19 replies to this topic

[Aus]

Hi Guys

 

I'm helping out a friend with her 96 SPi Mayfair that has the factory alarm/immobiliser.

 

I had a 96 SPi Cooper years ago so have some familiarity with the set up but its been years since I've played with one. I also have use of an ACR4 with Rover pod 3.

 

This may be a long story but bear with me.

 

Ever since she bought the car it has had a hunting idle issue. After a bit of investigation we discovered that the throttle linkage and lost motion linkage had been fixed together so there was no separate movement between them. Further investigation turned out why, we removed the TB and it had in white paint "Metro 114S" written on the bottom of it ! Obviously someone had bought one from a breaker and fitted it. The Metro SPi TB is different to the Mini one which meant that the only way the throttle linkage would work was by locking it and the lost motion linkage together.

 

She then had her exhaust fall off right outside an exhaust shop (luckily ... or may be not) so they took it in and fitted a new full system from manifold back using her old cat. It came back pumping out black soot and had very bad MPG. Luckily she had a car to use as I suggested that running it so rich will quickly wreck the cat and bore-wash the motor.

 

We sourced a known good used complete SPi TB/inlet set up from a Cooper (it came with engine wiring loom that had a single ECU plug so I am presuming it was a later car).

 

Once fitted and all the vac pipes replaced it fired with no black soot but still had the hunting idle but now it was lacking power ! When you drove it it felt like it was holding back. It revved ok just felt underpowered.

 

She went away traveling and the car was put away for about a year. She's now back and we're trying to get it running. Battery was left disconnected whilst she was away. It was charged and reconnected. After getting oil pressure up we tried to start it but it wouldn't start. The motor span but not fired through we had spark. You could smell fuel so we presume it was getting fuel but what happened next confused us.

 

As it turned over normally we had forgotten it had an immobiliser. There was no red light on on the dash. She said it has always played her up and never actually worked, she could drive the car without having to press the fob buttons (two button fob) but it would come to life when the passenger door was opened (!?!?) so we tried this and the red dash light started flashing but no clicks from the 5AS under the dash when trying the 5 presses of the unarm button to synch trick. All that happened was the red light started blinking very fast and it did this for a minute or so then went back to the steady flashing (drivers door was open as was boot and bonnet). After some blind prodding of the fob there was a click behind the dash and the red light went out. Turned key and it sprung to life and ran , albeit with a high idle due to and air leak that was quickly sorted.

 

We plugged in the ACR4 and checked for codes (it would only identify the ECU and a MEMS1.6 - I read 95 plus SPis were 1.9 ?!?), it gave air temp sensor and throttle pot. Cleared codes and started again, codes did not reappear when running again. Started car and tried to do stepper motor adjustment but just got error saying it couldn't do it as idle was too unstable due to the hunting. to be honest I had thought the issue was a dodgy stepper motor causing the hunting - I was obviously wrong. Switched off engine checked codes and nothing had come up. Started it again and the idle settled to a steady 950ish (according to ACR4).which we thought was good but then I noticed the stepper motor had withdrawn completely and was not moving at all. I tried to reset the throttle cable but when I pushed the throttle linkage to full and let go the stepper motor did not move.

 

We ran out of time so we packed up but I was worried that the stepper motor had died. A day or two later she tried to start the car. I had said it might be worth opening the throttle on the pedal a little in case the stepper had died just to see if it would assist firing. It started and ran but when she released throttle the engine died and then would crank but not turn fire. I turned up tried it myself and the same thing happened. To my surprise the stepper motor appeared to adjust when the key was turned on. I immediately suspected the immobiliser as again there was no red light on dash. We opened and closed the passenger door and the light came on but even when turned off the car did not fire although I'm still not convinced that it was not the culprit. I ran the same tests with the ACR4, again nothing seemed to fail the test and it showed one fault being the Air Temp Sensor so we're gonna fit a new one just to rule that out. As I was only dropping by I had to go off at that point but it's got me totally confused. I think it has more than one problem. I think the non-starting is separate to the hunting idle.

 

Basically she hates the immobiliser and wants it removed. At this stage I think I need to see it I can get the immobiliser working to rule it out or confirm it is causing the non-starting issue. Is there something I'm missing ? Just to bear in mind that when not in use she disconnects the battery so as not to drain it. I've done quite a bit of searching and have read that disconnecting the battery can cause it to go weird.

 

As for the hunting idle, any ideas ? TB was swapped with all sensors, none have been reused except those not on TB (lambda, air temp, crank sensor). Vac pipes have been replaced.

