my friend and his car are making me nuts

My friend has an 85 wagon with the jetronics ll injection . ( I
think )
It started having a "warm running issue " Ran well when cold
but after it warmed up would fall on it's face at 2500 or so .
(Sometimes it would clear-up momentarily ) Of course he drove it until
it quit . After some searching he found that the coil had erupted
like Vesuvius . ( lots of black ugly ) New coil , cap and rotor .
Now it won't run at all . I've been sort of helping him with this
and so far and the only test it didn't pass( in the book I have )
is throttle closed on the TPS . ( I think ) He pulled the injectors
so he could see the pattern and "tells " me that 4-6 crank
revolutions nets about 2 teaspoons ( or more ) from each injector but
the spray pattern looks fine . That seems a bit much to me but then
................. Also he says that while you can watch the plugs fire
in sequence , the injectors all go off at once .
This does not seem copacetic to me , but then................
I've making a living out mehanical repair for 40+ years and can ,
with the right info, usually deal with this stuff but this is driving
me towards the edge ( my friend too) He tried another ECU . No joy ,
SOSDD , so I'm sort of pleading for some suggestions before my friend
becomes my adversary and I have to hide when I see his ex's car drive
up .
Any direction would be greatly appreciated . Will

 

Dump the friend.

No! Only kidding....

It is normal for the injectors to fire together - in fact, they are wired in
parallel, although each has its own ballast resistor.

The fuel delivery does sound excessive, but we are getting the info second
hand. I'm worried about the "throttle closed" issue when the injector output
seems so high. I'm assuming the car is a 700 series (740 or 760) at that
age, but please clear it up if that is not true. In those cars, the TPS is
just a microswitch that is very finely adjusted. You should hear it click
softly when the throttle is cracked the tiniest bit. Idle will be very high
if the switch doesn't close at idle.

Do pull the vacuum line off the fuel pressure regulator. If there is
gasoline in the hose, the regulator is bad.

Mike

 

The spark and the injection behavior sound normal at this point. Did he take
the plug wires off when he replaced the coil? If you have the firing order
off by 180 degrees the plugs will all fire when the exhaust valve is open
and you get no ignition.

 

200 or 700 car?

Cheers, Peter.

 

Well I guess I'm going to have to actually go look at it . Maybe
something really simple that he missed . It''s a 740 with a b23f in
it . Oddly he said sometimes it would clear itself momentarily if you
turned the blower on or off ? I'll get back on this . Thanks
gentlemen .
Will

 

A B23F? What year is it? I thought the 740's all had B230F's, the only B23
was the B23FT in the '84 760.

 

James, didn't the B230F not appear until 1985? IIRC, the 740 debuted
before then.

 

I did go and look and it was something simple he missed .
I'm hoping that the warm run issue was the coil going bad and that
the 2 fouled plugs were the result . When he gets it all back
together we shall see . I really appreciate all of the response .
My book says nothing
about ALL the injectors working at the same time and I would've
probably been a couple miles down the garden path without that tidbit
..
It very well may be a 230F . I remember telling a doctor once
how lucky he was that he only had 2 basic models to deal with and they
didn't change from year to year .
I'm looking forward to seeing a smile on my friends face for the
first time in 2 weeks . Thanks again , Will

 

Yes the B230F appeared in 1985, the 740 appeared in 1986. Previous to that
there was the 760 which came out in (I think) 1983.

