Cars of Crackers: HFM?!

[chaseracer]

36 minutes ago, hairnet said:

no thats his merc

Only one of them.  He's still got two...

[BorniteIdentity]

Do you want a Saab?(!)

[hairnet]

2 hours ago, chaseracer said:

Only one of them.  He's still got two...

i meant yours #fluffer

[Crackers]

This goes in to a garage on Wednesday. I expect to be relieved of many, many pounds, which is unfortunate. I spent a bit of time tinkering with it yesterday and couldn't really get anywhere. I'm still a little baffled by the symptons; it ran fine the day before. On NYE when I started it up, it cranked over for quite a long time before firing - no stuttering, no smoke, no bad noises, and ran fine afterwards. Got half a mile up the road and the engine conked out suddenly, again no stuttering. It cranks over fine with 6 clear beats, so it's not snapped a timing belt or crankshaft like these can.

It seems to be pushing fuel through the filter quite happily, so I don't think it's the in-tank pump. Which is annoying, because that's a really easy at-home job on these, unlike the rest of the injection system.

Current top theories are as follows:

1. Fuel gauge is reading wrong. It was showing a quarter of a tank when it died. These have a common fault of showing an empty tank when it's actually full, but some cases are the opposite, showing some fuel when it's actually empty. These cars should go into limp mode and then auto-shutdown when they run out of fuel, but I didn't get limp mode. If it didn't know it was empty, this would make sense.
   
   I did add 10L of diesel to test this theory and it still won't start despite there definitely being fuel supply to the engine bay. The fuel gauge did respond oddly to this - it went up to half a tank and now shows less than it did at the breakdown, so there's potentially something there.
   I'm not sure if the HP pumps on these lose their prime and need a proper bleed to start again - doesn't seem to be much info online because they are designed not to lose prime when you change the fuel filter. 
    
2. High pressure fuel pump failure. This seems somewhat unlikely to me because it was so sudden. It did 120 miles the day on A-roads the day before, including some fairly spirited driving, and it never skipped a beat or lost power. I would think HPFP failure would manifest itself as a gradual failure and poor running, which didn't happen in this case.
    
3. HPFP drive belt failure. This would match up with the very sudden engine stop, but doesn't explain the prolonged cranking at the start of the drive. If the belt was broken, it wouldn't have started, and if the belt was fine, then it would have started fine. 
    
4. Other potential candidates could be crank position sensor (doubt it, because my OBD reads some RPM when cranking), fuel pressure regulator (not a common failure on these AFAIK) or an ECU crapping out (which would suck).

On the positives, the breakdown was dealt with by AutoAid, who were pretty excellent. We'll see if that continues when I ask them to move it to the local garage. 

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, Crackers said:

HPFP drive belt failure. This would match up with the very sudden engine stop, but doesn't explain the prolonged cranking at the start of the drive. If the belt was broken, it wouldn't have started, and if the belt was fine, then it would have started fine. 

I have no idea of the belt layout of this/type of belt used, but I I wonder if maybe at this point, is when the belt started to fail, so it was skipping a few teeth or slipping (hence long cranking) until it finally managed to get enough grip so to speak to start spinning the pump, and start the car, until it then failed totally?

[Crackers]

1 hour ago, LightBulbFun said:

I have no idea of the belt layout of this/type of belt used, but I I wonder if maybe at this point, is when the belt started to fail, so it was skipping a few teeth or slipping (hence long cranking) until it finally managed to get enough grip so to speak to start spinning the pump, and start the car, until it then failed totally?

I suppose that'd be possible somehow, AFAIK it's a toothed belt. Can't say I've ever heard of it happening but never say never! Even if that was the case though, I'd done nearly 1000 miles in the week previous including some pretty "spirited" driving, I'd have expected it to fail then rather than at 5mph pulling away gently from a junction. 

[SiC]

Are you getting fuel rail pressure on live data on/after cranking over?

Any codes in the ECU? (Using a proper JLR spec code reader)

[Crackers]

18 minutes ago, SiC said:

Are you getting fuel rail pressure on live data on/after cranking over?

Any codes in the ECU? (Using a proper JLR spec code reader)

Can't see fuel rail pressure on my cheapo reader unfortunately. Works on some cars, but not this. 

No codes thrown at all. 

[Crackers]

I'm once again on my least favourite method of transport. In my unerring failure to buy a car locally, I'm doing another 3.5 hour trip to see if I can buy a car off Facebook, after my last two failed attempts. 

Stay Tooned. 

[EyesWeldedShut]

On 03/01/2025 at 18:21, Crackers said:

HPFP drive belt failure. This would match up with the very sudden engine stop, but doesn't explain the prolonged cranking at the start of the drive. If the belt was broken, it wouldn't have started, and if the belt was fine, then it would have started fine. 

Any chance the fuel rail pressure sensor has died (assuming this fancy wagon has one)? I've had identical symptoms on other diesels (dies suddenly, may start and tickover but then dies when you give it some revs, eventually no start at all).

