Holiday automobile woes

[zardoz]

After having just gone through a trouble free year with my 1997 fiesta zetec, the day before i go on holiday it starts to play up, with acceleration being a bit lumpy and stuttering. So i take a look at the spark plugs, after i topped up the oil and coolant. They seemed fine, a good colour and correct gap of 1.3mm. So i try again and it seems to have got worse now still stuttering with the odd missfire and definately noticing sluggishnesss up hills ?

Help what on earth has happened. I re checked i had put the plugs back in correctly, but the leads are numbered and foolproof. Also the first plug is now carbon fouled! what on earth is happening Answers on a postcard please!!??

 

[rtbcomp]

Do a compression test and check the coil-pack.

A simple way of checking the spark is to use an old neon-type timing light. Running a modern engine with a plug lead disconnected can damage the ignition, or give misleading results if it is a wasted spark system.

 

[HasBean]

Does it only play up when under load ie accelerating etc?
Mine was ok when on overun or on the flat & idled fine but when under any load it stuttered and missfired all the time, 'twas the coil pack.

 

[zardoz]

Thanks for the reply, however fingers crossed it has been solved. I called in my brother who used to own the car. He informed me that he once changed the NGK plugs and didnt realise he had put a hailine crack into one. So i had him take the plugs out and check himself, and presto! there was a tiny crack. I may have eventually "solved" it by changing the "fouled" plug. But knowing what is was sets my mind at rest more.

I will remember what you have said about the coil pack though, thanks guys.

 

[Hitch]

Mrs H's car was doing that uphill the other day, she phoned me up, and i dropped everything and went and had a look. Switched ignition on... out of petrol!!
£6.70 later, i have a can of petrol, put it in, jobs a gooden.

 

[nellway]

£6.70?

Must have been a very small can!

 

[Morrisman]

£6.70?

Must have been a very small can!

I ran out of petrol on the M6 in my 17mpg V8 hot rod a few months back.

After an hours sitting on the hard shoulder the breakdown guy brought me a fivers worth of petrol.........



You can see where this is going.

Yes, I ran out again, but within 50 yards of the closest petrol station.

 

[marknotgeorge]

I remember one year when I was a kid, my dad had the sills welded on his Vauxhall Victor FE 2300 the day before our holiday. Spent the first half of the first day separating the wires to the rear lights out from the melted lump they were in...

 

[peterd51]

Hi,

mine was changing the master cylinder on a Morris 1000 traveller at 2.00am on the day we went away to Norfolk. I can't remember now if it was the brake or clutch master, clutch I think, mounted in the chassis just under the drivers feet and accessed through a plate in the floor.

Bugger of a job, anyway. Fortunately, as it was early days and I didn't know much or have the tools, my father-in-law was a night foreman on a site at Immingham and after all the drivers were away we had access to the workshop with all the tools, lighting, etc, that we needed.

Regards
Peter

 

[TAITSIE]

It would be the brake master cylinder,it was a pig to change, the pipes were hard to get started and you had to lever the torsion bar slightly to get the bolts out and in.

 

[peterd51]

Hi,

yes, sounds familiar...

but it was 1974!

Regards
Peter

 

[Robotstar5]

I remember my father changing the exhaust downpipe on the Landrover in the carpark at Saundersfoot while the family spent the day on the beach. Like most Landrover owners he always carried enough tools and spares for a roadside rebuild!

 

[TAITSIE]

Hi,

yes, sounds familiar...

but it was 1974!

Regards
Peter

Hi
Morris 1000s were available new until 1970

 

[Wedg1e]

I remember my parents taking both her car and his van to a caravan site somewhere near Bridlington, must have been mid-70s... not sure why they took both vehicles but as the old fella's not around any more to ask and my mother has the memory of a goldfish I'll probably never know.
Anyway, the engine died in the Escort van and dad spent most of his holiday swapping the engine for a scrapyard one he managed to find (in Scarborough as I recall). Daft bu99er should have just scrapped the van...

My personal grief was when staying on a campsite in Kirkcudbright; Renault 25, turned the key, just a click. Fudgenuts, the starter must be dead. Spent an entire day in the wind and rain getting the starter out (need hands like a paedophile to do the job), stripped it down, found nothing wrong, put it back together and... still no start.
Eventually traced the fault to a crusty wiring connector just behind the front bumper, fixed in seconds by unplugging and plugging back in...

Last year me and some mates did the 'Home 2 Rome' banger rally in an '87 Audi coupe. After welding the driver's seat and exhaust back together just so we could drive it, we serviced it and it went all the way there with only one hiccup, when we had cross-firing of the HT near Monaco due to a rubbing lead. There was also a puzzling knocking from the front end that was eventually fixed, up in the mountains near Menton, by judicious application of a ratchet strap around the front subframe!
We eventually realised (from the dents in the roof and two big forklift marks in the floor) that the car had already been scrapped... but it was too good to scrap once we got to Rome so one of the guys drove it back single-handed while the rest of us flew home. We still have it... if anyone wants a banger rally car give me a shout