I've been troubleshooting a bad ignition misfire that I suspected was due to water in the sparkplug tubes from a recent engine wash.
My suspicions were confirmed, though by the look of the plugs there has been water sitting there well before my ownership.
I dried everything out, cleaned out the tubes and replaced the plugs.
Without thinking, I sprayed Inox into each of the coil pack stems, drained it and gave each stem a light blow out with compressed air.
So, have I caused irreparable damage to the coil pack with the Inox? i.e. is there a carbon rod or anything internal that will soak up the inox and interrupt ignition or short something out?
Should I remove all the coils and attempt to clean them out with electrical contact cleaner?
Hi Beatle
Does it throw up the engine light when the misfire occurs and does it happen when engine is hot/over heated. Then more than likely a coil pack/s is faulty and needs replacing. Refer to a previous post on a similar issue for diagnosis and whether coil pack or spark plug was the culprit.
PS it has been nearly 12 months since work on the post was done and no further problems with that or other coil pack, just failure of starter motor in the past week.
http://www.alfaclubvic.org.au/forum/index.php?topic=2380.msg108161#msg108161
Thanks Bonno,
To be clear, I haven't run the engine since I dried everything out and I have no reason to believe any coils were faulty to begin with. I still have to finish reassembly.
I paused once the plenum and cover were reinstalled when the possible issue with the Inox came to me.
I'm positive the misfire was due to the water. It was missing on more than one cylinder and I found at least 10mm of water in 5 tubes, with two having enough to cover the plug ceramic.
I must have driven around 50kms with the intermittent miss and it didn't show the engine light until I turned into the driveway.
However, I have bought a wifi OBD2 reader: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/273943717217?ul_noapp=true and loaded a free app to the iPhone (Car Scanner), so will see what info that gives me once its all back together (I've never played with OBD codes before.....). I've disconnected the battery (4 days) so assume any previous codes will have disappeared?
Interestingly, the Car Scanner app gives two profile options for Alfa:
1. OBD-II / EOBD, or
2. 156 (Bosch M1.5.5)(experimental).
I've selected option 1 but option 2 might be better for a 2002 Aust spec 156?
Misfires most likely from the water and dud spark plugs.
The Innox shouldn't cause any issues, but in future clean electrical items with Isopropyl Alcohol, available from Jaycar.
Quote from: Beatle on October 22, 2019, 07:48:41 PM
I've disconnected the battery (4 days) so assume any previous codes will have disappeared?
Interestingly, the Car Scanner app gives two profile options for Alfa:
1. OBD-II / EOBD, or
2. 156 (Bosch M1.5.5)(experimental).
I've selected option 1 but option 2 might be better for a 2002 Aust spec 156?
No, disconnecting battery wont delete codes.
Bosch M1.5.5 is for the early 2.0 Twinsparks.
To close out, the engine is now running fine. De-watered, new plugs and air filter, MAF and throttle body cleaned, connectors cleaned. Battery +ve was also slightly loose.
Car Scanner seems to work and all codes cleared. :D