Stupid bloody car

[march109]

sorry haven't been on in a while, a few personal issuea and a crap christmas and new year so was waaay to occupied to care for my ageing old e30 and boy am I suffering now.

Drove to work from bournemouth to swansea this morning and guess what a new annoying and dangerous problem has reared its ugly head.

About 50 miles to go every time the car cruises at 2500 rpm or less in any gear it starts to kangaroo, the powers there then its not kind of thing, according to the rev counter the revs are unaffected whilst this happens. This continued for the whole journey, it is only when I don't give it any (or very little throttle) and only if slowing down or keeping a steady speed, acceleration is unaffected.

With around 28 miles to go the speedo started to play silly buggers, and drop BELOW 0 the rise up to around 100 then drop to the correct speed, happened intemitently on the rest of the journey home.

Third problem: Once at 80mph in the outside lane with some moron tailgating me the kangarooing sensation started at above 2500rpm, just the once the whole journey though, but it was very violent and the whole engine cut out for about a second and then came back to life, scared the crap outta me and the guy behind.

When idling the car also revs itself from a range of 500 rpm to 1500 rpm and just ocsillates between the two at idle.

Are these problems related and what are they?

I was thinking ICV, TPS and loose earth but don't know where to start or if the problems are related!

[march109]

oh its a 1989 m20b25.

[Greeny]

It defo sounds like an electrical problem if the speedo is playing up and it could be affecting the injectors or fuel pump, as if it is hunting at idle it's usually a fueling problem. Just a thought, it's difficult tell with out being with the car when it,s playing up.

[march109]

Do they have a common ground?

[Greeny]

Quite possibly, i,ve just tried to call a friend of mine who's a sparky to find out but can't get through to him. I let you know when I get through to him.

[march109]

cheers dude, I find it hard to believe they would all start to play up on the same journey if they wern't on a common ground. Thing is none of them went at the exact same time though!

But chers for the help.

[Greeny]

Was the journey exeptionally wet? Could have got some water into the electric's somewhere.

[hairydave]

Greeny that avatar is nearly lifesize!

[Greeny]

Yeah I know, i,ve just deleted it. I tried resizing it but it didn,t seem to work LOL. I,m not the best with this calculator things LOL.

[bobafett]

If it was wet maybe water in the injector loom multipplug under the inlet manifold, three inches tall, round with wiring coming out of both ends and mounts into the metal bar mounted horizontally below inlet manifold. Open it up by twisting off the top end and check the pins inside, if there green looking, THERE IT IS. You need to change your pins in the plug.

Hope it helps mate, goodluck..

[march109]

Nope wasn't raining whilst I was driving.

Has been pretty we lately though, don't think I could deal with a car I couldn't use whilst the weather is wet though given I live in South Wales!

[bobafett]

Nope wasn't raining whilst I was driving.

Has been pretty we lately though, don't think I could deal with a car I couldn't use whilst the weather is wet though given I live in South Wales!

Balls you posted that when i was sending my reply in

[bobafett]

What miles on the car mate ?

[march109]

120,000 so not a rocket ship

and looks a realistic 120,000 as I have all the MOT's for the car.

[Sooty]

Sounds like you may have a couple of different faults.

Brian is the wizard for all things electrical so if you can get his attention, you stand a fighting chance of getting it sorted.

In the meantime, try looking at the round electrical plug that sits under the intake manifold.
It's mounted in a bracket attached to the block just above the sump joint.
This plug is well known as a source of many weird running problems.

If the pins are relatively clean, try & check for wire breaks & continuity.
I had one break on an old 325 & that gave me no end of grief with RPM's all over the place.

As for the cutting out, an old g/f's car had a similar problem that I traced to the MAF meter. Had to change it in the end (MAF meter, not the g/f )

HTH a bit m8.

Iain S

[Brianmoooore]

There's another thread going on at the moment about this kangaroo effect, to which I've been contributing.
My wife's 325 touring is affected, making it very difficult to drive in traffic, BUT this is a duel fuel car and only petrol running is affected.
If you look at the other thread you will see I did some work on the car last weekend, but didn't solve it, although I'm sure I've eliminated a lot of things. You will also see that my last experiments were leading in the direction of fuel pressure related.
Sounds like you may have an electrical fault as well. There's no connection between the speedo and the engine operation, except that they both require electricity.
There aren't many earth points on an E30 at all. One just behind the LH headlamp (which is irrellavent to this problem), one on the back LH side of the seat, where the speedo sensor probably earths, two together above the glove box, where the instrument cluster earths, and one on the RH front suspension turret where the engine loom earths.
Check out the two smaller connections to the battery + terminal. Poor connections here would loose power to the engine and speedo.

[Greeny]

Hi
Just spoken to my sparky mate and the first thing he said was to check the battery terminals as that will cause the speedo problem and the cutting out/kangarooing problem.

[Speedtouch]

Mine's also been kangarooing a bit lately. Discovered today that my car had a fair amount of yellow mayonnaise along with a small amount of liquid (water I presume) in the opening of the throttle body, also some in the rubber trunking that connects to it. Is this just down to the cold weather (I haven't been using the car for long journeys lately) or a sign of something more ominous?

Used carb cleaner to flush it all out, also did the ICV at the same time (which had some sooty gunk in it), and tightened the TB-manifold nuts.

[Greeny]

Yeah, sounds like it,s just a little of condensation building up in the throttle body because it,s not getting properly warm and mixxing with oil vapour which re-circulates through the throttle body.. I've had the same and loads of people were telling me head gasket was gone but wasn,t using oil or water and it kept on running for as long as I had the car. Just keep an eye on your oil and water levels.

[Speedtouch]

Cheers Greeny, that's a relief!

[march109]

Hi greeny it was definatly warm when the kangarooing started, it had ust done nearl 160 miles of motorway driving.

thanks brian I will check out your thread now too.