 

As for the loss of power, my thoughts were that somehow the ECU/Stepper motor are not synched (hence why I was trying to adjust the stepper motor on the ACR4 as I'd had something similar on my old SPi but those days I just took it to Rover who fixed it !!)

 

As I said, its a long story but I wanted to add as much detail (nothing worse than someone just say "my car wont start" lol) in case that helps.

 

Can any SPi gurus help me out ?

 

PS I'm not on the mainland UK I'm in Jersey, our local Rover dealer went to the wall so we have no garages that really specialise in Rovers so were having to do this backyard-style !)

Edited by Aus, 20 June 2016 - 02:07 PM.

[Nu2mini]

^{First off I would take heed of Flyingscots advice here}

 

 

^{http://www.theminifo...ader/?p=3300458}

 

 

^{Have you checked / replaced vaccum hoses and fuel trap ??.}

 

 

^{Here is the correct procedure for setting the stepper motor.}

 

^{http://www.theminifo...otor/?p=3341530}

 

 

 

^{Just out of interest is the car coming up to temperature ???. The needle on the temperature gauge should be sitting between the dot and the line for normal.}

Edited by Nu2mini, 20 June 2016 - 03:15 PM.

[Aus]

Hi

 

Vac hoses replaced, new fuel trap has been ordered, just waiting fro arrive along with the air temp sensor

 

As stated above, the throttle cable adjustment procedure that indexes the stepper motor isn't working, when I open the throttle linkage and return it (with ign on) the stepper motor does not do anything. It used to move out with an accompanying buzz but it does not any more.

 

Yes, car is coming up to temp ok according to gauge, I have to admit as the ACR4 is 2nd hand it came without a manual so I am still getting used to the abbreviations on the "components" section as to what each reading is.

[MatthewsDad]

I have the same issue you describe with the immobiliser and red indicator light.  I don't think your idling / stepper motor problem is linked to this.  Now that you mention the passenger door I think I only have the problem when I have a passenger in the car.  Weird.

 

Have you checked valve clearances?  Once all the new bits are fitted give the ECU time to respond and adjust to the new set up before trying to change anything else.  The idling won't necessarily stabilise straight away.

[Aus]

Someone in our club has 3 Spi ecus and offered them to us to try. I know that the immobiliser ecus are useless without the matching 5AS and fobs but on the off-chance there is a single plug non-immobiliser ecu amongst them is it as simple as plugging it in and the car will start or does there need to be some bypassing/bridging of pins at the 5AS plug for it to start ? Years ago I bought an old Spi wiring loom and it looked like a jumper wire had been plugged across two pins in the 5AS plug and that makes me think that its not as a simple job as to plug in an uncoded ecu and it just start.

[FlyingScot]

Forget bridging bypassing etc cannot be done on the 5AS. The coding is digital. If you have the same series of MEMS ECU without the immobiliser function it's plug and play.

If you have a multimeter I would check the stepper connection at the motor, there is a fairly common fault where you get the solder joint cracking on the the coil to connector.

FS

[tmsmini]

Here is a link to the manuals for some of the SP ACR pods:

 

http://www.tmsmini.c...ic_30056500.pdf

http://www.tmsmini.c...pi_30056700.pdf

 

The information is not great, but it is what was provided

Edited by tmsmini, 25 June 2016 - 04:11 PM.

[Aus]

Thanks guys. I'm still waiting to hear from the guy with the ECUs as to what he has. It's good news that it's plug and play with a non-coded ECU, I was concerned that as the 5AS seemed to stop the starter from working it would cause a problem but its sounds like this is not a problem ... phew !

 

From what I've read I am looking for a 101050 ECU (car has a 101150 ECU fitted which seems to be a non-Cooper coded ECU which should be right for this car). Only thing that worried me was that when I typed the 101050 part no in to eBay to see if there were any ECUs for sale it returned a few for the 1.1 SPi Metro with the same number !!

 

I'll report back

[FlyingScot]

Yes MNE101050 is std 1275 SPi without coding for 5AS signal

Any news ?

FS

[Aus]

Hey all. Sorry, I've not disappeared, we've just had trouble tracking down a non-immobilised ECU , the best we've been able to find is an MNE 101060 from an auto SPi, do you know if this will work on a manual car. I can't t hink of any difference except the inhibitor switch, but I don't know if this is wired via the ecu to stop the engine being started if not in Park !?!

