electrical plague manifesting its self over time as connection corrode

i wouldnt worry about rust tbh , that is the least of my worrys about a car

@trail_rat, pretty much how I feel about rust- I went through it and did some drying and protection stuff but it’s not a big concern.

Electrics did bother me- my dad’s Passat was killed by a rainwater leak, the thing went senile. But 4 months on and with the car long since dried, nothing’s come up so I’m pretty comfortable with that. It seems lucky, mind- the car’s got all the toys and electric everything, I was almost shocked that the seats still work!

Electrics aren’t too complicated really. Just wires, sensors and ECUs.

What bothers me about ECUs is the completely closed and proprietary nature of the ECUs. I wish they were open source, then I could connect and debug and figure out what was going on, like I do at work 🙂

I wouldn’t say the car is a lemon but more that Northwind has had a go at fixing it himself and made a few errors along the way. Personally I’d fix and keep the car. The problems with injectors and turbo were probably related to it’s unscheduled bathtime.
Get another turbo and oil line but do the job right, no cutting corners. I would clean the boost pipes out for peace of mind. With the wheel bearings go for SKF. I had the Conti Direct rear bearings on mine and I was one of those who gave it a good review on ST Drivers. Less than a year later and both sides had play in them. I’ve had to replace them again this time with SKF bearings.

That’s classic foreign object damage. Something’s flown into the compressor wheel, bounced around a bit and gone bye byes. I wouldn’t worry too much about ingestion into the engine itself – all the little bits will be trapped in the intercooler’s labyrinthine matrix. You might be able to clean it out, but I’d doubt it & pretty certain that you’ll need a new intercooler. Where’s the air mass meter, downstream or upstream of the turbo?

MAF is prior to the turbo

Given the slight damage then, I’d be checking the columnator and mesh screen in the maf. Anything metal would have chipped the casing of the turbo and possibly even still be wedged there.

New chra now in the turbo… Nice that, it’s like fixing a watch after all the big spanners stuff. Nothing in the turbo, there’s a single wee pockmark in the base of the compressor wheel showing sonething small and rapid passing through but no other marks (figured out that what I thought might be damage on the nut, is actually balancing) . Bit of a halt waiting for a gasket kit, oil line is at fords waiting for me to ride over and get it.

@craigxxl- thanks for the update on the bearings, that’s useful to know. I’d seen your recommendation 😆 I’m kind of liking the irony that the error of judgement with the oil line ended up being irrelevant, it’s nice to get a second chance at stuff like that. (also a lesson in listening to the internet- there’s so much talk about it being expensive and hard to change and it’s all cobblers, if I’d known how relatively cheap and easy it is, I’d have done it first time round!)

@hotfiat, will do, that’s useful. I’m reasonably resigned to this having been a bit of debris from turbo #1 that I missed tbh, it’d be quite a coincidence for an unrelated failure. I’ll all the intake hoses right down to components and flush them out rather than doing it manually, just in case there’s anything else in there. (boost bits are all off already)

What’s the reasoning for a new intercooler? Just to get rid of any trapped debris or is there more to it than that.

Oh, 2 specific questions… The actuator (vacuum type) has an endstop adjustment, just a wee rod and nut. I can’t find any guidance on how that should be set- any ideas? I’ve contacted the seller but they do seem like a boxshifter.

(the 2 old turbos were set up differently, natcherly 😉 )

And also, what’s the simplest way to ensure one of these doesn’t fire when turning over? Fuse for fuel pump or similar?

Yeah, you’ll never be able to clean it out. The rattly bits will fall or dyson out but there’ll be alloy shavings clogging up every other channel & you’ll never get rid of the seeds of doubt about future engine ingestion.

It’s a diesel & will happily run on residual vapour in the inlet. The only way to stop firing is to remove compression – so take the glow plugs out.

The waste gate actuator – now you’re into the black art of forced induction. Sadly you’ve no real hope of setting preload at home. You need a good boost gauge and some time with a dyno or rolling road merry-go-round. A remanufacturer will set it with calibrated vacuum and air lines so that it just opens as max boost is reached. Most are now fully ecu controlled and so you will have no idea when it’s supposed to open.

OK, cheers. Does it seem reasonable as a starting point to set it up to match the remanufactured turbo (being the most recent/known good one, and sharing the same actuator etc?)

I’m looking at about £300 of parts and consumables to (hopefully) fix the turbo.

