Broken shite

[HillmanImp]

My mates Mk3 Fiesta has broken down.

 

I have looked at it and it appears to have a lot of sludge in the oil filler cap. Straight away i have thought it must be the head gasket, but there is bugger all in the oil and water and i do not think it was overheating (although the temp gauge apparently does not work i never smelt anything like overheating engine when she has driven here from York).

 

 

It is turning over but will not start. She actually conked out at a junction last night after driving about 20 miles from York and it had to be driven on high revs otherwise it kept stalling.

 

Now i know even less about injection cars than i do ones with carbs so am a bit stuck. The car turns over but will not fire up. Its a 1.1 pushrod engine.

 

Does anyone have a scooby do what the griff is with this? Its on my driveway blocking access to my garage and my Scirocco has its MOT next week. Not that i am being a pesimist, but i imagine it will not pass and i would quite like to get the Fiesta moved for easy access working on the Rocco.

 

Any suggestions. Although she has not had it long, she bought it from a friend and I do not think it has been serviced properly for years which might have something to do with it......

[FredTransit]

Could still be the head gasket, the sludge on oil filler cap would say that to me. have you done a compression test?

[RedSparrow]

I had one of these. It was a right pain. There is an emergency fuel cut off which likes to activate itself on these, it can be reset, the button is on the left hand side in the passenger footwell. That solved problem with mine for a while.However, it was eventually condemned as the stupid single point injection engine wouldn't idle at all.Hope the same doesn't happen with yours!

[Ratdat]

There's water in that thar oil. The creamy sludge is an emulsion of water and oil so it looks like there could be HG issues, although that may well not be anything to do with it not starting. The running probablem could just as easily be a seperate issue as even with a shot HG it'd probably fire up and run okay unless it's been cooked.

[Milford Cubicle]

My Subaru Justy has emulsion like that, albeit on a lesser scale. It's just condensation in its case.

[Torsten2001]

A fella at work had an oil cap like that on his Fiesta, it was just some kind of condensation issue

[Ratdat]

If it's condensation it'll usually burn off on a long journey and re-appear after a few short ones.

[OwdChina]

Assuming the water and oil levels are correct, and they don't appearto be mixing with each other, plus the bonnet's not been lifted since the beginning of time, i'd think condensation aswell.Did it happen out of the blue, or has it been niggling previously ? Fuel starvation is ringing a bell with me.

[dollywobbler]

If the temp gauge isn't working, could well be that it isn't getting up to temperature. That can cause goo too. Could just be a timing issue that's stopping it running. On my old 957cc Fiesta, the timing gradually slipped to the point that it wouldn't tickover without choke. Just turned the dizzy a bit (note, doing it properly is best!) and it was fine.

[Father Ted]

I know our N plate 1100cc usedd to sludge up, it also ad a nasty habbit of stalling when cold, you knew when it was gin to do it and if you were lucky and caught it and revved the balls off the engine then all well and good, if not then it was plugs out and cleaning / drying before it would run again.Heap of shit it was.

[HillmanImp]

Thanks for the advice. I think it might be fuel starvation. God knows when the fuel filter was last changed. It is still running on high revs, so probably not the fuel cut off or does this switch on and off? According to Haynes its a bit of a pain to get to, although i am sure they are making it more difficult as usual by insisting you dismantle half the car for no reason.If the fuel filter was blocked would it still do this? Surely higher revs would need more fuel? It was one of my first thoughts as she said she was low on fuel and could have dragged up all the crap from the bottom of the tank.As the oil and water is not mixing I think it is probably condensation then. Thanks, it will put her mind at rest (I think I panicked her a bit). The random guy who appeared out of nowhere last night and towed her suggested that too when he saw it.Will have another look at it over the weekend when it is light. Might go to the distributor and see what happens.Bloody shit heap. I was trying to talk her into getting a Renault 9 or 11 or something, but she insisted on getting this wreck from her mate which had never been serviced. I bet the oil filter came with the car.....

[Guest]

There's water in that thar oil. The creamy sludge is an emulsion of water and oil so it looks like there could be HG issues, although that may well not be anything to do with it not starting. The running probablem could just as easily be a seperate issue as even with a shot HG it'd probably fire up and run okay unless it's been cooked.

I agree. I think there's two separate issues. One is HG, the other be timing. It may be so off it's killing itself.What are the plugs like - have you have them out?RE: the idle and stalling thing. My Amazon does this. It will start, stumble like crap on high choke and eventually sort itself out when up to temperature.Course if you rev the nads off it it then settles down and idles perfick.

