[WJB]

Whilst cruising on the motorway my 214sei cut out. On the hard shoulder the engine started ok, but imediately died again.
Once the AA man arrived 45mins later it started ok, and ran and revved ok for about 20-30 seconds then slowed and cut again. After various tests (spark is good) the guy agreed with my conclusion of a fuel problem. Back home i have replaced the fuel filter (was old and rusty!).
The pump can be heard priming with the ignition on, but it wont start. Cranking the engine over it will fire occasionally, and sometimes sounds like its going to start, but never does.
When turning the ingnition off there is a gurgling noise from the inlet manifold. This may just be down to air in the system after replacing the fuel filter, i've never heard it before, but ive never had reason to listen.
I've cranked the engine over plenty, if the pump was working the air should have been purged by now.

Is there any sensible place to connect a multimeter to check that the fuel pump recieves a current when the engine runs? I have checked the fuse and tried swapping the relay, both are fine.

It felt a bit sluggish on hills prior to dying, but it stopped due to a sharp failure, not gradual decline. It was only about 5 seconds between power dropping and a complete cut.

Cheers for any suggestions, or even contact details of someone in Loughborough area who wont rip me off taking a look.

Will

 

[WJB]

Cheers gary, can't believe i didn't think of doing it that way myself.

Its not the pump then, pumping strongly with ignition on and when trying to start. For the record i tried it with the imobiliser on and it cut fuel as soon as you turn the engine so that is operating ok.
Its mpi, so a bit difficult to check at the injectors.

There is a spark at the plugs, and the dizzy is clean and quite new (10k miles), with little wear.

 

[WJB]

I've tried swapping the rotor arm and distributor cap with no luck. I prefered this to your test as i've shocked myself off the ht leads before and it hurts. Have given up and called out a mobile garage. Got to wait till tues unfortunately or pay a £45 bank hol call out fee. Waiting wins.

It seems likely to be a problem with the injectors or the ECU. Any ideas what could cause it not to inject? It has got progressively worse. yesterday it would fire occasionally, but less frequently ever time i tried. Now it turns over and almost never shows any sign of combustion. Mobile service guy apparently has diagnostics equipment now so maybe that will throw some light on it.

 

[WJB]

Well ive had a mobile mechanic out to the car today and it still doesn't run.

It seems there is plenty of fuel in the cylinders, in fact far too much, and it floods the engine. A brand new set of spark plugs got it to run for abvout a second before flooding again. We checked spark on every plug, and compression on every cylinder, stepper motor etc.

His thoughts have also turned to an ECU fault, giving either prolonged or badly timed injection.

He also tried using some diagnostics equipment. Not the official rover kit, a little pod. This ran through a number of checks, fuel pump, injectors etc, all ok. It would reset once it reached the attempt to start engine stage, so we didn't get any answers that way wither.

The next step seems to be to try replacing the ECU. The mechanic said that if i matched the ECU number (mkc....) then i can swap it straight over. Will a number matched ECU be compatible with the existing immobiliser or will i need to change the imobiliser ECU at the same time? Just after a bit of confirmation before i go sourcing an ECU and find i need the other bits as well.

The one piece of good news is i only got charged £20 for about 1.5hrs labour and the use of the diagnostics equipment. Not everyone is out to sting you it seems.

Thanks again for your help Gary

 

[WJB]

Thanks for your thoughts guys

forget fuel timing or injector pulse width etc - as its single point the fuel metering isnt that accurate - if there is visable fuel going down there you should be able to start. unless there is too much - but not heard of this before.

Its the multipoint version, so the timing could screw it up, though its more likely to be a duration problem. Timing would have to be piss poor for it to be this bad, i'll admit.
Cheap second hand ECU seems the next test, if that doesn't work i can sell it on here!

I'll post the cure, assuming i find one,