BX16V.com Forum

I'm a bit stuck at the minute, my 16v has decided that it doesn't want to fire up any more.

Luckily it was outside my local mechanic's garage at the time, and after a bit of an investigation, we found that there is no spark.

New coil installed, still no change... Crank sensor checked, and it is working fine...

What could be causing this? A dead ECU perhaps?

Any help would be great because as of Friday, it will be my only car!

Regards,
Matthew

Are you getting anything out of the coil? I suspect you'll find the cap has had it. Either that or a very dodgy alarm somewhere in circuit. Are the earths good?

Ignition amp would be my fave..

No, the coil is not doing anything... So unless the new coil is duff as well, I'd say the problem is further down the line. I fitted a new Beru cap and arm about 8 months ago, along with leads and plugs, and It's all been fine up to this point... I'll pull the cap off anyway just to have a look.

There has never been an alarm installed in the car (as far as I can tell) and I cleaned up all the earths etc. last time I had starting problems.

The ignition amp is something we discussed, and I think it might be worth a shot. Are they bog standard Bosch jobbies? Could do with finding one tomorrow. Should be an off the shelf part I guess.

The problem is, the car isn't at my house... If it were I'd wouldn't be that worried, and I could spend Friday trying to fix it myself, but it's currently stranded about 15miles from home. About 1/2 mile away from where I work... But that's not really any good over a bank holiday weekend.

Thanks Vanny/Doc

Gearbox earth lead??
check all the earth leads around the Battery tray, chassis to terminal and chassis to box and battery tray to gearbox,
Valvers like a Good spark and with no earth you'll be scratching your heads for a while!!!
i got a Beuty earth lead for mine from the local auto electrical place, cost something like £7!
looks like this!


have a similar one for the box to chassis, and a Thick terminal cable for the chassis to negative clamp,

after having a similar issue on my old 309 gti which cost me a fortune at the dealers before they ran tests and found it to be the earth, car would turn over, had fuel but a Very weak spark, everything else on it was new! pita that was!! loL! most annoyed as the earth cable was the only thing i hadnt tried!

If there is no spark at the coil then I wuld also suspect the ign amp.

I do seem to remember a topic that mentioned trouble with the ign amp as part numbers were a bit confusing so if you can try and get a replacement that matches your current one part numbers wise.

Cheers
Luke

Toddman wrote:If there is no spark at the coil then I wuld also suspect the ign amp.

Cheers
Luke

hi matt, im with luke and the guys here. i would be looking at the ign module. they are fairly cheap around the £30 quid mark last time i bought one. though i would warn you i replaced mine with an inter motor after market part and subseqently had 3 ign coils fail on me so you may wanna avoid after market parts and go for the bosch one. mine has ran fine since i chucked a bosch one in.

rossco

i would be looking under your valver´s right fender/ wheel housing/ wheel arch (I´m sorry but I donot know the correct term). There along goes the wiring harness to the ECU, and are some branches which becomes bad.

On my valver renovating them helps, after having similar starting probs.

Now, just thinking here, If this is Still ongoing,
Does the Valver have a Tachometric relay?? only reason for asking is that mine went on my 309 Gti, only about £15 (same as a Vauxhall jetronic one) if so??

Timmo wrote:Now, just thinking here, If this is Still ongoing,
Does the Valver have a Tachometric relay?? only reason for asking is that mine went on my 309 Gti, only about £15 (same as a Vauxhall jetronic one) if so??

Always a very good point, that was the problem with one of my old ones, think it was the black one under the drivers seat, (which oddly wasn't the same as the rest of the relays so had to buy a new one), but once changed fired up fine. Shame i'd taken half the rest of the car apart before finding the problem!

Timmo wrote:Does the Valver have a Tachometric relay??

Unless i'm mistaken ALL valvers have this really, it drives the fuel pump. As a quick test i have had success just sticking a regular relay in. It wont do the fuel pump any good in the very long term, but handy to issolate the problem.

Did you ever get this sorted Matt

Mike P.

I'm guessing not: I saw you were on line and when I came back to the forum you'd wanted posted for an ignition amp.

Mike P

Haha!

Like you said I've just put a request in the wanted section for an ignition amp so I can start with getting this thing running again!

Have actually made no progress due to sinking all my money into an AX GT... but will be getting the BX running again soon if I can.

I'm also getting to the point where I can get the BX on a classic policy, which wasn't possible due to my age when I bought the car (18 ).

On a side note... This car is fantastic:





Still no Valver though

Cheers,
Matt

Looks a nice tidy Ax you've got there

A friend had one and I loved driving it - the only thing I didn't like was the pedals are offset to the left and I found that awkward.

Back to the Bx: could you not get a "cheap" amp from ebay or GSF etc and try that. How much is a genuine one from Citroen

As silly as this sounds, are you sure it's the amp that is the source of your troubles Will it still not start at all, did you try another ECU

Mike P.