Engine management

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Engine management; Cleaning and maintenance
Topic Started: Sat Nov 18, 2006 10:25 am (1,754 Views)
cossie connoisseur	Sat Nov 18, 2006 10:25 am Post #1
fat tits Posts: 9,666 Group: Members Member #110 Joined: December 18, 2005	Right there is the topic i know a few people have been waiting for. This seems to be quite a good job as the improvment to the car in the end was quite noticable. Firstly what you will need; Servisol foam cleanser 30 Servisol silicone grease 70 Servisol super 10 Servisol aero duster 105 Waxoil Paint pen Cable ties WD40 Gloves Paint brush 8,10, 2x13 mm sockets Stage 1; Remove battery and battery tray to gain acess to ECU's and relays. Unclip connectors then lift and turn ECU to a 45 degree angle to fully remove connector. The ABS ECU is cliped in place but the main ECU is just a puch fit so easy to remove. You may want to remove the plastic suround that stops muck getting into the area under the wiper arrm as it does impead vission slightly. Stage 2; Take ECU holder out and remove OVP, fuel pump relay and other connections and take them to somewhere that is clean! The plastic cases protecting the Relay and ECU's can be easily removed by screws and then gently pulled apart. Once stiped of their cassing it is easy to see how complex they are. All you need to do is look real close to see any dry joints. Also with say the fuel pump relay you will see a spring that can be covered in dirt. If you notice when you hit your rev limiter that it takes a couple of second to give you power again this will be the culprit. Clean any equipment with the special cleaner Most of the cars that i have seen have the OVP loose and dangling in free air. This is not good for the devise or the conectors. As you can see in the below picture you can see where it is suposed to go. Waxiol the area under the battery and put new battery holder in ther with new nuts and washers. If there is any exposed paint the cover with your paint stick. Cable tie the loose wires but leave slack otherise you may do more harm then good. Reatach the connectors onto the 2 ECU'S but check that fuel pump relay is firmly in place and not slack. If it is then use a small flat headed screwdriver and crimp the conections slightly. Put the battery back but clean the 2 conectors with a wire brush and use new nuts and bolts to fix onto battery. Also cheak the earthing point for decay. Put the guard covers back and admire your handy work Start the car over and check that everything is running better.



Cosmo2.5-16	Sat Nov 18, 2006 11:03 am Post #2
Member Posts: 398 Group: Members Member #540 Joined: September 23, 2006	Nice Job



MICHAEL	Sat Nov 18, 2006 12:01 pm Post #3
Member Posts: 5,625 Group: Members Member #555 Joined: September 28, 2006	If I tried that I would probably short circuit the whole fn lot.



zakh	Sat Nov 18, 2006 12:59 pm Post #4
Member Posts: 2,154 Group: Members Member #188 Joined: February 21, 2006	a nice write up CC but can you please go into more detail about cleaning the ECU's? Thanks mate



Big Ben	Sat Nov 18, 2006 1:25 pm Post #5
Member Posts: 4,905 Group: Members Member #155 Joined: January 26, 2006	Hi Zach. We just sprayed circuit board cleaner on the board surfaces and then blew off the residue with an air duster. The most important part was to clean the connector terminals (both parts) with servisol contact cleaner following the instructions on the tin. Reassemble using a little spray contact grease to prevent new corrosion of the terminal parts. On the female sockets it is advisable to use a small screwdriver to close the gap and make a better contact.



zakh	Sat Nov 18, 2006 3:58 pm Post #6
Member Posts: 2,154 Group: Members Member #188 Joined: February 21, 2006	I know it might be obvious, but how do you know what a dry joint looks like?



Big Ben	Sat Nov 18, 2006 5:38 pm Post #7
Member Posts: 4,905 Group: Members Member #155 Joined: January 26, 2006	Solder joints should be bright and shiny. As they age the may get a little dull but they do this evenly and all at the same time. You need to look for a very dull joint, different to the others, with like a "granulated" texture. If it is really bad often you get a black ring around the lead of the component caused by "arcing". Dry joints are caused by a breakdown of the amalgum of metals that make up the solder. If they are caught early enough just a touch of new solder with flux applied with a soldering iron will cure the problem. If you see the black ring the best thing to do is take the component out and clean all the surfaces to be soldered. Most dry joints happen on the soldered joints of components that handle the power of the circuit. It is very unusual to find a dry joint on a microchip (unless created by a soldering iron that is too hot). You will find it useful to have a magnifying glass to hand when inspecting the board! I used to teach electronics to first year Apprentices so have a lot uf useful kit!!



zakh	Sat Nov 18, 2006 6:02 pm Post #8
Member Posts: 2,154 Group: Members Member #188 Joined: February 21, 2006	Thanks BB, very helpful as always...Much appreciated! i have used your technique whilst inspecting my ASD relay, but cannot find any dry joints...damn ASD light is still on!!! :angry: :ph43r:



taint	Sat Nov 18, 2006 11:50 pm Post #9
Member Posts: 219 Group: Members Member #168 Joined: January 30, 2006	dude you forgot to put grease on your battery tray, it stops it from rusting, and increases its resistants to battery acid . that way it won't deteriorate to the extent your old one did



shrekky	Sun Nov 19, 2006 1:06 am Post #10
Member Posts: 3,909 Group: Members Member #223 Joined: March 23, 2006	nice write up CC...................there is another way to avoid all this....................buy a diesel then you got no fiddly boxes to mess with :lol: :lol:



cossie connoisseur	Sun Nov 19, 2006 7:51 am Post #11
fat tits Posts: 9,666 Group: Members Member #110 Joined: December 18, 2005	Quote: dude you forgot to put grease on your battery tray, it stops it from rusting, and increases its resistants to battery acid . that way it won't deteriorate to the extent your old one did I used waxoil