 

Well.................... It ran well enough to show at my place this
AM , but that's about it . It is a 230F with CIS . It idles OK but
goes competely on it's face at anything over 1500 rpm . At idle the
timing is as it should be
but when you try to run it up , the timing mark goes berserk to the
advance side . ( something like 50+ degrees ) The spark is not very
stable . Jumps 3-5 degrees at idle and disappears altogehter at higher
rpm . No vacuum advance on this one . Just for giggles I tried
checking out the dist. pick-up .
Basically open circuits no matter which way you went . I can't
imagine it would operational like that but then
.................................... If you unplug the CIS , the
idle changes ( like I think it would ) . I sent him off to find
another
dist. and or pick-up in the hopes that
..................................
Since I deal mostley with "vintage" stuff and boats , things
like this are
an adventure into unexplored territiory .
Thanks for bearing with me on this , Will

 

I've seen a couple problems similar to this, though we didn't get CIS B230's
over here, nor CIS injected 700 series cars but on an old CIS 240 the little
button contact in the center of the distributor cap broke off once and
caused very similar symptoms. On another car, the pickup in the distributor
had a loose connection causing the circuit to open as soon as the vacuum
advance activated. You said this doesn't have vacuum advance though? Doesn't
it have a vac hose to the ignition module?

 

The dist. mounts directly to the aft end of the cam . No vac. lines
anywhere near it . New cap and rotor . 3 wires from the pick-up . 1
is a bare stranded ( almost like sheathing , don't ask me how I know )
The content of the dist. is 1 ( one) hall effect sensor and the
interrupter wheel . Ohmeter reads open anyway you check it . I can
only hope this isn't something that someone fell in love with on
vacation and just had to have it . Will

 

Sounds like exactly the same setup the LH Jettronic injection cars over here
have. The hall sensor is actually quite robust, I've heard of them failing
but it's not often. I don't recall what they'll read with an ohm meter but
it's not a reliable way to test them since they're a semiconductor that
needs power to function. The outer sheath of the wire is the shield and
likely also provides the ground connection if not through the engine block.
One of the other wires should be power and the other signal. The ignition
control box on a 700 is mounted up under the driver's feat on the pedal
bracket, at least it is on a LHD car, I'm not sure which side it's on for
RHD. There's also a knock sensor on the block under the intake manifold, if
this is damaged it could cause the timing to be erratic, but unless it's
physically busted it's probably ok.

 

Well .......... This is a U.S. car and the book I have says NADA
about a knock sensor or ignition control box . I assume this is
something like Gm used to do with what they called ESC ( electronic
spark control )
My book ( now in the fireplace ) says that the ignition is
controlled by the ECU totally . Armed with this new info , I'm going
to look for the probably faulty ignition box and if I find it
.................................... This makes more sense as to why
the timing is so erratic ( among other things)
Thank you James ! Will

 

A US car? I thought you said it was CIS injected? US spec cars all have
LH-Jettronic injection which is an electronic system controlled by a
computer mounted to the right of the passenger's feet. CIS is mechanical
with an aiflow meter that controls fuel flow directly.

 

And LH has a separate Ignition Control Unit with a power amplifier stage to
drive the coil.

Cheers, Peter.

 

I did locate the ICU in the car . My friend thought it was an amp for
the radio . This explains the symptoms he's had from the day he
bought the car . The "not quite as good as it could be " , the
blown-up coil , the "OK" cold running and the erratic spark syndrome
it's got now . Something that was "off " when he bought it ( going
south ) and deteriorated to this point .
Makes alot more sense to me since it has never seemed to be a fuel
issue . He's off to find another one today . We will see .
Thanks Gentlemen , Will

 

I forgot about the power stage, don't forget to check that. It's a small
block mounted to the inner fender near the nose of the car, I forget which
side it's on.

 

Power stage ! What a misleading name for such an innocuous ,
innocent looking , hard to locate , IMPORTANT part .
When we did locate it , turns out that a dealer service
department had replaced it with the wrong part( Always serviced by the
dealer , even had "Volvo" plugs in it ) . There was one in the fender
well ( laying there ) as well as the one I took out. An 8 pin
connector on the operational one , 6 pins on the original .
Got a junk yard replacement with 6 pins and that cured it .
An explaination for all the symptoms it had but would have NEVER
thought that would throw the timing like it did . Of course it was the
LAST thing I changed . Hope this can save some aggravation for someone
else . Thanks , Will

 

Dang, usually one can assume that there's at least the *correct* part there,
if not a working one.