The Dispatch | Expert | Scudo Hub

Please help--I'm stuck :-( 

Has anyone seen this? I don't even have the Haynes manual, because that's on the other side of town :-(

The fuel filter light stays on, and the engine starts willingly, then stalls about 2 seconds later, whether it's idling or making power (struggling to clear the junction).

There seems to be no water-in-fuel sensor--I think I remember it goes in the fuel filter. I opened the drain a week ago and NO water came out onto my catch tray, only clean fuel.

It rained quite hard overnight--would the engine start then stall if the ECU got a false signal from wet wiring?

Also, where is the fuel pump driven from? A relay somewhere? I'm guessing yhebrelay should stay on from when the engine is being started.

Roops :-(

Has anyone experience of fitting an uprated alternator to the 1.6 HDi 16 engine? Bigger than the 150A one in the parts list, I mean.

I'm trying to work out how to choose a likely replacement.

We're aiming to spend a lot of time parked, which means a larger battery and higher charging current.

The other reason to oversize the alternator is because it turns out that high charging current at low revs is a good way to shorten an alternator's life*--if I run the engine at fast idle, I'm hoping to keep the alternator well below its max output.

*the alternator cooling fan shifts almost no air at idle speed, and in a hot engine compartment, a larger battery will take max output for a longer time.

The key remote doesn't work, so it's nothing to do with that.

What turned the headlights on?

Weird.

Tney can't have been on for long, because they were at full brightness and the engine started. The car had been parked for 11 hours, so there's no way they've been on all night.

Has anyone an idea how this happened, please?

I think I may have fitted the first oil filter wrongly!

My Mk2 Dispatch 1.6 needed an oil change *badly* when we picked it up.
So I did, with a new filter.

Then again a week later, because the oil was black like paint on the dipstick.Then again yesterday, with synthetic ACEA C3 oil. The oil looks decent on the dipstick, now.

But as I lined up the locating tab on the filter with the hole in the housing, I realised I had no memory of locating it the first time. (the tab is visible at the bottom of the filter in my pic)

Is it crucial to oil flow, or just to locate the baffle that some filters have built-in to their base? (the filter I removed at the first change had that baffle)

My Mk 2 1.6 drips oil. It's clearly leaking at the top of the cylinder head. It also sometimes smokes on startup, but not for a few weeks if I take off and wash out the intercooler with Jizer.

tl;dr It's filling up with oil from the crankcase breather, until oil at the bottom is high enough to get carried up into the inlet manifold by airflow.

I'm guessing it's got some blow-by and perhaps I'll get a spare engine from a breaker's yard in future.

But for now I'm looking at the leaks and smoke. The turbo inlet is wet with oil from the crankcase breather, so I'll guess the turbo itself is probably OK. I've ordered a new plastic cam cover with filler cap and its own oil separator, which isn't working (spits oil along with fumes).

Has anyone had experience with the separator getting clogged with gunge, maybe? If it's not clogged, I'll need a catch can to stop crankcase breather oil from reaching the intercooler, I guess.
I daren't take the old one off until the new one arrives, with a new gasket :-)

But are any catch cans, or Oil Air Separators, OK for an MOT test?

And emissions: When idling, the exhaust smells of NOx. (Easy to recognise--I studied chemistry and it's acrid, easily smelled from the driver's seat if the wind is blowing that way. Not nice, and smells similar to nitric acid, because that's what NOx turns to when it hits the water in our nose, throat and lungs).

So that says to me I have good compression, as NOx forms mainly at high temperatures and pressures.

So I'm guessing the EGR is stuck closed (or blanked off), but can anyone confirm? I've never had trouble with a jammed or blocked EGR valve (lucky me) so I don't know for sure.