Troubles that befall us..

[Ray Bell]

About 700km into my journey from Brisbane to Harden-Murrumburrah, on Saturday afternoon, I heard a sort of a wheezy sound from the engine and the power reduced markedly..

Shutting it down, I was coasting to a stop and decided to have another listen... but it wouldn't turn at all..

The verdict?

I didn't pull it apart, but number 2 spark plug has foreign metal jammed inside it... and the engine stops just shy of Top Dead Centre when turned in either direction...

Peugeots have a reputation for breaking pistons, I guess this is the problem, first time it's ever happened to me... and this one was probably only 240,000km old! Car has done 640,000km but has had two engine refurbishments along the way, though possibly they never changed the pistons last time...

I have another engine, just have to retrieve the car from Coonabarrabran (we made up a stiff-bar towing device today) by towing it with my other car... need another driver though.

Then I guess the fuel injected engine will be going in a little ahead of schedule....

[smiffy43]

Originally posted by Ray Bell
About 700km into my journey from Brisbane to Harden-Murrumburrah, on Saturday afternoon, I heard a sort of a wheezy sound from the engine and the power reduced markedly..

Shutting it down, I was coasting to a stop and decided to have another listen... but it wouldn't turn at all..

The verdict?

I didn't pull it apart, but number 2 spark plug has foreign metal jammed inside it... and the engine stops just shy of Top Dead Centre when turned in either direction...

Peugeots have a reputation for breaking pistons, I guess this is the problem, first time it's ever happened to me... and this one was probably only 240,000km old! Car has done 640,000km but has had two engine refurbishments along the way, though possibly they never changed the pistons last time...

I have another engine, just have to retrieve the car from Coonabarrabran (we made up a stiff-bar towing device today) by towing it with my other car... need another driver though.

Then I guess the fuel injected engine will be going in a little ahead of schedule....

Hi Ray, any idea wot that is in miles ,wot type of peugeot?

when you say fuel injected i presume you mean petrol.Dont touch em with a barge pole ,go for the trusty diesel next time there a much better engine.If that mileage is as high as i think it is your lucky it lasted that long. I have a nice job to do tomorrow, snapped cam belt on a rover metro (my mums) she is hopeless at remembering the less frequent servicing parts now them i dont like (japaneese engines, i despise them!).

[bella]

ooh, i'm going to have nightmares about my poor car dying a simliar death now... (only my olds won't be so nice as you are to fit a new engine..)

[Ray Bell]

Smiffy... it has been rebuilt twice in its 640,000kms, and I am assuming it received new pistons each time. If so, the pistons were only about 220,000kms old.

I have a diesel engine, but I'm reluctant to fit it for a couple of reasons, one being the fact that parts are very expensive compared to the petrol engine and I have none... I have several petrol engines in various states of repair or disrepair about the place.

Yes, I do mean the petrol injection engine... and I can empathise with you over that timing belt... they need regular attention.

Bella... is it really that bad?

[bella]

yours or mine?

[smiffy43]

Hows this for a verdict on that cam belt. pistons perfect condition 2 bent valves and 4 snaps in the camshaft.not as bad as i thought .rather glad actually.its had a new cylinder head and its on the road again roaring away,well chuffed.

220,000 kms old?????????? Well **** my best boots, they shouldn't go that quick! that takes the biscuit!

Good luck with fixin it m8.

[Ray Bell]

Yours, bella....

Camshaft broke, Smiffy? must be designed to break to avoid damaging pistons, good idea...

Err... maybe one of my rebuilds didn't include new pistons and sleeves, perhaps the past owner was ripped off an only got rings, after all, Pug sleeves last forever.

[bella]

oh, mine's toast. well, nearly. it's coughing and spluttering, it misses a few cylinders when i start it up for the first time in the mornigs (i reckon it's a auto choke problem, but no-one listens to me cause i'm a gurl), it's starting to smoke, and he acceleration has, well, vanished. it's, erm, 129,000km old (true milege - it's in fantastic nick), and lhd. all it needs is an engine overhaul, and a bit of tlc.
but that costs money, doesn't it? and it's only the runabout, so the olds aren't interested. mummy's suzuki sj413 got a new engine when it started to die.

