Unhappy X-flow

[YW Sin]

It has been very damp recently where I live and I have noticed a new glitch with my 1.7 X flow.

 

My car has recently felt like as if it was running only on 3 cylinders when cold but became happy again when warmed up.

 

But today, it just stayed like that even when warmed up. Car is certainly not accelerating, not revving well and engine very unhappy.

Touched the exhaust pipes and they are a ll hot so I guess, a ll 4 cylinders are firing.

 

Any ideas what to do?

 

 

 

 

~~~ standard 1.7 X-flow

 

Edited by - yw sin on 21 Dec 2002 21:55:41

[Fred]

clean plugs check for condensation in cap if so spray with wd40

 

 

[Nigel Riches]

Monsieur Sin, yes indeed this problem sounds like moisture getting into the electrics, may be worth removing the plug leads and the coil lead, cleaning them thoroughly, as dirt build up will allow an electrical path for the H.T. to track to ground, clean and dry the distributor cap, rotor arm, (points, condenser ?), check all the earth connections for nasty corrosion, possibly spray the H.T. leads when refitted with some sealer, I seem to remember Holts made some back in the bad old "70s, that kept my Renault 10 going, hope this is of some help Nigel.

[CHRIS CLARK]

Classic moisture problem. Can actually be worth starting her up at night with the bonnet off as sometimes in bad cases you can see tracking down plug leads etc.

 

Clamshell Club Founder Member.

[YW Sin]

Thanks to ~~~,

 

At the moment, I can't take the car out to check or to warm her up.

Just too wet out side so might do more harm than good....

 

~~~ standard 1.7 X-flow

[YW Sin]

The problem has been solved!

 

I did the four wet finger tests on the exhaust pipes and discovered that indeed, Number one cylinder was not firing!

I have applied some WD40 on the lead connections and also in the distributor but no success.

So I have swapped the spark plug with Number two cylinder. Now the number two cylinder was not firing so it lead me to believe it was spark plug problem.

I cleaned the spark plug and got number two cylinder firing again but now number one cylinder was not firing! [ :/].

So I realized that it was perhaps not the sparkplug problem after al l...

Then I moved to the earth connection on the bell housing. Though it looked healthy outside, when screw was undone, it revealed that bare metal was covered with oil, dirt, rust and other nasty stuffs. It was polished and cleaned.

 

When the car was started again, the car was transformed with a very happy engine!

 

Joy and agony of owning a British car! 😬

 

 

 

 

 

A ll standard 1.7 X-flow