[Aus]

Update - fitted the MNE 101060 ecu and it started straight away that points at an issue with the 5AS.

Car idled at about 1200rpm, after clamping various pipes and found if the rubber breather pipe that goes from the metal pipe to the TB is clamped the revs drop to about 950 rpm. The rubber pipe is not split but by clamping any of the other breather pipes it does not lower the revs. There's an air leak somewhere in the breather pipework that I need to find.

The stepper motor is still playing up. The ACR4 will drive the stepper motor in the test but still says it cannot set the stepper motor adjustment as it still says revs are not stable. My concern is that when you open and close the throttle linkage with the ignition on to do the stepper motor index/throttle cable/lost motion adjustment the stepper motor does not do anything, it should buzz out to a position to do the lost motion linkage adjustment but nothing happens. We even stripped the stepper motor out of a spare TB we had that worked but once fitted it wasn't working either to make that adjustment :/ basically both the stepper motor and ecu have been changed but the fault persists so I'm a bit flummoxed on that one, anyone got any ideas ?

unfortunately the battery went flat as we were starting and stopping the engine so we had to call it a day.

Edited by Aus, 23 July 2016 - 07:48 PM.

[FlyingScot]

Check emission control system is the valve passing? Check main earths and wiring to stepper often it has been rubbed through.

FS

[Aus]

Check emission control system is the valve passing? Check main earths and wiring to stepper often it has been rubbed through.

FS

Thanks for coming back to me. What do you mean by "is the valve passing" ? Do you mean the purge valve, is it working ? What I did was clamp each rubber pipe connected to the metal pipe in turn, the only one that actually made a difference was the breather rubber hose that goes from the metal pipe to the right (when looking in the engine bay) hand connector on the lower part of the front of the TB assembly (clamped where circled red) and immediately there was a drop in the revs to about 950rpm.

 

I'll try and check the wiring, the whole lot looks bodged by a previous owner. I do have a complete spare single ECU plug engine loom in my garage which was destined for this car eventually due to the bodged wiring, I just couldn't face removing the TB assembly again to fit it - looks like I'm gonna have to

Attached Files

•  Breather pipe.JPG   36.58K   18 downloads

Edited by Aus, 25 July 2016 - 07:56 AM.

[Aus]

Actually I've just had a thought - I was re-reading the whole thread and I noticed that in my first post I had said the Throttle Pot had thrown a code. Thinking back to the weekend, when I looked at the codes it came up with the same two codes as before - Air Temp sensor and Throttle Pot. Thinking about it I would presume it is the Throttle Pot that recognises you operating the throttle linkage so perhaps there's something there ? Perhaps the Throttle Pot is faulty and that's why the Stepper Motor/lost motion linkage adjustment procedure is not working - its not an issue with the Stepper Motor, its an issue with the throttle pot, what do you think ? The spare TB we have has a Throttle Pot on so I guess the easiest thing to do is swap it across and see what happens ?

 

I should just clarify - when I say the wiring is bodged that is probably an overstatement - basically its had crimp connectors fitted in place of the original Rover ones and there is some loose wiring I've had to tie up as the insulation/loom tape has been removed just leaving the wires exposed. Its not like its been butchered, its just very untidy and shows evidence of having been "repaired" at some point.

Edited by Aus, 25 July 2016 - 03:51 PM.

[Aus]

This car will be the death of me 

 

Checked Throttle Pot with ACR4 and it was read 4.4 at rest and 5.01 at fully open. I'm pretty sure it should be closer to 0.5 at rest and 5 at fully open. I had 3 Throttle body assemblies but none had a Throttle Pot that gave me any result I was happy with. Thought about trying to source a brand new one only to see that they appear to be NLA as do complete TB assemblies.

 

I guess that's why the open and close throttle linkage to set lost motion linkage isn't working - the ECU isn't seeing the Throttle Pot opening and closing fully !!

 

One Throttle Pot screw snapped flush in the TB assembly. Ended up having to build one good TB out of two using the Old Metro casing but swapping the Mini throttle spindle across which is different to the Metro one and fitting that !

 

I'm a huge advocate of the SPi system, I loved the one in my SPi Cooper, but at this stage even I'm considering carbs !!!

 

Its also started chucking out black soot again so its back to running rich.

 

I've looked all over the breathers and can't find the air leak that lowers the revs when the pipe to the TB  is clamped. Fixed all the hoses with cable ties just to be sure and changed the metal pipe in case there was a pin-hole or such like in it.