7 replies to this topic

[essexminiman]

Hello,

O.K. This one is really getting to me now.

I have just done a gearbox rebuild on my 1.3i and the problem was that the retaining nut on the input gear on the first motion shaft had come loose. This had in turn wrecked the bearing between the first and third motion shaft and also welded bits of that bearing onto the third motion shaft. It had also totaly worn the 3rd and 4th gear baulk rings.
I replaced all the worn parts and the rebuild was done. "Now to my strange problem".

I got the engine back into the car and VERY CAREFULY connected everything back, I double checked all the sensor connections, pipes and everything else.
With all coolants, lubricants and equipment back in, I connected the battery. I resynchronised the alarm keyfob and checked that the alarm was working. I turned on the ignition and the SRS light iluminated for the 6 seconds but noticed that the fuel pump did not opperate. from then on nothing, the engine will not crank. It has been 3 days now and I have traced everthing.

The one thing that I have noticed is that with the ignition on and after the SRS lamp has extinguised, the alarm LED flashes breifly about every 2 seconds and the stepper motor clicks with it.

I have done all the normal cecks:- Brand new fully charged battery, Cleaned and checked all the connectors. I have disconnected the ECU and the stepper motor stops clicking but the alarm LED still flashes. With the ECU disconnected, I have grounded the pins to the MEMS relay module and all the relays are functional and the fuel pump runs when the fuel pump relay opperates.

I have re-done the ground connection to the ECU and all fuses are fine

Allthough I was hampered by the Haynes manual that gave all the wrong colour codes and connections to the ECU and MEMS module, a wase of £11.00 if you ask me, I figiured it out myself.

Can enyone shed a bit of light on this one ?

Thank you.

Daniel.

[minicooper1.3i]

Hi

This may sound likely a really stupid thing to mention, but I had a similar problem on mine when I'd done a service and then tried to start it. In that instance I'd hardly disconnected anything. The stupid thing was, I had disconnected the battery whislt the immobiliser was 'on' and the alarm was 'off', and apparently the Rover alarm is supposed to remember it's last state prior to a power cut. However, I could not get the it to de-immobilse at all when the battery was reconnected. I tried the pressing of the fob buttons for 4 seconds or whatever it is and that would put the alarm light out but it still wouldn't work.

It transpired that as I still had the bonnet off, it was confused on the about the state of the 'perimeter' system and basically got it's knickers in a right twist. I got a second pair of hands to press the bonnet switch down, reset the system and it worked straight away.

Don't know if that's relevant to your situation, but I just thought I'd mention it.

Good luck!

[essexminiman]

Hi,

Yes, that is a good point. I did think of this and yes the bonnet is off the car at the moment, but I did disconnect the bonnet switch so that it did not give an allarm condition. The only thing I can think of is that the car was off the road for a couple of weeks and the battery went flat with the alarm set. Another post on here warned that it could not be recovered if that were the case.
I can,t quite believe this as flat batteries are so common during the winter months and you don't leave your alarm unset during the winter just in case your battery goes flat.

I will give it another day of my time and then I have had just about enough of it and it, having bought it, drove it for a week before the gearbox went and now this after all the work and about £3000. It may be heading for the scrap yard.

Daniel.

[Avl_Paul]

Is this an MPI or SPI? By the reference to the SRS light, I am assuming MPI. I had a similar issue with my SPI and it turned out to be 2 different issues combining. Issue #1 was that I has lost the synchronization of my key fob and the immobolizer was preventing it front cranking right. Issue #2 was a problem with the ECU such that it was not running the fuel pump. Once I got the immobolizer synchronized, it would crank but not run because of the fuel pump. I discovered that if I dripped some fuel down into the intake, the car would start up. Once it was running, the ECU would start the fuel pump and the car would run. I HIGHLY doubt that this is your problem but mention it as an example only....

[essexminiman]

UPDATE !!!

After 4 days of fault finding I have dicovered that the digital code output from the alarm ECU (white/slate) is giving no signal at all and the imobiliser signal into the ECU (white/red) gives a pulse of 10mS every 2 seconds (instead of going to a logical low) and at the same time the alarm LED flashes at that rate as does the stepper motor click at the same time...
Therefore I have come to the conclusion that the alarm ECU is knackered. I will remove it from the car tomorrow, split it open and have a probe around with the oscilloscope and digital data analyser.

I will let you all know what happens.

Daniel.

Edited by essexminiman, 20 July 2008 - 03:42 PM.

[essexminiman]

OK,

After getting the alarm module on the bench, connecting it up to the test gear, it all worked fine. I read the codes out from the digital out to the ECU and it was all there. So back in the car it went and the problem was still there "That's it I thought" out came all the loom and I stripped of all the tape, well there it was a short circuit in the loom where all the wires had just been shoved in and taped over. Have you ever seen such a poor example of how to produce a loom ??? it looks like it was made by a child trying to knit for the first time !!!

Anyway that was it, he is running like a dream now.

Now I can get the 1480 Cooper in the garage and do a complete re-build and this time get the turbo on it....

Thank you all for your sugestions and help. I will keep watching the forum and maybe I can help some of you in the future.

Daniel.

[Avl_Paul]

Nice work! Glad that you were able to get it worked out and sorry you had to take it so far to find a wiriing issue.

[minicooper1.3i]

Why do people have to bodge wiring!

I spent a week fault finding my knackered fuel circuit, only to discover a single bodged connection.

Glad you got it sorted ok!