Club 80-90 Forums

Hi Guys.............. Sorry its been a while!

Wondered if I could call on some help, many heads big better than one! Bit of an issue with the van, 2.1i MV Syncro in Bournemouth on the south coast.

Was going to Dubaid and got covered by a wash of water on the off side, not long after followed by the engine starting to die, put foot down and nothing on the peddle, eventually picked up so didnt worry to much. Having been on a few off road runs knew to check dizzy and air filter for any water ingress and dry them if needed, no water so ok! On the way back this started to happen more often and we limped homeward. At one stage we got caught in some roadworks when it died, so I thought I would turn the ignition off and restart, all of a sudden the van came straight back to life as if nothing happend at full power
Whilst driving back worked what had happend through my head and thought it needed to be part of the ignition / injection system. The van gave up the ghost and we called the AA worked through the problem, changed the coil as I was carrying a spare, checked the spark, starter was ok, eventually got a tow home...........the AA man thought it was the crankshaft sensor
After talking to Aidan, thought it was the Idle Sensor Control Unit behind the o/s taillight all made sense with what had happend and sounded like the ECU was resetting itself when the engine was turned off. Took this off cleaned it and the contacts, dried it out and refitted. Took it for a run for a couple of miles, was initially ok then it died again
Started looking at the WIKI and Bentley, did lots of the checks in intermittent 2.1, Vanagon Syndrome, Petrol engine fault diagnosis think I have the words of the WIKI on the inside of my eye lids by now.

In summary I have:
Changed the spark plugs, checked the earths, checked for air leaks, changed the Temp2 sensor, tried another ISCU, tried another AFM, tried the vanagon fix with a capacitor accross 2 & 4 on my AFM, changed the idle stabilizer for another, sprayed all the electrical points with WD40, disconnected the lambda sensor, disconnected and reconnected the ECU.

The things I have done, checked, swapped have the engine running sweet as a nut, Sharon, the wife, even said that it was running that quiet she couldnt hear the engine whilst we were out in it at all

However after running about 10 miles started to get a bit lumpy, when we slowed down on slower roads started to die, pulled over, changed the AFM........no different, changed the ISCU........ no different, sat and had a cup of tea and something to eat to let the engine cool, started and ran nearly all the way back before it happend again.......back to the drawing board.

Any ideas anyone? Does anybody have an MV ECU I could try? maybe buy if I need it?

This sounds a bit like the problem that I had with the SA the other year. It all turned out to be down to a short in the loom where some idiot had done a "scratch 'n' sniff" on the engine loom to identify what the wires did...
Insulating tape, weather, corrosion and touching wires reseulted in the ecu getting spiked occasionally, then more frequently until it wouldn't rev over ~1500 rpm before dying.
It would restart everytime, but as the revs rose so would voltages etc and then the corrosion that was insulating/seperating the wires would break down and #pop# it would cut out.
You might have a dry joint on the ecu board, it' possible but I don't know anything about Digifant or Digijet. I'd go looking for external shorts first, like a badly wired towbar or anything aftermarket like LPG wiring that may have developed a fault in service. Then it's time to go opening up the engine-ecu loom and look for scorch marks on any insulation. Wires can have flaws in them that slowly grow into breaks, it can take many years until they won't carry the load asked of them.

Could be the hall sensor in the dizzy...tend to fail when hot then be ok when cooled down again...

I'm not really familiar with MVs or syncros, If it was a conventional van, Id be looking at the fuel tank, water in fuel, rust blocking outlet etc.
I'd also be looking at the fuel pump and fuel filter, purely from the description of off side water splash.
I dont think the rear mounted tank in your van suffers as badly as the weird shaped bugger in rear wheel drive vans, but it would be worth checking it out.


T

i had a similar problem with my mv after a wet drive, i changed everything except the loom and it still had intermittant miss fire and loss of power including rev counter bounce. fixed it in the end buy fitting a tdi.

my spare ecus are currently out on loan testing other duffers - one is running a van while it gets it's ecu repaired, I'll check with Steve what's happening with the other one

I guess that those bits arrived in time then Aidan?

Guys

Thanks for the replies and checking out the ECU availability.

Just as a matter of interest what is the difference between a DJ loom and an MV loom, apart from the obvious lambda senor port?

Could they be swapped and discard the Lambda?

Ady

This bit I do know, thanks to Aidan!

In a word, no. DJ loom not the same as MV, you have to swap the lot inc. distributor, but then you're running a 9:1 engine on fuelling tables for a 10.5:1 so less than ideal.

keenos doka had a similar sounding problem once and we tracked it down to the relay for the fuel pump which on a dj at least lives in a black box above the coil on the left hand side of the engine bay. so his van was getting intermittent fuel starvation just due to a load of rusty crap inside the relay. it wasnt until we removed the plastic cover off the relay that we could see that there was anything wrong with it.


years ago, myself and a mate both had leaky bay windows on our kombis which were dripping onto the relays. my solution was to remove the windscreen, replace the metal etc. jamies solution was much simpler. he just drilled drain holes in the relays.

as he said no MV /DJ looms and bits is different
Dan's also right in back to basics when in fail mode, fuel spark air,
totally off the wall - vacuum on tank ?
Thanks Ian they hadn't arrived when I left but Steve hasn't called me since - Monday they are shut so I'll rattle his cage in the morning.
I sold an ecu recently to Pash, who didn't actually need to buy it, his was a filters and "pooh" in tank issue so he may be up for loaning it for diagnosis
BBA Reman for lifetime warranted ecu's and idle control units, they talk bosch and vw T3/T25/Vanagon
also there's a guy called ecuPete I think on ebay

Bloody hell it should have got there in time. UK Mail next day by 9.30 my ar$e. Should have used UPS...

Might be worth giving the wires to the fuel pump a clean too. My DJ cut out once after going through a puddle at speed and it was because the fuel pump connectors had got wet and needed cleaning. I called Russel up when it happened and he knew what it was straight away so It might happen quite a bit.

Worth a try.

Jed

I've got an MV ecu you can try but it's not for sale I'm afraid. I'm in Bournemouth too.

Sounds like the oxygen sensor was drowned, it's probably ruined. Try disconnecting the signal wire and see if it runs a bit better. If so, get a new sensor. Or you could check its output with a VOM.

There are reportedly splash shields that came on some but I've never seen one, you could make one yourself easily from any thin metal sheet.