Engine stall
Engine stall
Author
Discussion

a1butch

Original Poster:

274 posts

225 months

Tuesday 25th March 2008
quotequote all
Firstly I have very limited knowledge of car mechanics and have only owned my Chim for a month - so please bear with my ignorance!

Recently I've noticed that my engine has started to cut-out after various journeys (both short town drives and longer motorway trips).
Here's the list of my most recent engine cut-out incidents:

I stalled the engine on start-up (my fault, I decided to pull away without letting the engine warm up properly in the cold) but after stalling I couldn't fire up the engine again. Starter motor was turning over, the engine was just not firing. I waited 5 mins, no joy. I waited another 30 mins (luckily I wasn't going anywhere in a hurry) and she started.

Yesterday whilst driving back from a short town trip (20 miles round) I noticed halfway through my journey the engine was running rough on low revs (oil pressure, at this point was fine @ 30psi), typically below 2k. After stopping for traffic lights the engine dropped below 500rpm flew back to 1500rpm and then cut out. She started up fine but was still running rough on low revs (sadly I had hit a wall of traffic at this point so I couldn't speed up). At the next set of lights she wanted to stall again so I had to blip the throttle to keep the revs up, very annoying if this was the pattern of movement for the next 20 sets of traffic lights! mad
Throughout this I noticed that the oil pressure was dropping from 30 to below 20.
At the next lights I let the car stall and I restarted on the green light - problem solved, somehow! engine was fine at idle and lost the rough feeling (and low oil pressure) at low revs, very odd (to me).

The engine occasionally cuts out after longer driving stints.

Are these problems common or indeed linked?.....or is there something I should be asking a garage to look into?

Any advice would be much appreciated!


thegman

1,928 posts

235 months

Tuesday 25th March 2008
quotequote all
try cleaning the stepper motor - very easy. unplug, unscrew, then clean with some electrical or carb cleaner. it is located on the drivers side of the plenum

a1butch

Original Poster:

274 posts

225 months

Tuesday 25th March 2008
quotequote all
Ta, i'll give that a go tonight.

blitzracing

6,422 posts

251 months

Tuesday 25th March 2008
quotequote all
The stepper wont cause the engine to run rough, just over rev or stall. Check the obvious as well like HT leads, and possible air leaks around the plenum pipework. The fluctation you talk about is simply the stepper trying to keep the RPM stable, but overcompensating.