Peter Ross	Tue Nov 21, 2006 11:03 am Post #12
Newbie Posts: 36 Group: Members Member #627 Joined: October 28, 2006	Hello C.C. Admire your new battery tray, the one in my car is in a terrible state but i was lucky enough to get a nice one from my local scrappy. However the securing nuts in the one on the car seem to have become one with the threaded bar they locate onto so i will probably have to grind the whole lot off to remove the old tray ( or its remains !! ) In your pictures the new nuts look as if they are locating onto new threaded parts, if this is the case how did you fit the new threaded bits? Many thanks, Peter P.S. Or does it all become clear once the old battery tray is removed ?



cossie connoisseur	Tue Nov 21, 2006 11:10 am Post #13
fat tits Posts: 9,666 Group: Members Member #110 Joined: December 18, 2005	Hi Peter Once battery is removed take something like a dremmel and split the rusty washer. Once this is done the nut will undo with a bit of pressure applied underneath. Once the old tray is off waxoil the whole thing as this is better than grease in my opinion as it will go hard. Rust treat the old studs and paint. Then put new nuts and washers on and there you go. I could have got a tray from a scraper but �22 for an MB one sounded good so i got one.



Big Ben	Tue Nov 21, 2006 11:17 am Post #14
Member Posts: 4,905 Group: Members Member #155 Joined: January 26, 2006	Hi Peter The nuts did at first appear to be corroded onto the studs so we applied copious amounts of WD40 and left it while we cleaned the electronic bits indoors! The nuts were so bad that we had to use mole grips to turn them. The Dremel was used to cut open a very stubborn one! We cleaned up the area with a wire brush (on the Dremel) and we treated it with KuRust prior to painting with the paint stick. We sprayed Waxoyl on the bulkhead under the box allowing for water runoff areas. New nuts only cost pennies and should always be fitted using a little copper slip. Make sure that you have a good electrical connection between the tray and the bulkhead as this helps prevent corrosion.



Peter Ross	Wed Nov 22, 2006 5:38 am Post #15
Newbie Posts: 36 Group: Members Member #627 Joined: October 28, 2006	Hello Big Ben and C.C. Many thanks for your prompt replies and very useful tips. That's next saturday taken care of !! Peter



Cossie 2.5	Fri Mar 9, 2007 3:41 pm Post #16
Member Posts: 279 Group: Members Member #91 Joined: December 2, 2005	cossie connoisseur Nov 18 2006, 11:25 AM Hiya... what is the switch on the left side of the picture with ECE on it?? And thanks for this... I've gone through the whole process and although not really found anything too major the car does seem to be running a lot more responsively... I do still have an ever annoying problem with my ASD though!! Starting to think my alternator is on the way out now and that's affecting it!!



cossie connoisseur	Fri Mar 9, 2007 3:43 pm Post #17
fat tits Posts: 9,666 Group: Members Member #110 Joined: December 18, 2005	Dont touch it as it sets up the timing so unless you know what your doing leave it as it is Glad it better for you



Cossie 2.5	Fri Mar 9, 2007 3:47 pm Post #18
Member Posts: 279 Group: Members Member #91 Joined: December 2, 2005	cossie connoisseur Mar 9 2007, 04:43 PM Dont touch it as it sets up the timing so unless you know what your doing leave it as it is Glad it better for you The reason I asked is it looks like it might have been touched by someone else! It has what looks like a security tag wrapped round it... that is broken! So wondering what it 'should' be and if it's right!? I guess it's not far off either way!



josh	Sat Jun 23, 2007 9:49 am Post #19
Newbie Posts: 24 Group: Members Member #122 Joined: January 3, 2006	cossie connoisseur Nov 18 2006, 11:25 AM Once stiped of their cassing it is easy to see how complex they are. All you need to do is look real close to see any dry joints. Also with say the fuel pump relay you will see a spring that can be covered in dirt. If you notice when you hit your rev limiter that it takes a couple of second to give you power again this will be the culprit. Clean any equipment with the special cleaner I think my fuel pump relay (big black relay) is at fault for not sending sometimes 12v to the fuel pump, shuting down the engine while doing 40 mph and recently for limiting the revs, when parked, to just 4200 RPM. While in gear, I goes past 5000 RPM. @ cossie connoisseur , you just take a screwdriver and remove that silicon sealant around the pins of the fuel pump relay? I'm looking for a quick fix to my problem and hope that cleaning the relay will do the trick.... thank you very much for this thread!!!



MBZ190D	Sat Jun 23, 2007 3:54 pm Post #20
Member Posts: 777 Group: Members Member #1,420 Joined: June 20, 2007	shrekky Nov 19 2006, 02:06 AM nice write up CC...................there is another way to avoid all this....................buy a diesel then you got no fiddly boxes to mess with :lol: :lol: Yep, we've only got a glow plug relay! Very good write up! btw your battery tray was fairly knackered :ph43r: I've never seen one that bad b4!



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