Sensors & starting problems!
Posted: 10 Feb 2009, 17:16
Hi all.
On Sunday my '83 T25 westy refused to start having not been used for 3 days. It's ran perfect for 4 months since buying it & this was the 1st time it has refused to kick into life. After checking the usual leads, dizzy cap, rotor arm & plugs I still couldn't get it to start, although it would fire once or twice while turning it over & even managed to get it run for about ½ a second at one point.
While checking various things I thought about the various sensors attached to the fuel, ignition & cooling systems & so had a check of the coolant level. The level was about 2½ litres low, so I topped it up but knocked the main HT lead from the coil loose when I put the expansion bottle cap back on.
I'd not been happy with the HT leads as the caps don't exactly fit the coil properly, being more a cross between a car & motorcycle suppressor cap with a spring clip through the bottom of a hollow tube covered by a tapered rubber sleeve which is fine to grip a bare rather than capped spark plug but not to fit the coil. A normal car type is a split sleeve type to fit a capped spark plug(the bit that screws onto where the supressor cap fits onto) & pushes into the coil with the split sleeve compressing slightly to fit.
I reconnected the coil HT lead & lightly tapped it in with a small spanner then tried the engine. It started 1st time & ticked over nicely.
My question is, would the level of the coolant being low have affected the level/temp sensors & prohibit starting or was it just this dodgy lead?
Bear in mind I'd had no trouble over about 350 miles in 4 months.
Thanks in advance
On Sunday my '83 T25 westy refused to start having not been used for 3 days. It's ran perfect for 4 months since buying it & this was the 1st time it has refused to kick into life. After checking the usual leads, dizzy cap, rotor arm & plugs I still couldn't get it to start, although it would fire once or twice while turning it over & even managed to get it run for about ½ a second at one point.
While checking various things I thought about the various sensors attached to the fuel, ignition & cooling systems & so had a check of the coolant level. The level was about 2½ litres low, so I topped it up but knocked the main HT lead from the coil loose when I put the expansion bottle cap back on.
I'd not been happy with the HT leads as the caps don't exactly fit the coil properly, being more a cross between a car & motorcycle suppressor cap with a spring clip through the bottom of a hollow tube covered by a tapered rubber sleeve which is fine to grip a bare rather than capped spark plug but not to fit the coil. A normal car type is a split sleeve type to fit a capped spark plug(the bit that screws onto where the supressor cap fits onto) & pushes into the coil with the split sleeve compressing slightly to fit.
I reconnected the coil HT lead & lightly tapped it in with a small spanner then tried the engine. It started 1st time & ticked over nicely.
My question is, would the level of the coolant being low have affected the level/temp sensors & prohibit starting or was it just this dodgy lead?
Bear in mind I'd had no trouble over about 350 miles in 4 months.
Thanks in advance
so naturally(in my eyes anyway) I presumed there's a sensor to stop the engine starting somewhere!