Sportline stopping after 10 mins of driving.

Hi all

My sportline is coming to a spluttering stop everytime I drive it. It happens after driving for about 10 mins. If I try and start it again it just cranks. If I leave it for a couple of mins and then try it will crank, fire up and then splutter to a stop again. If I leave it for an hour it will start fine and I can drive it again for another 10 mins before it dies again.

I guess I'm having a fuel starvation issue. I have changed the under bonnet fuel filter and this made no difference. I have now taken out the tank lift pump and had a look at the strainer on the end (which looks clean) and had a look in the tank (which has only a very small amount of little black bits sitting in the bottom).
What I'm wondering is could this very small amount of very small black bits be blocking the stainer on the lift pump and causing the starvation…..leave it for a hour and these bits have dropped back down allowing it to run again? Or could it be the lift pump faulty. The main fuel pump under the car I pressume is OK….I can hear it prime when I turn the ignition to position 2.

Thanks for any help anyone can give.

My Sportline was doing something similar.

I am not mechanically minded at all but I posted up and was told to change my fuel pump relay, which I did and it has been perfect since.

Hope it's something simple

Chris

Shot in the dark, which is probably what I deserve but I'd say cracked Distributor Cap!

Hairline crack which expands when she gets hot.
She cools down the crack shrinks.

Had the very same thing on an old Mk1 Escort. Could drive it for 8 miles then it would stop. Leave it and walk the last two miles to work.
Walk the 2 miles back to it in the evening and I could drive home.

Weeks later after replacing fuel pump, cleaning the fuel tank, fuel lines, new plugs, new leads the next on the list was the cap and arm.

Replaced them both and was able to happily drive that car till the rest of it fell apart!

Hope it helps.

Mike.

On the wife's Sportline it was the lift pump which had got weaker and weaker over the years. This caused a knock on effect of making the main pump work harder and therefore draw lots more current. This overheats the fuel pump relay, in our case enough to melt the solder on the large spades, this coroded the contacts in the fuse box !!!

In the end I replaced both pumps with new and got a second hand fuse box of Funk - oh and a new fuel pump relay.

The above was after I had scratched my head for a while. I did all the usual k-jet checks like fuel pressure, control pressure, fuel delivery - all checked out. It wasn't until the lift pump actually failed that I realised what was going on. I had tested the lift pump before and even after it failed in the car, it would still run off the car, just failing under load.

Not sure about the dizzy cap…..I appear to be getting a healthy spark, but I will take a look. Fuel pump relay I'll also take a look at,  but I can hear the pump under the car prime when I turn the key. Is there a relay for the lift pump in the tank?
Cheers for the ideas.

BigM said

Not sure about the dizzy cap…..I appear to be getting a healthy spark, but I will take a look. Fuel pump relay I'll also take a look at,  but I can hear the pump under the car prime when I turn the key. Is there a relay for the lift pump in the tank?
Cheers for the ideas.

You may not have the same issue of course but I had a healthy spark when I cranked it over as well. Before and of course after the new plugs, etc…
I was just working my way down. When I replaced the dizzy she was fine, so for the hell of it I put the old one back and guess what, yeah she did it again.
Mind you I had the new one in my pocket!

But as I said, your issue could be totally different but when I read your post I had a flash back to 1980!

For what it's worth.

Good luck, mike.

OK…..I have tested the lift pump from the tank off the car and that seems OK…and car hear it running when the car is running. Have put a new fuel pump relay in…..the old one looked as if it had got hot (very brown underneath where the terminals are). The base where it pushes into in the fuse box looks like it has got hot where one of the relay pins pushes in to (scorch mark).
Still have the same problem. Will try dizzy cap next….maybe also check out the back of fuse box where relay pushes into. Don't really wanna change both fuel pumps when they might not be faulty.
Cheers for help.