Safe journey today and good luck - I also hate buses

[busmansholiday]

15 minutes ago, Crackers said:

I'm once again on my least favourite method of transport. In my unerring failure to buy a car locally, I'm doing another 3.5 hour trip to see if I can buy a car off Facebook, after my last two failed attempts. 

Stay Tooned. 

I see your sat in the pensioner/ disabled seats, did you feel them first to make sure they weren't wet from some previous incontinent occupier?

[Crackers]

9 minutes ago, busmansholiday said:

I see your sat in the pensioner/ disabled seats, did you feel them first to make sure they weren't wet from some previous incontinent occupier?

Poo count remains at 1, no additional motions* were carried! 

[Crackers]

Onwards. Not had one of these 387s down here before. 

[Sunny Jim]

Better luck this time - hope everything is hassle free for you.

[Crackers]

Next one, class 444, really like these, brilliant ride quality.

[Crackers]

Another bus. 

Can't see out. 

[Crackers]

Finally! Managed to buy a bloody car! 

Pez shot. 

[beko1987]

Yey you got further this time! You can join @twosmoke300 as our resident chavs 😂

[twosmoke300]

2 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Yey you got further this time! You can join @twosmoke300 as our resident chavs 😂

Mines a 500 I’ll have you know . Crem de la crem of chavs

[Matty]

3 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Yey you got further this time! You can join @twosmoke300 as our resident chavs 😂

Think you'll find I'm the original 1 tooth scally 🫡

[Matty]

Late one that!

Looking forward to seeing you restore the battery tray 🤣

[Crackers]

55 minutes ago, Matty said:

Late one that!

Looking forward to seeing you restore the battery tray 🤣

Didn't do any research before I bought it on common faults, so I guess at some point I'll find out of that's made of thin air.

Given that it was the cheapest one I could find that wasn't ruined or at the wrong end of the country, I'm pretty pleased with it. Few jobs need doing but I'm pleased to be in the club. 

 

I think I might have more GCSEs than any other ST150 owner in the nation?

[Matty]

11 minutes ago, Crackers said:

think I might have more GCSEs than any other ST150 owner in the nation?

@twosmoke300 might be along shortly to vie for the crown but id reckon youve got me beat 🤣.

They dont really have any vices tbh. Mk6 fiestas in general don't seem to rot unless they've had accident damage repaired badly. Rear beams and front subframes will eventually rot but give them a brush and a coating with your preferred gloop once on a while and they won't. I blew the gearbox up on mine but some reading confirms most don't one or two do. But then that IB5 5 speed is in most Fords of the period so no major issue in keeping the car going for not much. Duratec is a durable (unintentional pun) unit if looked after. Battery tray is a bolt on part anyway. It rots mainly cos it doesn't drain and Ford decided to make its underside part of the arch liner. Wire wheel it and paint it every so often or just let it go and buy a new one. 

I will have had mine 5 years this summer which is considerably longer than I've ever owned anything. They are just good cars. Not as exciting as say a Clio 182 but a thousand times more durable.

[twosmoke300]

When you did your gearbox @Matty. Did you keep the standard gearing ? Seems to me like it’s crying out for 6 gears or higher final drive ratio 

[Matty]

5 minutes ago, twosmoke300 said:

When you did your gearbox @Matty. Did you keep the standard gearing ? Seems to me like it’s crying out for 6 gears or higher final drive ratio 

Biggest problem with it. I did all the way to Inverness and back with the family a few years back with it revving it's tits off at 70. Just did 62 instead 🤣

I'm not exactly in the know but if that box was also in 2 litre Mondeos and the like then id assume the final drive gearing was longer in something like that. Id find it hard to believe a sales rep would put up with that hour after hour so id assume differant diff ratios.

I just bought an st150 box from a lad that breaks them as i didn't want to change the cars character  but surely if you wanted to loose a bit of thrutch but gain longer legs then it must be doable on the cheap. Especially as you have the ability and facilities to buy a cheap box, strip it and refresh it yourself.

[Crackers]

6 hours ago, Matty said:

I blew the gearbox up on mine but some reading confirms most don't one or two do.

I think this one should be OK, it doesn't have any bad noises despite the high miles. The gear stick is really stiff in the up/down plane which will be the common Mk6 shift bush issues, that's the top priority to fix as it's quite unpleasant. 

[Matty]

8 hours ago, Crackers said:

I think this one should be OK, it doesn't have any bad noises despite the high miles. The gear stick is really stiff in the up/down plane which will be the common Mk6 shift bush issues, that's the top priority to fix as it's quite unpleasant. 

Dead easy. Pull the plastic cover off the front of the box, take the spring clip off and just bar the selector forward on the shaft. You won't get it off without disconnecting cables but there's no real need. Just clean what you can get at on the shaft and inside the arm, spray a load of penetrant about and keep working it back and forth. Bit of graphite grease and bobs your uncle for ages. 

[Crackers]

And off she goes... 

[Crackers]

I have news, and it is Not Good™️. 

High pressure fuel pump is lunched. Estimate is between £2000 and £2500. If it's filled the injectors with swarf and killed them, then that'll be another stack on top.

Going to lock myself in a darkened room for a bit while I figure out how to approach this, I think.

[Cento16v]

That's not good, or common 🤔