I don't get to the bottom of it.

Be good to hear from someone who has fixed the same faults

Thanks

[CovKid]

Rather than a splatter approach to diagnosis, be methodical. Check what kind of spark you're getting at plugs for starters.

[kevtherev]

Then check that the choke is 'set' when you use the cold start method described in the handbook.

[Elsaetka]

Will do, sure the choke was fine, especially as the pull down unit and auto choke unit were replaced last year.
Appreciate the diagnosis needs to be methodical, the frustrating thing is it is intermittant, fires first click and on another day needs churning. I went to check for a spark and the thing fired, (seems to come to life after a pause when the none start occours). so was snookered there. Will have to leave the engine cover off in the short term.

[300CE]

See if there's anyone local to you who can swap over a good ignition module as its only a 5 minute job. We're there any symptoms leading up to the non start? I had this problem & it gave no indication whatsoever - one week started fine, the next just turned over and wouldn't fire - changed ignition module and all was ok.

This might not be your issue though, so worth seeing if someone is close enough to help.

[Elsaetka]

Thanks for the replies to what turned into a frustrating problem. Basically as described, it occassionally would not fire however by the time I removed the engine cover it started. I also noticed it had a slight misfire under load during warm up. There is a steep hill close to our home which as you will probably guess shows upthe slightest fault on a cold engine.

Anyway, I bought an ignition amplifier (did'nt fit it), but actually did two things to cure the fault.

Firstly, rightly or wrongly I spotted a forum post where the writer had experienced starting / misfire problems for a long time and as an absolute last resort cleaned up the earth point. I took the earth cable securing bolt off, ground away a lot of rust from it, back to bare metal.

While I was on, I replaced the leads and it has started first click ever since.

Thanks again for the responces, hopefully this helps anyone with similar issues.