ITLKSEZ
Watching a toddler play w/a loaded gun
As I mentioned before, this engine was only ever meant to be a placeholder until I found the one I really wanted. I’d hoped I’d someday find a 240, or better yet, a turbo 940 donor. The engine wiring in the 740s was crap. The insulation gets brittle with heat/age and just crumbles, leaving exposed wires inside the shrink-wrapped bundle.
There’s one guy who makes replacement harnesses in Sweden, but the price is beyond my level of justification. I’d rather be able to afford food.
Randomly, around every week or two, I’ll have a single misfire that I’ve never been able to pinpoint and diagnose. Well, I think I found it.
We went on one of our huge trips last weekend. We towed the jeep with HaaRVee out into the boondocks and made camp 70 miles from the nearest town by paved road. From base camp, we’ll set out on long 100-200 mile exploration treks, hitting landmarks and mountain peaks along the way.
On Saturday, we were 60 miles from camp, in one of the most remote spots in the area when we stopped to pick berries. It was 5pm, our stomachs were telling us we needed more than just thimbleberries and huckleberries, so I wrapped two chimichangas in foil and threw them against the engine block on the wiring harness down under the intake manifold. I fired up the jeep, and as I began to pull out, the engine just died. My immediate thought was how screwed we were if I couldn’t get it going. We hadn’t seen a single person since we left the main road 5 hours earlier. We were probably 40 miles from cell service in any direction. We had enough clothing and equipment with us to safely make it through the night, but it wouldn’t be comfortable.
In the next 45 minutes, I had the passenger’s seat removed to access fuses and relays, and all my tools and testing equipment out, trying to pinpoint the failure. I had spark, the relays were good and the fuel pump was running, but when I pulled out the fuel injector rail to see if the injectors were squirting, there was nothing. THAT is when the panic first set in. Fuel supply is one thing, fuel delivery management is a whole different ballgame. I can’t fix a fuel injection ECU.
I just happened to have the key in the run position when I was pushing the injector rail back in place and heard electricity arcing from near or inside the harness. Bingo. I shut the key off and cut the shrink wrap away from the bundle that supplied the injectors to find the #4 hot wire was fried in half and was grounding out against a ground wire that lost its insulation. I think the extra weight of my food resting on the harness was just enough to expose some wires.
Why this one faulty injector wire was shutting down the whole system? I think it had a bad ground onto the manifold, and the added current of the short caused the bad connection to totally lose contact. I retightened all the grounds and it fired up on three cylinders. The cut wire was in a location where I couldn’t access it to fix it in the field without risking more damage, so we just turned around and high-tailed it back the way we came rather than continuing on the marginally shorter, but mountainous route.
We got back to camp an hour before dark. By the time we got back, the brakes were just about worthless. From the extra work of the remaining 3 cylinders, and the added O2 being fed into the cat, the exhaust was running so hot it was boiling the fluid in the lines that run close to the muffler. But she got us home.
We left the next morning, and I had exactly 2 hours to get her fixed and meet a guy who was flying up from CA to sell me his car. (I needed to use the winch on the jeep to load the car on the dolly.) I soldered and shrink-wrapped the cut wire, and re-tightened all the ground connections, and she’s running as good as ever.
I guess I’ll be building a new harness this winter. Ugh. And picking up a spare FIECU.
And the car I towed home is an ‘08 Outback for $500. “The engine started making noise,” so he parked it. I haven’t had time to look into it yet, but the body and interior are mint for an ‘08.
Yes, I disconnected the rear driveshaft.
There’s one guy who makes replacement harnesses in Sweden, but the price is beyond my level of justification. I’d rather be able to afford food.
Randomly, around every week or two, I’ll have a single misfire that I’ve never been able to pinpoint and diagnose. Well, I think I found it.
We went on one of our huge trips last weekend. We towed the jeep with HaaRVee out into the boondocks and made camp 70 miles from the nearest town by paved road. From base camp, we’ll set out on long 100-200 mile exploration treks, hitting landmarks and mountain peaks along the way.
On Saturday, we were 60 miles from camp, in one of the most remote spots in the area when we stopped to pick berries. It was 5pm, our stomachs were telling us we needed more than just thimbleberries and huckleberries, so I wrapped two chimichangas in foil and threw them against the engine block on the wiring harness down under the intake manifold. I fired up the jeep, and as I began to pull out, the engine just died. My immediate thought was how screwed we were if I couldn’t get it going. We hadn’t seen a single person since we left the main road 5 hours earlier. We were probably 40 miles from cell service in any direction. We had enough clothing and equipment with us to safely make it through the night, but it wouldn’t be comfortable.
In the next 45 minutes, I had the passenger’s seat removed to access fuses and relays, and all my tools and testing equipment out, trying to pinpoint the failure. I had spark, the relays were good and the fuel pump was running, but when I pulled out the fuel injector rail to see if the injectors were squirting, there was nothing. THAT is when the panic first set in. Fuel supply is one thing, fuel delivery management is a whole different ballgame. I can’t fix a fuel injection ECU.
I just happened to have the key in the run position when I was pushing the injector rail back in place and heard electricity arcing from near or inside the harness. Bingo. I shut the key off and cut the shrink wrap away from the bundle that supplied the injectors to find the #4 hot wire was fried in half and was grounding out against a ground wire that lost its insulation. I think the extra weight of my food resting on the harness was just enough to expose some wires.
Why this one faulty injector wire was shutting down the whole system? I think it had a bad ground onto the manifold, and the added current of the short caused the bad connection to totally lose contact. I retightened all the grounds and it fired up on three cylinders. The cut wire was in a location where I couldn’t access it to fix it in the field without risking more damage, so we just turned around and high-tailed it back the way we came rather than continuing on the marginally shorter, but mountainous route.
We got back to camp an hour before dark. By the time we got back, the brakes were just about worthless. From the extra work of the remaining 3 cylinders, and the added O2 being fed into the cat, the exhaust was running so hot it was boiling the fluid in the lines that run close to the muffler. But she got us home.
We left the next morning, and I had exactly 2 hours to get her fixed and meet a guy who was flying up from CA to sell me his car. (I needed to use the winch on the jeep to load the car on the dolly.) I soldered and shrink-wrapped the cut wire, and re-tightened all the ground connections, and she’s running as good as ever.
I guess I’ll be building a new harness this winter. Ugh. And picking up a spare FIECU.
And the car I towed home is an ‘08 Outback for $500. “The engine started making noise,” so he parked it. I haven’t had time to look into it yet, but the body and interior are mint for an ‘08.
Yes, I disconnected the rear driveshaft.
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