Hi guys,

My daughter has an 85 360GLT and it has largely been a reliable little car until very recently when it has started fouling plugs.

On cold startup, the engine runs very roughly ( even for one of these). Once warm it seems ok but it seems to me that the FI is hosing fuel in when its cold.... any ideas?

I cleaned and/or replaced the plugs 3 times in the past 10 days... on removal plugs are wet,

thanks in advance

Tony

Does it start better if you apply some throttle. Because it seems that its getting too much fuel on start ups. So when applying some throttle engine get more air so air fuel mixture doesn't get too rich. That is the cheapest way to repair that but someone who is way brighter than me can tell what is the other way to repair that fault.

Mine seems to be doing this too lately since I haven't been using it that much, if I use it every day it's fine and not lumpy though. Give it 2-3 days and you need some throttle to start it - leaky injector?! In for the suggestions!

Actually mine newer 360 did that too but it was always and even when hot but applying some throttle helped and it started strait away. So there is probably something wrong. But i don't have to care about it anymore because it isn't my daily driver anymore.

Aooarently the capacitors in the ECU can get leaky and open the injectors on first start. Its particularly bad if the car's been stood for a while.

The fix, I believe is to replace the electrolytic capacitors inside the ECU, but I've opened one and couldn't find which one was leaky. Having said that I'm no electronic genius and don't have the proper scoping or analysis tools, but someone else might be able to do it.

Alternatively you can see if you can get another ECU from a breaker, or if you really splash out there are places that sell rebuilt units for about 100 quid ish.

Replacing components on a PCB isn;t easy... but with practise is doable. How many are on the board roughly Andy? 1's, 10's or 100's?

I perhaps didnt explain the problem properly. When I say that the engine is running roughly... I mean its running on only 2 or 3 cylinders. The problem doesnt seem to go away until I pull the plugs and clean them, so there must be a HEAP of fuel going into it.

The car is used every day, admittedly only for short runs to school and back and this problem has only started in the past month. My daughter has had the car for a year and it has been fine.

It is winter(ish) here, but the temp is very mild by European standards, a cold morning is perhaps 5 or 6 degrees Celcius.

Tony G wrote:It is winter(ish) here, but the temp is very mild by European standards, a cold morning is perhaps 5 or 6 degrees Celcius.

Blimey, that sounds like Finnish summer. In winter its much colder here.

But try that thing what i said. It helps in most of cases. Also when have you checked other ignition parts like distriputor cap.

It might be worth removing the injectors and checking them out...they might not be atomising the fuel properly when its cold (Partially Blocked/Corroded)...other than that....the ECU like pettaw mentioned will be worth checking. Check the cold start injector on the top too.

Also what's the temperature like on it when its running? drinking water? it could be the head gasket leaking a load of water, it's definitely fuel on the plugs?

Yeah, that's what I meant, the ECU has a fault which causes massive overfuelling particularly on cold start up when its on rich fuel anyway. This floods the plugs and causes the engine to either not start or run only on a couple of cylinders until the plugs dry out. I'm having a similar problem myself at the moment.

Chris, there are quite a few capacitors of various sizes, some electrolytic, some not, but they all look fairly specialized so I don't want to start changing components that don't need changing.

Cloud, definitely fuel on the plugs. The motor never gets over 1/3 on the temp gauge and doesnt use water...so its not the head gasket.

Im thinking that this might be an injector thing..... the cold start injector...Im guessing thats the one not in a port runner? Will these things run without it?..it never gets cold by European standards here anyway...

Thanks for the info

I could be wrong, but I dont think the capacitor thing is in play here ....this problem just developed overnight and is not intermittent. Also, it only occurs from stone cold.

I've never heard of an injector problem resulting in overfuelling - I agree with Andy, this is an engine management problem.

Does anyone know if there is a sensor ( and where is it?) that feeds temperature info to the ECU?

I'm thinking I'll look at the easy things first!