Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Sincerely, xnox.

So I tried to keep myself busy, trying to think something else other than "that" :) .. Well, umm.. few things happened lately.

Firstly, I was in a dilemma in fixing 1M. You could read this first: Click

Okay fine if you don't bother clicking that link, here's a summary of it:

"1M's getting misfires". There? Short enough? :b Okay, moving on..

So yeah at first, I thought my coil packs were done and gone. I know, I should have been more thorough with my diagnosis on finding what caused 1M's to stutter/misfire so suddenly. But heck, the symptoms were quite the same. Even searching up on forums always gaved me the result "Replace the coil packs", or.. "Yeap, coil packs on these cars are prone to fail".

So I thought maybe I'll ask my dad to help me buy the coil pack while they're going vacation to Singapore. Heck cheaper there than 'MM' (Sorry :b).

It was at the right time that my parents were on vacation, so yeah.. after their 2 days of vacation, right after they set their footsteps at the main door.. I was about to ask my when he gave me 'the' look which looks like he knew what I'm going to ask. He went, "Dalam kereta tu barang iwan ah".

Off I went downstairs with the dad.. opened up the Odyssey's boot, and took out a big brown luggage box. Like a kid waiting for his favorite toy to be given, I was quite excited really.

Then I saw took out the "gem", and gaved me teh "Coil Pack"! (Choir chimes)

............. *10 seconds elapsed*

Okay not much effect on you? Nevermind.


(The package)


(The Coilpack)

So you think that I'm going to send 1M to the workshop to fix this thing? ... Think again, NO! Heck, I was so willing to do it myself that I went up to the net again to see guides on how to remove the coilpack and replacing it. The result:


(Uhh, ohh.. shiny pack)

But in the end the whole fun and joy ended when I fired up the engine, and gave some gas to the pedal. Guess what? THE MISFIRE IS STILL THERE!

I was kinda disappointed in a way, but not yet given up.. since I thought it's the electrical, I might start off checking on the fuses in the fuse panel (mine's located on the driver's side, near the driver's door card).

One by one, I checked for any blown fuse. And then, a worthy find! I found a blown fuse! It was Fuse #43, with the description: "Engine Control Elements" (Fuel Pump Relay, MAF and O2 Sensor Related). It's rated at 10A, so I thought.. "Hey, this might be the whole problem?". But seriously, I went all through replacing the coil pack and getting my hands dirty for a 50c problem??

It was 11.00PM at the time, so yes Soon Lee's closed, Milimewah's closed, and heck any shops are already closed at the time here in Belait. The solution? Sneak up my dad's room, take one of the car's key.. and find a spare fuse in that car. The victim? My mum's BMW E46. :x Checked in the fusebox and found one lucky 10A fuse that I needed! Locked the car back, and kept the keys back to where I got em' and continued with my progress.

So I ran up to 1M and quickly fitted the replacement fuse in slot fuse #43. Second attempt, fired up the engine.. and, I was kinda reluctant to give some gas and to found out that the fuse did nothing to fix the problem. After a good 'stare' at the tachometer for a minute.. I decided to give it a go. Well unfortunately, I was right. it didn't helped anything at all.

Though, I can hear the fuel pump relay clicking now every time I put the ignition key in (It should work that way). Don't ask me why. Any VAG owners would say the same. Hmm so I wondered how can the fuse be blown and the engine still can be turned on? Cause, if the fuel pump's power was cut (via blown fuse), there would be no fuel being pumped and I wouldn't have any combustion work going on! But, whatever it is.. I just left that alone and gaved up. I decided to continue working the car the next morning.

So then, I got these fixed so far:
- Replaced the Ignition Coil pack
- Replaced Fuse #43 (Engine Control Elements)

Then I got back to my laptop again.. trying to find and source out anyone's having this problem. Currently it was around 2.00AM. So I went on searching after searching, looking for solutions to the problem. Things got more difficult when I realised there's almost no one that had this problem before

After countless searches, I found a breakthrough after hours of searching. I found 1 thread at vwvortex.com's forum describing the same exact problem, but his solution was replacing the O2 Lambda Sensor (An oxygen sensor for the ECU to calculate Air/Fuel Ratio for optimal combustion) which costs around $180. Hell no I'm trying to buy this one and think that it might solve the problem. I think I'm missing one more thing to diagnose before getting another new part!

7.00AM, there's just about enough sunlight to start working on my car again. No I haven't got myself, and I can't (despite I thought that I could go to bed) go to sleep. Took my tools down, and the 1M keys. I know it will be a long morning.

This time, I attempted the following:
- Re-plumb and check for any Crankcase Breathing leak (The previous time when I installed the Oil Catch Tank). Just incase if the misfire was because of this one by any chances? i.e. Running lean due to the leak.
- Get it done with the vacuum lines. (It had cracks, here and there at the line)
- Replace the OBX Iridium Spark Plugs with OEM NGK ones (Just incase if the Iridiums are the problem)

So yeah, one by one.. I fixed up the lines for the Oil Catch Tank to make sure it wasn't leaking anything at all. This of course in effect, should make the engine's ventilation function as it should without any air leaks. Checked!

Next, The vacuum line. Well, I practically ripped off the old 'hardened' vacuum lines due to heat. This one was one of the worthy DIY I've ever done. Fired up the engine after doing the Crankcase Leak Check and Vacuum line replacing. The effect was better idle, and heck.. my 'warm-up' idle has came back! (Warm-up idle: A feature which increases the engine speed a little to 1,500rpm to speed up the warm-up process when starting cold). Following are my new vacuum lines:


(From the intake)


(You can see the Vacuum valve here)


(Then to the Servo.)


(The new customized vacuum line that I made)

At this point the misfire is still there though. I confirmed and thought that it's certainly a bad electrical circuit somewhere and, kinda gaved up to how solve the misfire problem.

I even went up for help from VAG Club Brunei to let me borrow them their VAGCom (A diagnostic tool for the ECU to find any electrical faults). But hell, I was being so impatient waiting for it and heck went to try replacing the spark plugs as planned.

Upon removing the spark plugs, guess what I found?





A broken tip on the Iridiums! Damn it. Of course it would misfire, because there's no specific ignition point for the spark plug to ignite. It was eroded off by some.. thingy, I'm not sure. But by looking at the Spark Plug reading guide, it leads to me that the tip was a conclusion from being too warm/hot operating ranges for the spark plugs to operate.. which made me recalled back about my overheating problem back then when I had the waterpump issue!

So yeah, upon replacing the spark plugs.. she breathes better now, and hell.. I went all WOT with joy, and practically enjoying the and paying all the time spent trying to diagnose the car!

Bear in mind that I'm just working in my garage. She's fixed, fixed and fixed! *grins widely* .. Oh, it was already around 11.00AM by now, lol.

------

So I kinda learned few things here, and to the rest of you readers: Get a checklist and mark each one off while diagnosing for a problem! Makes your life easier that way. You could even fix things that you're weren't actually supposed to in the first place! (Like in my case, the vacuum lines)

I know it was all time consuming just to fix one problem, but hell... you gotta believe the effort that pays off when you're done doing everything right. Where's the fun if you're going to send to the workshop and let them fix it? Yeah.. I enjoy doing car fixes by myself!

I'm happy. :) So yeah, that's all for 1M's updates.



To you: Sure you wanted to get your hands dirty like this one? :$ But hey, it would be fun.. ain't it? :D

Labels: 1m, updates