[smiffy43]

Originally posted by bella
oh, mine's toast. well, nearly. it's coughing and spluttering, it misses a few cylinders when i start it up for the first time in the mornigs (i reckon it's a auto choke problem, but no-one listens to me cause i'm a gurl), it's starting to smoke, and he acceleration has, well, vanished. it's, erm, 129,000km old (true milege - it's in fantastic nick), and lhd. all it needs is an engine overhaul, and a bit of tlc.
but that costs money, doesn't it? and it's only the runabout, so the olds aren't interested. mummy's suzuki sj413 got a new engine when it started to die.

The problem you have could not be the engine.it could be anything from a lambda sensor through to a distributor fault or even a couple of duff plugs.if its a lambda sensor it will cause the fuel mixture to weaken and richen as this controlls the fuel mixture through the exhaust fumes and therefore cause the engine to sound lumpy and like a bag of nails (when their nackered), best off to get it checked professionally before going out to fit a new engine, as this could well just be an ecu fault or something similar.and after all its not a high mileage engine

[bella]

well, at new year, we replaced everything like spark plugs, distributor, leads, all that sort of thing.
it's not so bad on fuel, though. i'm getting 37mpg out of it on a regular basis. it had a glitch of about 30mpg a few weeks ago, they replaced the oil filter and the oil, and the consumption's back to normal, now it's just the engine...

[Ray Bell]

I've been very busy getting ready to do the big transplant on my car. Because I'm fitting a fuel injection engine, there's a lot of plumbing to instal. Also, because I've not set up my workshop yet, there was a lot of tidying up to do and moving things around to make it possible to do the job.

While I've been at it, I've gone on a buying spree to acquire more enngines, as I want to change all three cars over. I have found and acquired enough engines and bits to feel comfortable about it now.

Only thing that concerns me is the possibility that I'll have to do some fabricating to mount the gearshift for the five-speed box I'm installing. Won't know until I offer it up - the whole setup is different because the wagon has a live axle rear end, while the sedan has independent rear end.

[Ray Bell]

It really didn't take that long to get that engine in, and to make the slightly different bit for the gear linkage. Installing all the bits and pieces was done by the second week in June...

Then the fun began!

The engine fired up after considerable trouble making the distributor work, but it was noisy and smoky and a drive up the street was accompanied by a spray of oil out the filler... it was a real dud. Sold to me as a fair goer, I pulled it out to find two cracked pistons.

As mentioned, however, I had been on a buying spree and there was a car I'd bought about 155km away with what I was assured was a 'good going engine.' Arranging a trailer and tow car took two days, and then half a day to get up there and back... but...

There was a puddle of oil on the trailer when we got it back here... inspection revealed a very large hole in the underside of the block. The number one rod and piston hadn't come with the deal...

So it was down to dismantlying all the engines I had (six off) to sort out the best bits to do a full rebuild. Various obstacles presented themselves, including me being sick for a couple of weeks, but in time it was done.

Took it for a drive... 12km down the road it started to rattle... switched off, got towed back, engine out again and off with the sump... a conrod bolt had its nut screwed about halfway off.

Now, let's go back a step. I bolted these down, installing one piston at a time and then torquing down the bolts on that rod as I went, then I retorqued them all when it was done... I didn't leave any loose.

But I left them that night and then completed the bottom end assembly the next morning. So one had been loosened... not only one, either!

I decided to loctite them, so when I replaced the bearing shells and the bolts in the offending rod, I then went on to redo the others, and found another nut loose!

So, that fixed, the engine went in again and I resumed trying to sort the injection tuning problems. Took it for a drive and a hose fell onto the exhaust, burned through and lost the water. My own silly fault, but that cost me another head gasket and the effort to replace it.

Finally found someone who knew the basic settings for the injection (please, nobody ask why things were altered, just accept that I didn't do it...) and now the car is running well. The five-speed box is a tremendous improvement, too.

Now on to the other car for the same conversion... without the five speed..

[Airhead]

Makes the continued saga of rubbing back the Mazda for spraying seem very easy indeed Ray!

[bella]

good grief, remind me never to even attempt to do anything to my car by self...

the car, btw, has just had the back brakes replaced (apparently, they were really worn. wonder who did that?), and is in need of new front brakes too. it appears to have been the same person who did that too.

very strange....

sometimes, it's just easier to chuck the whole bloody thing in a skip and start all over again....

[Ray Bell]

That wasn't an option for me... I couldn't afford the skip!

Isn't life about meeting the challenges?