Sharon's lift pump worked off the car but did not pump enough to keep the main pump fed

Cheers ade.
What were the symptoms? Did the car stop whilst driving? Would it restart or did you have to wait half hour or so before it would work again? With mine if I wait a few mins it will fire up again and die straight away…..if I wait quite a while….maybe half hour to an hour…it will start fine and drive OK for a mile or so….if I'm not driving it and just revving it on the drive it will last longer….maybe about 20 mins.
Thanks mate

Yea, it would stop and sometimes after a while it would start and run for a while longer. This went on for a month or so. Until is stopped completely and Sharon had to get the breakdown people out :-(
There were other symptoms as well - it would start to judder and not rev up and then all of a sudden it would be fine, you would have to drop the clutch and feather the throttle until it cleared.

Your overheated relay on the fuse board is a classic symptom that the main pump has been working very hard and drawing too much current.

When the lift pump doesn't work well the poor supply of fuel to the main pump causes lots of aeration of the fuel - I think the wait period to start again is the air dispersing but it soon froths up again.

Yours might not be the lift pump but it does sound like it is.

The weird thing is that even with the lift pump failing I was still getting a good fuel pressure and control pressure readings !

Thanks ade for your very speedy and informative reply…..think I best get a new tank pump ordered….ill fit it, try it and ill be sure to let you know how I get on.
Thanks mate.

Thanks ade for your very speedy and informative reply…..think I best get a new tank pump ordered….ill fit it, try it and ill be sure to let you know how I get on.
Thanks mate.

Is there a spec on pump delivery rate in Haynes to test it? I dont have a late manual.

could be water in the fuel tank,check inside tank for bubbles or what looks like when you put baby oil in the bath…rear seat up,unscrew sender ,have a look in tank with a torch.

water gets in from 2 places ,fuel filler pipe corrosion and the actual seal goes on the fuel filler cap.

if moisture in the tank  a quick fix is get some wynns dry fuel from halfords its around 6 quid ,pour in tank and any moisture will disperse and sink to the bottom…..however ,best bet is to suck out all the fuel it can be done with out removing the tank,a slightly dody way is to use a wet n dry vacumn….but this is dodgy due to fire risk plus petrol can easily melt the plastic hoover hose…..

stick a magnetic pick up tool in the tank swish around to get the rust out

once tank is clean and dry and assuming you have put on a new fuel cap filler pipe also blow through the fuel pipes replace fuel filters clean all the fuel lines inc fuel injectors etc.  

thats where i would start is the moisture in tank thing then work forwards after this

I assumed that he knew about the rotten filler neck issue - or that most mk1s would of had them replaced by now - but yes you would get similar symptoms if there is water in the fuel.
If it has got as far as stopping the car I am afraid the metering head will be rusty inside.

But with the carb style tank in later cabbies the water and rust rarely gets pushed around the system as it sits at the bottom of the tank and the water floats on the surface of the fuel. Whereas the injection tank draws fuel off the lowest corner and will all know the result of that, mine had nearly 5 pints of water in there before it stopped completely !! That was at just over 10 years old in 1993 !!

Hi all
I've had the sender and pump out of the tank…it looks very clean in there….didn't notice any water. Used a telescopic magnetic tool to try and get any tiny bits of rust out of there. There was only a couple of tiny specs of it. Strainer on bottom of pump also looks spotless.
Curiously I tried the car today with the pump in the tank unplugged…..car did exactly the same….run for about 25 mins on the drive and then conked out. I have ordered a new pump to go in the tank to see if that makes any difference.

Hello again.
OK, I have changed the lift pump in the tank and the distributor cap….still have exactly the same problem….this is starting to do my head in!!  

Do you mean that you have changed them ?

Yes...sorry, I have changed them both.

I would eliminate the possibility that it is not a failing fuel pump relay. The easiest way to do this is to put a fused and switched wire link across the two largest spade terminals on the relay plate. Flick the switch and the pump will run continuously, fuel will just be circulated to and from the tank. Start the car and see if it still cuts out.
The relay has a crash safety cut off in it, ie if it is not seeing an ignition pulse it will shut the pump down - this approach bypasses this.

If it does not cut out then either the relay, the fuse plate or the ignition pulse feed to the relay is knackered.

Got to get methodical on this, electrical side first.

Sometimes symptoms like this can be a burnt ignition switch.