Important Information for anyone with power problems
Nexarius
04-11-2005, 03:36 PM
Hi
I have been helping my grandfather with a problem he has been having with his '92 2.0l Passat. It is not a 16 valve. It has 144k on the clock.
He bought this car for £50 off a a friend whom he had done work for. The friend had bought a simular car, and it had been crashed into whilst it was parked outside his house by a lorry going down his road.
He then bought this Passat in not-brilliant condition, with the aim of using parts salvaged from the wrecked Passat to sort out this one.
However, whilst he was doing all this he became rather attached to an Audi he also owns, and decided to sell the Passat altogether.
Anyway, shortly after my grandfather started driving it he noticed a lack of power when trying to accelerate, and assumed it was fuel starvation. I went over to help out, and we decided that it was clogged injectors. On the way to the shop to buy cleaner for the injectors, we noticed a loud hissing noise coming from underneath the car. There was also a strong, horrible smell.
We went up some hills and it struggled up them in 1st. On the moterway it wouldnt do more than 60mph.
We had no idea what the problem was, but thanks to this forum, boschman in particular, we thought to check the catalytic convertor. We removed it, shook it, and loads of bits of ex-convertor fell out of it.
We assumed this was the problem, and we fitted the catalytic convertor which we had conviniently salvaged from the wrecked car. The convertor was nearly new because it had recently been replaced.
We fitted this, and started the car. It still hissed but we thought it was one of our joints. We then stopped because it was 10pm and we were tired.
The next morning we went to start the car. It fired at first, and nearly started, but died. We tried to start it again and it just turned over and over and didnt fire. This went on for quite a while until the battery wouldnt turn the engine over at all.
We put it on charge and pulled out one of the plugs. It was fouled with carbon. We turned the engine over and got a spark.
We then checked the fuel, and detirmined that we were definatly getting fuel into the engine. We couldnt work out why it wasnt firing. We left the plugs out to dry the fuel from the engine but that didnt work either. They were all fouled.
Anyway after someone had the bright idea of turning it over without the plugs in then leaving it for a few hours, it started. Very very unhappily. With our foot to the floor it would just about keep running. After a while of doing this it built up RPM but it took ages. It was hissing like crazy and there was nothing coming out of the back of the exhaust pipe. Turns out the bits of convertor had DESTROYED 2 of the silencer boxes on the exhaust. The internals had disintegrated and the padding they use had moved to the end of the last silencer and blocked it.
We think that the cylinders instead of ejecting the exhaust gases, were just compressing it due to the pressurised exhaust system. Therefore they were not drawing in very much air, but the fuel was being injected anyway. This flooded our engine.
We changed the whole exhaust and now it runs fine, and the MPG has risen from 18 to 35 :-)
So, if you are having acceleration problems and you still have the original catalytic convertor, its definatly worth a check!!
If it wasnt for this forum we would have ended up paying someone to look at it for us, so thankyou to everyone on here, especially boschman.
I have been helping my grandfather with a problem he has been having with his '92 2.0l Passat. It is not a 16 valve. It has 144k on the clock.
He bought this car for £50 off a a friend whom he had done work for. The friend had bought a simular car, and it had been crashed into whilst it was parked outside his house by a lorry going down his road.
He then bought this Passat in not-brilliant condition, with the aim of using parts salvaged from the wrecked Passat to sort out this one.
However, whilst he was doing all this he became rather attached to an Audi he also owns, and decided to sell the Passat altogether.
Anyway, shortly after my grandfather started driving it he noticed a lack of power when trying to accelerate, and assumed it was fuel starvation. I went over to help out, and we decided that it was clogged injectors. On the way to the shop to buy cleaner for the injectors, we noticed a loud hissing noise coming from underneath the car. There was also a strong, horrible smell.
We went up some hills and it struggled up them in 1st. On the moterway it wouldnt do more than 60mph.
We had no idea what the problem was, but thanks to this forum, boschman in particular, we thought to check the catalytic convertor. We removed it, shook it, and loads of bits of ex-convertor fell out of it.
We assumed this was the problem, and we fitted the catalytic convertor which we had conviniently salvaged from the wrecked car. The convertor was nearly new because it had recently been replaced.
We fitted this, and started the car. It still hissed but we thought it was one of our joints. We then stopped because it was 10pm and we were tired.
The next morning we went to start the car. It fired at first, and nearly started, but died. We tried to start it again and it just turned over and over and didnt fire. This went on for quite a while until the battery wouldnt turn the engine over at all.
We put it on charge and pulled out one of the plugs. It was fouled with carbon. We turned the engine over and got a spark.
We then checked the fuel, and detirmined that we were definatly getting fuel into the engine. We couldnt work out why it wasnt firing. We left the plugs out to dry the fuel from the engine but that didnt work either. They were all fouled.
Anyway after someone had the bright idea of turning it over without the plugs in then leaving it for a few hours, it started. Very very unhappily. With our foot to the floor it would just about keep running. After a while of doing this it built up RPM but it took ages. It was hissing like crazy and there was nothing coming out of the back of the exhaust pipe. Turns out the bits of convertor had DESTROYED 2 of the silencer boxes on the exhaust. The internals had disintegrated and the padding they use had moved to the end of the last silencer and blocked it.
We think that the cylinders instead of ejecting the exhaust gases, were just compressing it due to the pressurised exhaust system. Therefore they were not drawing in very much air, but the fuel was being injected anyway. This flooded our engine.
We changed the whole exhaust and now it runs fine, and the MPG has risen from 18 to 35 :-)
So, if you are having acceleration problems and you still have the original catalytic convertor, its definatly worth a check!!
If it wasnt for this forum we would have ended up paying someone to look at it for us, so thankyou to everyone on here, especially boschman.
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