Simple Electrical Fault with my GLT

[petefarrell360]

Well, the events of tonight nearly meant that I wouldn't be coming to the meet Sunday! Luckily I was only about ten miles from home when it happened, but here is a tip, never phone the RAC and expect them to reach you on the same day, or even in the same week.

I was accelerating from 30 mph to 50 mph, having just left a 30 mph zone with a load of speed bumps (these could have played a part in the problems a couple of hundred feet further on), with a Volkswagen people carrier on my bootlid, when suddenly the power went, nothing, dead, rev gauge needle dropped, nothing, hazards on, coasted to a stop with the Volkswagen nearly up my exhaust pipe, fool.

Firstly, no I hadn't been too soon for the meet and done a Foggy, I had literally jsut filled up with fuel 4 miles previously, and yes it was the correct type! I feared it could have been the cambelt due to the sudden lerch and the loss of power, so checked the camshaft was still rotating when the engine was turning. All fine. So, tried starting it, nothing, just kept turning over with no hint of firing. Left it a minute or two, had a quick fiddle about, the usual problems were immediately investigated, fuel pump fuse in the auxillary fuse box and the fuel pump relay. Couldn't see any evidence of problems, but wriggled all connections and had another go, still wouldn't start. Left it a few seconds, tried again, burst into life, no coughing, spluttering, nothing, ran as sweet as a nut as though nothing had happened. So, being rather dubious about it staying that way, let it idle for a while, then revved it a little, suddenly it cut out. No missing and spluttering, just died instantly. Tried again, nothing, then after leaving it a little while it started, pulled away, as I was sat on a fairly busy road in the way, and I could tell my battery was not enjoying the continual use trying to start the thing, managed to get into second gear and it cut out again, but luckily I managed to coast into a quiet turning just off of the main road.

After that I had no joy in starting it for a good while, so rang my mate who lived two minutes down the road, and got him to bring a set of jump leads, as by now my battery was giving up. With a good battery supply it would still only turn over, no hint of catching. Slowly tried all the options, rotor arm, distributor cap, as I had spares in the car. I then noticed I wasn't getting a spark after removing a lead, but then it started, quickly popped the lead back on, running perfectly again. Revved it up, cut out. So, with no chance of getting further than a few yards at 10:30 pm I rang the RAC as a last resort. 'Well Sir the computer generated time is 76 minutes!' Oh joy........ So I decided to get my mate to take me home quickly so I could grab some spares, while my other mate stayed with the car incase the RAC turned up.

Returned to the car armed with some more tools, did a quick renix swap, nothing, tried another, and it burst into life, brilliant! So left it sat there ticking over, no problems at all, revved it a little, and it cut out yet again. By this point I was getting somewhat cold and annoyed, three mobile phones trying to provide light under the bonnet and a Fiat parked on the grass verge with it's lights pointing at the car weren't the easiest conditions to work in, as my torch battery had died by now. So, started tracing wires, checking everything again, I was convinced at this point it wasn't fuel starvation, due to the sudden nature of the problem, where as a fuel problem I once encountered meant a slow gobbly and spluttery stop, as what was in the system was used. It seemed electrical to me, but I was pretty sure it wasn't the renix by now. There was still no sign of the RAC, and I now had the car running again, and this time I just left it ticking over for a while, ran perfectly. So as I'm repositioning the renix unit, as it's is unbolted, it suddenly misses a beat, so I tried the same movement again, and the same happened, and I just managed to catch it on the throttle, so then tried not keeping it running with the throttle, and it would recover from the sudden moment of nearly cutting out if I made the movement. So I wriggled one by one all the wires my hand could possible touch or that were disturbed in that movement. Finally I'd found the cause of the problem, one simple wire branching from the positive battery lead, where on the GLT it leads down to the loom, or I believe the auxillary fuse box for the fuel pump. The lead piggy backs from the main positive cable, with two spade connector plugs from that encased in a black plastic cover. There was a dodgy connection in there, one butchered plastic cover later, quick clean up, rejoined and wrapped in insulatiing tape, job done! The revving of the engine had been enough, or the movement of the vehicle when I pulled away to dislodge the wires enough, and on cranking the engine sometimes to get them to make a connection again. And at other times fiddling about around the auxillary fuse box area had meant touching these wires and maybe getting them to reconnect. Such a simple but very annoying problem to have.

So, by now with messing about, a trip home and back, a long time sat in the Fiat to get warm again, and getting the car to run again myself, the RAC still hadn't turned up, so at 12:40 am I phoned them back to tell them not to bother coming out, I'd done it myself. Apparently they were nearly there, but would cancel the call out if I was sure I'd be ok.

So, it turns out I was nearly correct initially by looking for bad connections all around the auxillary fuse box, just not close enough. What is so annoying in this situation is that it is an intermittent fault, so one minute the car is running fine, the next you're back to square one again. So, anyone with a similar problem in future, take a look at those connections on the positive terminal.

Sorry for such a long post...........

Oh and one more thing, the entire time I was sat by the side of a busy main road, with the bonnet up, and the hazard lights on, not one person stopped to even ask if I needed any help! What a nice country we live in. I've stopped many times in the past, just to check if people are ok and have a phone to call for assistance, and a couple of times I've managed to get the cars running again and the people safely on their way. I know there have been some nasty stories recently of people being mugged, etc once stopping to help people, but even to stop and wind the window down enough to ask would be nice.

Pete

[Tero Huikko]

Found out the same thing after grabbing +12V for my hella grille high beam relay...I hassled near the same connector to get +12V and after I pulled out from the garage (winter, snowing, uphill, dark) car just stalled...

...took me over two hours to find out what had happened. By that time I was extremely pissed and annoyed. The connector was pretty well corroded inside and I decided to redo ALL the positive wires to the extra fuse box.

I thought about writing an episode here about the problem, but just couldn't get it done. Now I felt a sting...Writing it here would've saved you a lot of trouble.

I recommend you all to check the condition on that particular connector. It's a bad desing. It's about an inch "downhill" from positive battery pole and all the moist and frost etc. that gathers on the thick wire turns into water after engine warms up and runs nicely straight into the connector. Swapped mine into a water resistant one after my episode...then with a better time made a total do-over to the positive feed to extra fuse box. Waterproof connector might be enough, but it's too cold here to stand in a blizzard wondering what has happened, so I put some effort to it to make it as safe as possible.

This problem originates from an "after-original-desing-addendum" extra fuse box thingy with extra short time on the desing table at volvo...I made a full rewire with a separate +12V spitter box (waterproof one) next to extra fuse box. Now it's a lot easier to grab +12V from the already mounted splitter and because the "problem connector" no longer even exists - the problem has never occured again.

oh...and all the time I stood by the road with bonnet up nobody even showed up because we don't even have people here

[daffodil]

i bet its the fuse box
they coropde inside

[petefarrell360]

Ahhh, Tero, not to worry mate, all ended well, but I thought I'd post the problem while it was fresh in my mind and hopefully alert others to the matter. I believe it is only a GLT issue, and as you say, a bad after though, poorly executed. It certainly isn't a fun time, in the dark and cold trying to figure out what is wrong, but luckily it was something simple, which we both managed to find and fix.
Pete

[Tero Huikko]

It's the same problem with all injection 2 litre engines...the extra problemfusebox is for front fog lights and main injection fuel pump...