crank sensor has 95% fixed the beast just hunting at idle so new plugs and check the coil packs. happy as a pig in the proverbial. cheers chaps for all your help

 

Great stuff! An oil change (if you've not already done one) would still be prudent...

 

already done mate changed all filters and fluids this morning

 

Two years ago my son drove our 97VDP into a couple feet of water. The streets were flooded and he saw other cars doing it. He didn't realize that the location of the intake was well below that of those other cars... Oh well.

Now we call the 97 the Nautilus.

We towed it to a friend of mine who has a carlift. He cranked it by hand with the pugs disengaged so as to pump it out, drained and changed the oil, changed the plugs and filters and she cranked right up and hasn't skipped a beat since.

Bulletproof I tell ya.

 

Well it was better for a while but its started to backfire again. Wonder if its got a dead coil pack

 

2 coil packs off. Picked up 2 for 35 quid. Thanks very much eurojag

 

SIT REP. Ok i have replaced the crank sensor and the coils on cylinders 1 and 2 as they showed no spark. I still have no spark on 1 or 2 and a weak spark on 6 any ideas ?

 

Make sure that you do not have the wires swapped for coils 1 & 2. The shorter one goes to coil 2, while the longer one goes to coil 1.

This can cause all kinds of trouble.

 

are the leads marked up in any way to tell which one is which ?

 

The best I can tell you is that the lead for 1 looks long enough to be the lead for 2, but it is not. The lead for 2 is a little shorter.

The reasoning for this appears to be so that the first coil connection can be turned inward so that it does not prevent the coil cover from sealing properly.

Can you take a close up picture of the first two coils? We might be able to render a more decisive opinion.

 

the car is over a friends place at the moment but i will get a pic as soon as i can. its now dropped cylinders 1 and 2 again and is backfiring for all its worth. starting to think this is terminal

 

Nah, don't give up yet.

You've got a way to go before deciding on either burial or cremation.

Backfiring and intermittent loss of cylinders sounds to be more electrical than mechanical.

Your fuel mixture could have gone way off the lean scale, so check that side of things.

Your 'new' cheap coils could be goosed, swap 1 & 2 with 5 & 6 to see if the problem moves.

Although, I've reread from the top.

There is a possibility that the timing went way out when confronted with the water, unlikely but possible.

I don't think you said that you found water in the bores, so major mechanical damage is unlikely. However get your Tech/Mechanic to run a compression/leak down test. I doubt that you have cracked the block etc and hope not.

And remember that unless you have had the car in a nice warm garage with a Jet engine blowing at it, with our weather it WILL still be damp and will stay so until mid May with NE conditions.

If you really did give a soaking, it will need at least advanced amateur drying out. Just leaving it, will not work.

Rather than stabbing around in the dark, you need to adopt a systematic approach to getting everything dry, and this will take quite some time and expertise.

Hence why flood damaged cars sell for peanuts.

Best of luck.

 

The difficult bit is finding the space to dry her out that way mate. Might some patience and a heat gun do the same job ?

 

Patience always helps, especially with this type of problem.

Go very lightly with a hand held heat gun, they are generally designed to strip paint and so will easily melt plastic parts etc.

The household hair dryer might be more appropriate, but this could get you into hot water, rather than the cold you have now.

Even a fan heater would help.

You want as much warm moving air as you can get.

Or, a local car body shop, and rent time in their baking booth, the heat lamps set lowish would help.

The old WD40 (Water Dispersal 40) could help.

All are just to give you different ideas of how an amateur with no 'pro' garage can dry things out. Normally with me it is LR/RR, I've had water half way up the windscreen on the inside on many occasions, the electrics don't like it, my navigator didn't like it, and the vehicles seem to develop a permanent stink.

Anyhow, if the other bloke or his insurance really are paying; I'd just have it booked into a Jaguar Dealership until it is 100% fixed + loaner car during this time.

You would need to have the agreement all nice and legal, but why muck about trying to sort it yourself?

 

I am trying to do it so the bill can be paid cash by the guy that caused the problem mate. if I go through insurance it will most likely be a uneconomical repair. Next round this morning it decided not to fire. cranked over fine but would not catch. removed the plugs and cleaned them off and removed the ecu and warmed it up on the radiator. put some warm water in the cooling system and refitted and it fired no problem. Now I am left with a rough idle and a hesitation on acceleration. It seems to want to die and the engine rocks the car quite violently. Could this be the ecu leaning out the fuel mixture ?

I had a look about and thought the coolant temp sensor could be at fault but i pulled the plug and this made no difference. Really need to get this finished asap now as it is my daily driver and i work 30 miles away from home.