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Post by TimW on Apr 9, 2004 13:12:24 GMT -5
Sue and I decide to occupy a Good Friday afternoon by having a bit of a blatt around the home counties, lovely weather and no traffic (they all escaped to the West Country last night). After countless attempts by outside forces to direct us to Woking we managed to avoid it completely but ended up in Weybridge so popped into Brookland museum, a wonderful place. I digress, we got back to the car, unlocked the car, turned the ignition and NOTHING, not a sausage, nadda, except the oil light and battery light  Called AA man. Whilst waiting I thought I'd have a bit of a scout around looking for the problem, eventually (after a couple of minutes) discovered that the 30A (smoke) fuse under the bonnet for the ECU had blown so a very easy fix ...and replaced by AA chap.. phew Over the last couple of weeks I've had a couple of leakages of smoke, the first was a smoke retention fuse for the courtesy light/ICE and now this one. Thankfully this latest incident only happened between stopping the car and re-starting it. So my question to you all is... do you have any idea what may have caused such a large fuse to blow (or any fuse for that matter). Rob has already mentioned a recall for chaffing wire behind the dash do anyone have any further details on this or other suggestions. could the two faults be related?? At least I now have something to occupy my time over the bankholiday weekend... Tim |
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Post by Dieter on Apr 11, 2004 6:56:57 GMT -5
Hi Tim, I think you are right. Blowing Fuses must have a cause and it's usually reasonable to finding instead of just replacing or, much worse, upgrade to a bigger one (40amp i.e.) Result could be worst *smoke* case  www.mgfcar.de/burnt_babyThe recall case due to the harness below the radio is for sure applicable with all earlier MGF. The design is the same and never got official changed. I think the way the harness got routed and fitted down there depends on the factory workers skills (or mood?) only. However, my theory about critical harness routing directs to 4 different locations. We had gremlins frequently: - boot lid harness (some are good routed, some are bad) - alternator and starter connections (dito), leads to bad battery load or/and none starting - front fan wiring (dito), leads to blown fan fuse - recall due to SRS harness (below radio) - poor harness fitment inside the doors - bad led and fitted ECU connector harness (had this myself) Other troubles where done by owners themself: - ICE installation and slipped off *metal lead protection strip* at the radio core? (spelling?). I refer to the lower piece of sheet metal at the radio, where harness of speakers etc go downwards) So, go for a brief harness check behind the tunnel light covers. Special where sharp clamps are fitted. www.mgfcar.de/data/recall_reason_2409.jpg |
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Post by TimW on Apr 11, 2004 12:29:28 GMT -5
It would seem prudent to find the problem then, since a) I don't want the car to go up in flames and b) I don't want to fry the Emerald. I knew that I could rely on you Dieter  One further question, what colour wires connect to the two 30A fuses under the bonnet, these are the ones I should be particularly concerned with. Looks like a job for Monday morning. Will post up some pics when I find the offending wire... Tim |
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Post by Dieter on Apr 11, 2004 17:01:48 GMT -5
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Post by TimW on Apr 12, 2004 5:26:15 GMT -5
deiter,
Thanks for the diagram.
I've had a look at the loom behind the dash and every thing looks ok. What I notice from the diagram though is that fuse 1 is connected to the Oxygen sensor (lambda sensor I presume) I had this replaced just a few weeks ago when I had the Emerald fitted, it could be that either the sheilding has not been put in the correct place and the wire has melted or the plug which was attached to the wires has come adrift, something for me to check at the weekend I think.
Tim
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Post by TimW on Apr 12, 2004 11:52:50 GMT -5
Yep, I was right. I decided to pop the cover this afternoon afterall to have a route around. My first glance seem to show no problem at all in that area, but after a bit of fiddling around I could that a good portion of the wire had been badly burnt. In fact the 4 inner cores are in a loose plastic type sheath and then passes through a kind of flexible heat shielding cloth tube, for want of a better description. What had happened was the cable had not been routed correctly and there was a portion which was running perilously close to the exhaust manifold (cylinder 1). A bit of splicing and re-routing of the cable solved the problem. but it does show that great care has to be taken when replacing the lambda.
At the same time I found a dodgy connection at the boot hinge which I think was responsible foe setting off the alarm every so often when I opened the boot. All in all a good days work. Thanks for the info Dieter, hopefully this will have solve the leaking smoke for the time being.
Tim
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Post by Dieter on Apr 12, 2004 16:43:09 GMT -5
 BoooHooo !! Well done mate. Dunno why I just went to #2 ? . Anyway. I think this expert know-how might be useful for other chaps with #1 blowing at any time 
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Post by Rob Bell on Apr 13, 2004 8:58:19 GMT -5
Cracking bit of detective work there chaps, well done!!! ;D
Yup, one for the records: if anyone complains of fuse#1 failing, I'll know what to suggest!
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Post by TimW on Apr 13, 2004 9:31:31 GMT -5
Yup, one for the records: if anyone complains of fuse#1 failing, I'll know what to suggest! Also if there is a whiff of burning/melting plastic/rubber. |
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Called AA man. Whilst waiting I thought I'd have a bit of a scout around looking for the problem, eventually (after a couple of minutes) discovered that the 30A (smoke) fuse under the bonnet for the ECU had blown so a very easy fix ...and replaced by AA chap.. phew
... but half of the car is wired up brown coloured.