TwistedPuppet

I actually cleaned the car in and out.

Used Hood cleaner and protector on mohair, folded it down and put hard top on for winter.

Used Bilt Hamber -

Auto Wash
Regular Clay Bar
Auto Clean-Polish
Autobalm

Never used a clay bar before but was easy and picked up a suprising amount of crap from paint.
Autobalm is a bit weird at first but small amount on a two foot square section then polish straight off.

Never usually bother this much but I wanted to give the paint some protection. Car is now liquid shiny, quite impressed.
It will look good for a couple of days until the local crows and ravens shit all over it.

Car passed the MOT last week. YAAAAAAAHHHH.

Emissions went from too high to read to pass. Only thing was a binding rear brake. Bit fed up working on the car so I brought a recon caliper rather than dicking about with new seals etc.

Same MOT tester and garage but advisories :-

Last MOT rear discs worn etc. Slight play on inner steering joint.

This MOT all discs worn etc.

About a month apart and off the road the front discs have worn and the slight play in the steering has magically fixed itself!


If anybody has the same problem, I don't know for sure what fixed it.
Apart from testing nearly everything and cleaning here and there I did three things.
Changed upstream O2 sensor because Pscan results indicated it had a low switching frequency but new one read the same.
Changed coolant temp sensor because it was cheap and easy. Seemed the same.
Last thing I did was add some Snake Oil and that actually got results to my disgust.

Anybody guess what it was?

I have both cam and flywheel locking tools but I am in west Cornwall, a bit far

Hi,

I did mine recently using a kit from FurnitureClinic. Cost me £25 and was really pleased with the result.

Welcome,

If you have fun working on a car there will be plenty of that - lol. They can be a bit tricky to work on sometimes if you have big hands but the parts are cheap, at least at the moment.

I like them because they feel different from hatchbacks etc. Mid engined 2 seater with the engine behind your head. Not many cars like that at an affordable price. I can only think of the Toyota MR2 or Lotus Ellise. I had a mx5 and it felt a bit bland and despite what Mazda claim, it's only technicaly mid engined (the engine is in the front but it is a bit more back over the center of the wheels than a normal car).

Still plenty of good cheap ones about if you are looking.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply

The photo of sparks plugs are the old ones i took out when I changed them a few months ago, don't think they are in order. If I get time in the next couple of days I'll photo the new ones.

Did the compression again recently after dumping fuel system cleaner in and from warm cly 3 is 14% down on the others. No signs of head gasket going, emptied all the coolent out when I did the cambelt/water pump and S/S underfloor pipe and it was really clean. I did not try putting any oil in the cylinder to see if it improved.

The ECU does not give readings on cylinders 3 and 4 only 1 and 2 apperently so Pscan can not read what is not there so gives a ?. The misfire count data seems screwed up, always seems to be one of three values so I have ignored it now.

I can't remember what the exhaust smelled like after failing on massivly high CO but I would expect to smell petrol if there was incomplete combustion. I came near too death sniffing the exhausts of all three cars recently - lol.
VW T4 camper smelled of exhaust but has no cat anyway.
Astra smelled of nothing but is a much newer car.
MG TF smelled of exhaust like the T4 but a bit stonger, no petrol or sulphur smell.

Did a live scan after fuel system clean, new upstream sensor and coolant sensor from Rimmer Bros and it seems better. See attached - just the fuel correction and both o2 sensors. The fuel correction(I think this is the short term fuel trim) is only fluctuating a few percent either way from 100% and the O2 sensor seem to be doing the right thing, upsteam fluctuating and downstream staying mostly steady on the higher side. The cat is using the O2.

Hoping that means the fuel trim error is gone and the cat is ok still. I have cleared the error but I need to let it run a good few times to see if it comes back.
Praying it was a dicky injector cuasing overfueling and the cleaner fixed it.

If not...

Maybe a valve on cylinder 3 like you said or too high fuel pressure in the rail (I've checked the vacuum hose to the FPR). I have checked for vacuum leaks all over with smoke from a vape box and a hose connected to the breather. Also double checked the cambelt I did for timing - all good.

If it was a leak in the exhaust manifold I would have thought it would have been picked up on the MOT.

Written a letter to Santa asking for my car to work - that will do it.

Hi,

I recentlly brought a Pscan unit to help try to diagnose a problem I have with emissions after an MOT failure.

Firstly, let me say that it is still being updated and developed and has huge potential. In my case it has not helped that much. Cheap sanner tools seem to give info that Pscan does not report at the moment and it needs to be easier to use to appeal to a broader user base I think. I am keeping Pscan as I feel it will be useful in the future.

I have a TF so MEMS3 ECU.
Does not report freeze frame data.
Does not report Fuel trims.
You need to learn how to produce graphs from a spreadsheet with the data file to help seeing some problems. I can't get this to work but that is down to my inexperience with spreadsheet software.
None of the data value are explained and there is no real guide.
There are no expected values so you can check quickly if some thing is wrong.
Not sure if all the values can be trusted. I am replacing the O2 sensor at the moment because I have yet to find anything wrong with Pscan except that the upstream sensor "Switching Frequency" seems very low from what I can gather from trawling the web but I don't know for sure and that is back to using a shotgun method of replacing parts.

You can download the live data and share it on a forum such as this and anybody can load it into a spreadsheet to have a look.
I tried this with my recent post in the Pitstop section but either nobody can see anything in the data or they have better things to do .

For some idea of what the live data values mean I have found a website that gives a better idea and has helped me a bit.

https://blackbox-solutions.com/help/SM003.html

Pscan is good but it still needs (and seems to be getting) work.
It's fantastic for older pre-odsb2 ecu's and can be used to program keys, get info and reset erros with ABS, airbags and security systems.

It's not a magic bullit to solve problems though, at least not yet.

If you are an expericed mechanic Pscan is probaly more useful, i'm very much DIY.

Hi,

I have added as an attachment, the full Pscan live data file if anybody wants to have a look using a spreadsheet, tab delimited seems to work.

I noticed two things :
"Cylinder 1 misfire count" - sometimes says 1 or 2 but also 256 or 512.
Downstream O2 sensor reads higher voltages than the Upstream sensor reads, that can't be right even if there was no Cat!

Today I looked Ignition because of misfire values.
No tracing visable in the dark.
Pulled boots off coils - little bit of white corrosion - cleaned off with alcohol,
Swapped positions over of coil 1 and 2. Misfire in live data stayed on cylinder 1.
Checked spark plugs. When I first put them in I could not find my gapping tool so trusted the factory preset - all at 1mm except cylinder 1 which was 0.8mm - regapped to 1mm, Don't think it made any difference but I ran last live data before this.
Noticed wires to coil packs have been played with.


Performed a compression test,
Cylinder 4 - 14 bar (200psi)
Cylinder 3 - 12 bar (175psi)
Cylinder 2 - 15 bar (220psi)
Cylinder 1 - 15 bar (220psi)

Took a phone video of exhaust sound but it appears too big to attach.

An air pipe is hanging off the air box, don''t think it makes a difference though.


Swore at a group of Ravens in the tree overhead.

Forgot to include, I put a sheet of paper up near exhaust pipe for a few mins too see if there was any soot. Just a bit of rust from pipe edge.

Thanks for taking the time to post that data but I can't work out what is what.

Coolant sensor seems fine as it starts the same as ambient and go up. I have tried pulling it off and I can hear the radiator fan kick in then.

Iain.