I was thinking the turbo would be a lot more, at £300 its well worth fixing. Even when you’ve added on another intercooler.

Depends if the actuator is truly the same. I’ve seen supposedly identical t3s from minis with different rating diaphragms. If it was an old banger like our mini was I’d be saying “yes it’ll be fine”.

You’re not thinking of re-spindling the turbo yourself are you? Bonnets with shrapnel in aren’t cool. It is do-able (I’ve done it) but f&*% me it’s the trickiest thing I’ve ever done. (disassemble, re-build, balance, disassemble, re-assemble, pray)

It’s physically the same actuator- I’m putting a complete replacement chra cartridge into the shell of the recon turbo.

What’s chra?

chra – Turbocharger rotating assembly. The spinny bit, seals and oil feed manifold. Sometimes known as the cartridge.

The actuator’ll probably work.

No warranty, physical, implied or inferred is provided with this post.

Basically the guts 😆

Cheers for that Hotfiat.

You’re not thinking of re-spindling the turbo yourself are you? Bonnets with shrapnel in aren’t cool.

😆

So an update… She lives! Also, think I have my smoking gun, which is annoying…

Went through basically everything in a bit more detail as I had no pressure of time this time round, found nothing interesting in the intake pipes, nothing bigger than flakes in the boost pipes or intercooler… But a wee glint in the air filter caught my eye. It has a foam pipercross with a wire mesh fitted and there were some wee bits of metal debris still caught between the mesh and filter material. I also spotted a little of what looks like impact damage in the hard plastic air feed pipe. So it looks like some of turbocharger one went back up the air intake in a hurry, got stuck in the filter, then gradually came back out.

So that’s a bummer really- I could have seen that and avoided the whole second charger fiasco. But I don’t feel too bad about it either, it was quite missable. Chalk one up for experience.

So the car’s built and idles but I’ve not driven it anywhere as it’d probably end up sucking up a rock and destroying yet another compressor wheel 😆 But it’s looking good.

So cheers folks! Not putting up the bunting just yet, needs a roadtest and, oh, 500 miles before i’ll be completely happy. MOT next week so, wheel bearing to change, possibly rear discs…

Never bored with a ford lad.

(Mondeo mk3 tdci owner)

Look one the bright side, at least your turbos are cheap! My rally car lunched it’s turbo, i managed to find a “cheap” replacement (£5k) and on the next event the ALS malfunctioned and melted that one. Another £5k later and we were rolling again……. ouch!

BTW, ditch the silly air filter and just re-fit the OEM one. Modern cars don’t have restrictive intakes and don’t need or benefit from stupid aftermarket filters that don’t do any filtering!

At that price, I can afford to replace 20 turbos for the same price as your one 😆 Maybe I’ll just carry a couple of spares around in the boot. “Sorry I’m late for work” “FFS Andrew, that’s 2 turbochargers this week!”

It came with the pipercross fitted, which was weird frankly considering the car’s history- I guess Previous Owner liked the lifetime warranty or something… (when I removed it the first time to clean, there was a roll of electric tape and a pair of scissors inside the airbox, on the unfiltered side, which I’m sure also add performance)

The ST chaps do reckon it’s worth a little power but not enough to notice I think so it’s getting an OEM one. Considering the filter’s the size of a ceiling tile I don’t think it’s that restrictive! I’ve generally got on with Pipercross, they worked really well in the motorbike, but it doesn’t make much sense in a road car I think.

I’ve had a K&N filter in my Mondeo until I had the not so bright idea of using Mucoff to clean it which rotted the foam. Putting the OEM filter back in there was a noticeable difference with less pickup above 2000rpm so fitted a Pipercross which has restored the lost go.

Damn it Craigxxl! Just as I make a decision you go and confuse matters 😆

Try it for yourself with an OEM they’re only £8 but I know yours it mapped and decat too so I would expect similar results.

Yeah, it was mapped with the Pipercross. We’ll see I guess! If it doesn’t impact the drivability I’ll be happy enough i think. The definition of success here is more “I own a car and it gets me to Ae next weekend without exploding again” rather than “everything is perfect” 😉

Woo hoo. Good work! Hope the testing goes well. No damage to the maf then?

Cheers! Maf seems OK- looks fine, and no fault codes (though, to put that into perspective, other things that don’t cause a code are “You’ve filled your car with water”, “Holy balls, the compressor wheel fell off the turbocharger” and “One of the injectors is so screwed, it just hydrolocked the engine”. However “You’ve fitted an EGR blank plate” definitely gets its attention.)