[fordnut]

Had loads of these - the potentiometer is known for playing up causing these to rev irratically, best bet is getting one off another car from a scrapyard as these are mega expensive from Ford.With regard the starting issue, remove the fuse for the fuel pump then try and start it as these have a habit of flooding themselves.

[M'coli]

Best method I've found for sorting ignition from fuel is to use easy-start. If it fires, it's fuel if not then it's ignition. Is it distributor or EDIS?

[Richard]

No distributors on Mk3 Fiestas, not with the Valencia engine anyway.

[HillmanImp]

Never heard of a potentiometer before. These cars are 10 a penny at scrappys so may head down to pick one up on the off chance. I did forget to say earlier whilst complaining about the fact i wanted to get my Scirocco nearer the garage it would also be nice for Jo to get her car going again.Me me me.

[HillmanImp]

Right, had a look at this today (Scirocco only failed its MOT on the headlights aiming too high so did not need to worry about access to the garage Woop!) and think i have found where (but not what) the problem is.In the daylight its easy to see this car is a carb model which is wierd as i thought all cars had to be fuel injection 92 onwards to run catalytic converters or did i just make that up?The carb appears to have a fair bit of oil in it. I think there may be a blocked breather pipe forcing the oil into the carb or something.I can get the car running at high revs but it cuts out at low revs. I cannot find the idle screw on the carb as i thought i might speed up the idle to at least stop it cutting out but it is eluding me.Having looked at the plugs they are black and sooty which apparently means its running rich and there may be a problem with the carb/air filter (according to Haynes). However as i can get the car running on high revs i am sure it is not these stopping it running, but they will need replacing.So a) does anyone have any ideas what it may be and is there a trick to removing hoses that have been in place for 14 years or c) is it likely to be a blocked breather pipe stopping the carb idling which takes me back to .Help appreciated. Should be working on the Imp really, but its in a garage and i am enjoying the sun so Fiesta it is.Scotty

[Richard]

The fuel injection system looks very much like a carb, but it has an injector instead of a jet. They do suffer badly with fouling from the crankcase breather. The old racing trick of venting the crankcase into a bottle might help.

[CortinaDave]

my missus mk3 fester had a sludgy oil cap. Ran fine like that for many months and was still fine when i weighed it in.HG seemed fine, it didnt use any water

[Guest]

What year is the car? I think all Fiestas were injection from mid 92 onwards but I had an early one with the carb that fouled up its plugs on a regular basis.The EDIS coil pack could be a weak point.If it's a non-injection it may not have a filter between the tank and the carb, maybe try running it from a jerrycan of fresh fuel...??

[HillmanImp]

It is an injector (thanks Richard), i thought anything this late could not be carb, hence why i could not find the idle screw. Looks like a carb at first glance though...... Dont think its the coil as i can get it running on very high revs, but keeping it running is difficult so think that it must be sparking to get it going at all? It does have a fuel filter as this was the first thing that was changed as she had been low on fuel when the car stopped. Have cleaned the breather tubes and removed the piles of sludge from the oil filler cap and pipes to and from the air filter but they were all totally full of sludge. Could probably do with getting the compressor on the end of the injector and blowing it out (are there any diaphrams or out in the injector that i might accidentally destroy).Or get an injector off a scrap car, or are these something you should not get from a scrappy as they will never work.

[Owain-328i]

If this is a mk3 1.3 then it wont be the valencia lump, it will be the HCS lump. Both these units suffer problems with blocked breathers, it could be the HG, but i doubt it. More likely to be a problem with the crappy single point injection.Once you get it going again you can clean the breather hoses out around the airbox and oil cap with petrol or something similar. Should sort the emulsion problem out.

[Owain-328i]

The EDIS coil pack could be a weak point.

Thats a good point Craig they have been known to fail!

[Guest]

Or get an injector off a scrap car, or are these something you should not get from a scrappy as they will never work.

The mk3 Fiesta is one of the last cars where serious structural rot eventually renders most examples beyond economical repair as opposed to a major mechanical fault killing them, and the odds are that most will have been driven into scrapyards so there's a pretty decent chance that you'll get a good working secondhand component. I tended to seek out accident damaged cars when plundering parts from remove-it-yourself breakers' yards, as I felt there was a higher probability of everything being in decent functioning order pre-smash (possibly faulty logic, but I have yet to prove myself wrong on this one!)