Engine misfiring??

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When right before this happened was there a loud Whine from the drivers side rear wheel arch?

If so you could have the dreaded Fuel pump is over working issue.

If you have a later as in 84.5 to 93 Cabriolet as you have a clipper kit, and a space saver spare tire, or a 13 gallon tank, then if you have CIS injection or Digifant there are 2 fuel pumps in the car one is in-tank and the other is external to the front of the rear wheel axle on the driver side.

When the in-tank pump fails the primary pump has to work harder to suck the fuel out of the tank and it complains about it rather noisily (whines). I have seen this happen after about 20 minutes of driving. Then it will stop from overheating. Once it has cooled off a bit it will again work.

There is also an issue on CIS based engines where the fuel pump can also over heat and cause cold soldered joints at the contacts, when it too cools off it can re-make the soldered joint and start up again. Both of these conditions usually occur after about 20 minutes of driving and about 20 minutes of cooling off to re-function. It occurs on this side of the pond so often that folks over hear carry a spare relay in the glove box. Be warned that not all Fuel pump relays are built the same and that you want to validate that you have a good type.

www,cabby-info.com has the information on the fuel pump relays that you need to look out for.

I have personally seen this type of thing occur on my 92 Cabriolet where I got a fuel flow limited issue for the wonky Primary Pump that had over heated, and another time when the Fuel Pressure Regulator would cycle all fuel pack to the tank, the after 20 minutes or so would work fine until you turned the car off and it would happen again. I eventually fixed both issues but it was a right royal PITA to figure out, but the Bentley Residual pressure tests nailed the Fuel Pressure Regulator. The fuel flow limiting that I experienced was the main pump not producing the volume of fuel needed for increases RPMS, and I replaced the in-tank and External pump on that car with a in-tank pump (single) and all the Fru-fru as in fuel lines and the Dreaded Sump/filter….So I have a cost effective single pump that has enough pressure that the car started to act as if it was on steroids and was teh faster of my two Cabriolets.

Warning that doing this (conversion or perversion) makes it Starve for fuel on turns when it is under the 1/4 of a tank on the indicator that rectifies when you are on a straight, but I found that by increase the length of the pick up hose from the sender to the pump os it is sitting on the bottom of the tank, and by redirecting the return line to spray fuel in to the screen to help resolve this issue as well.

Not that is a lot of verbage, and one last thing from your notes is that it won't tick over either, is that tick over as the starter fails to engage? If that is the case then you are looking at an electrical issue, which is usually one of three things.

Bad Ignition switch, or that you have an excessive weight on your Key fob and the pendulation of the keys in a turn can cause the ignition switch to turn off as it is weak, and kill the car. Or it is plain bad. And or Bad engine grounds as if your Engine to Frame and Frame to battery cable if still original can be the major cause of flaky running issues. If yours are still OEM (bare unshielded wires, I would take the time to replace them.

What do Divorces, Great Coffee, and Car Electrics all have in common?

They all start with GOOD Grounds.

Where are my DIY Links?

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