Was a wee bit skeptical tbh, still am really, strong temptation to replace it but if I get into replacing everything in the car that I’ve got mild doubts about, I’ll end up with a new car. There’s caution and then there’s paranoia.

I decided to appease the automotive gods by fixing the sparks on the motorbike today. Not directly valuable, this, as it just means it’s permanently parked in the garage instead of broken down, but it feels like it should put me in credit.

Lol. It’s not Marelli ecu by any chance? Ooh small font. How’s that happen?

Delphi I think. Though that’s a Google Fact.

I also resprayed the surround for the front grill. I don’t like chrome, so I took this off almost as soon as I got the car, prepped and primed it, then never painted it. For the last 2 years it’s been variously knocking around the garage, the shed, the conservatory and the bedroom, every so often I’ve noticed that it’s got scratched, reprimed it and then never painted it. How long will it take before I decided to cut the finish back and polish it up? Decades probably.

Road test succesful. Does it drive exactly the same as before? Don’t know 😆 Full on hypochondriac mode, every squeak and clank is the end of the world. Need to turn the stereo up! But it feels good. Was a bit cautious with it so not really sure how it’s all going at full power etc but I’m not finding anything to worry about yet. Decided I want 500 miles on it before I declare it fixed but in the meantime, good start.

(a week of borrowing my dad’s Focus has left me barely able to work my ungodly heavy clutch though, my left leg’s atrophied. My right leg on the other hand has become mighty, from trying to push the accelerator through the floor to get extra horses out of its mighty 1.6 petrol zetec)

Unrelated; Got defeated by 2 of the wheel bearing bolts. Decided I’ve earned a day off so **** it, the garage can do it 😆

I thought I should put a follow-on considering all the useful advice here… I’ve put a few hundred miles into it and it seems fine. Power/responsiveness is a hard thing to judge I think but if I was to bet money I’d say it’s coming on boost later… which might just be as simple as a side effect of the cheap turbo core tbh. But totally livable with and drivable etc. So all in all, seems good. Walked the MOT which isn’t that meaningful really, but still good news

Still chasing gremlins mind- a bit smokey on startup, what are the odds that I can completely destroy the car while changing the glow plugs? 🙂

Oh… And was driving around thinking, what’s that whining noise? That very quiet rev-dependent whirr? Oh god it’s the bloody dmf isn’t it. Nope, I forgot I got the air con regassed the day the turbo blew, this is just the noise my aircon makes now it works 😳

Oh and I’ll just not mention the bit where a mystery misfire at steady cruising revs turned out to be caused by not quite putting the injector wiring connector all the way in. Never happened.

Are you and Molgrips twins separated at birth? A similar stubbornness to resolve seemingly pointless fixes in the face of economic and common sense? 🙂

However, good on you for sticking with it and getting it fixed.

I had a similar PIA/intractable issue with my bike until yesterday. Nonda Blackbird with the dreaded ’25 flashes of the F1 light’ error code. This is a faulty knock sensor code but can also be a faulty loom or faulty ECU reporting a false positive. After 6 months of fault tracing, it got a new ECU yesterday and no more false error code. Trouble is, all errors are reported through the same light so I couldn’t just cover it up and ignore it. Replacement Honda ECU…. HOW **** MUCH??!! 🙁

If the rest of the car is good (and you obviously know the car/providence*) then I would do it properly. You’ve already invested money in the car to get to this stage. Did you source the turbo yourself? If the garage did THEY should find another AND not charge you labour again to get you to the same point. No matter what bollocks they say. Of course oil feed/sump etc is additional labour cost. Of course this bits alittle muddy as if they told you the rest needed doing and you went for the cheapest option against their advice then its your cost of course.

Do it properly then run the car for another 50k IMO. In the past I’ve thrown the towel in stupidly early on a car that needed work. Regretted it with hindsight.

If at any point the garage offers to help you out/take it off you- don’t. They aren’t Mother Theresa but angling to make money knowing its a good car.

*Of course every secondhand car needs bushes/droplinks etc doing along with consumables. You’d walk into another car with the same list of consumables that will pop up over the next thousand(s) of miles too. At least with yours- you know the car.

Providence=provenance?

Early. I wish I’d never gotten ridden of my Subaru 🙁

Hora, thanks for your contribution but it’d probably have made more sense if you’d read the thread 😆

First thing I have to post on a tiny S3 mini. It doesn’t help.