Yet another A610 cutting out thread.

You can get them from most factors or Ebay but they will not have heat shielding on the wire .I've got OE ren ones in stock .
Also check you get the right plug as there are two types .

Right then, an update. I think I've licked it. Had a good day yesterday..!

A friend of mine runs a garage, so I occasionally can go down on a Saturday and use the facilities if there is nothing going on and one of the lifts is free.



My job list was

New Plugs
New Coil
New TDC
Check and clean all electrical connections.
Get engine bay cooling fans sorted (Sensor and blower were both NFG)

Did it all.

The car had incorrect plugs fitted. They were single electrode and according to the NGK parts book not for this application. There is a special note that A610 application should be triple electrode and the new plugs going in were correct spec. (£20). The ones that came out were all the same in appearance and showed the engine is in good order. So some good news there.

The coil clearly had been on the car a long time, and as they are so cheap (£20) I figured id just swap it out anyway.

I gave all the engine harness and every connection a very thorough inspection and didn't find any real horrors. Some areas of the loom I have rewrapped, and I gave each connector a good clean too.

I pulled my TDC sensor off the car and replaced it with one I eventually found in stock at the EuroCarparts that's less than a mile from my house. (£6 ! ) It was a genuine Siemens part but did not have the heatsheilding, no drama I thought I can just swap out the heatsheilding off my car onto the new sensor. Once I got my sensor off the car, there was no heatsheilding on it all. Fortunately I have plenty 'stuff' in my garage collected over the years working in motorsport. I have managed to make a very nice job indeed of heatshielding the sensor installation and its wiring using really high performance materials more often used for insulating wiring and other components near the exhausts on F1 cars. Really hapy with what I achieved with that, I certainly have the best insulated TDC on any A610 I should think.

I also swapped out the engine bay cooling fan for a good replacement. Mine had about 5mm side movement in the motor shaft, no wonder it was so noisy! With a new 90degree temp switch (£7 ebay) the cooling fans are now working correctly. They come on and go off periodically in traffic, and start about 2 mins after stopping and run for about 10 mins.

So, for about £50 spent, and a hard days work, I think I now have a car that's working properly! I've done about 100 miles over four journeys since I finished the work yesterday PM. Ive also deliberately got my self into situations where I know that previously the car would have been damn near undriveable. And its been good.

I currently don't have the earth strap on the fuel pump relay. I don't appear to need it.

I think its certainly clear then that the 'A610 cutting out' issue has numerous potential root causes. Which explains how its such a difficult thing to nail down.

Hopefully, for now at least, my car is going to be reliable.

Steve Barker will probably be gutted, I reckon this was a very significant part of him selling this car.

I also fitted some new rear tyres and removed and refitted the fronts too rebalancing the wheels and sorting out the slow leak from one of the valve stems. I put Bridgestone S-02's on there, as Jeremy Clarkson once said.. "To anybody who says a tyre tread pattern cannot be sexy.. You've clearly never seen a Bridgestone S-02."

Good news Steve.
Can you make the ace cafe tomorrow?

Great news! I think I've narrowed my issue down to the temperature activated switch. I can't see them on ebay though. What search term brought the part you for you?

Well done Steve. I'm sure you've bettered the standard TDC shielding by a long way. My money is on that or the coil back, but all good, you've done 'em both

Talking of hot weather shielding for a car, I may have to get one for the GTA.

Good news Steve.
Can you make the ace cafe tomorrow?

Sadly not, I'm up at Donington Park all week again with work. Its a shame as Id really like to be there. Annoyingly, running the 3rd Monday of the month rule, I'll be in Donington again on 18th August for the final FE test, and then on 15th September ill be in Beijing after the first race. Motorsport really gets in the way! 20th October might be possible, I'm flying home from KL that day after our second race in Malaysia. Perhaps that will work out!

Great news! I think I've narrowed my issue down to the temperature activated switch. I can't see them on ebay though. What search term brought the part you for you?

Hi Hedley. Search for 'Intermotor 50056' They are listed as Rad switches for Metro/Maestro/Montego. How awesome is that! I paid £7 delivered. Ended up with a Lucas part. Seems to work just fine for me.

Brilliant. A mate a Montego turbo once. I used to mock him but it was probably more reliable than an Alpine!

That Metro/Maestro switch appears to be rated to open at 96 degrees. The a610 manual quotes the blower switch as opening at 90. It may be close enough but worth being aware of if you do experience any more cutting out. I found one under part number 6001011893 which is listed as Volvo but Renault compatible and appears closer to OE.

One question. Are your fans wired to the upper or lower of the two temp switches? Mine is to the upper, but the parts catalogue seems to suggest the upper is for the temp warning light so it may have been miswired at some point?

Yup, its a few degrees hotter than standard spec, but its pretty close.

Fitted to the top location.

I have bent the bracket slightly closer to the turbo heatshield box to compensate.

[BIG_MVS]

Fingers crossed it's sorted.

If you wade through my Red A610 thread there are a couple of posts by turbot21 (I think his name was) who used to own your car Steve. He repaired the engine bay loom which fixed the cutting out issue. Maybe when Steve Barker changed the clutch he disturbed some connections/wiring which your clean up has sorted. Just a thought.

[stephendell]

It's going to be really hard to know if you've finally fixed it.

In my ownership mine has only ever cut out twice when hot in traffic, wouldn't start once for no apparent reason just cranked and then on another occasion decided to randomly misfire when I took Michel Leclere to crystal palace.

It has never done either of those last two things again and can run all the way to Le Mans and back without incident.

It can go two years without cutting out. So will need a bit of road testing to be sure you've got it licked.

Hi
If you search you'll find a thread on this point too. The parts Book is wrong on this and a few other points....!
The upper switch should be the cooler rated and operate the fans, the lower one is hotter rated and operates the dash warning lights.
The parts book contradicts the service manual that has a lengthy description of how it should work so ignore the parts book locations.
The logic is that higher up is a hotter location , so the the cooler temperature switch in the upper (hotter) location will operate first turning on the fans.
Hopefully you never trigger the hotter switch in it's lower (cooler) location as this shouldn't happen if the fans are working.
Swap them around and the warning light can come on before the fans....pretty useless that.

I'm aware of at least two further errors in the parts book, sad I know.

So I've been back under the back of mine and put in a nice little air duct down to the TDC to make sure it can never be too hot again and realised I seem to be missing some factory fit heat shield in that space.. That'll be what's started this off in the first place I guess!

Do other A610's, And GTA Turbo's for that matter, have a heat shield between the RH bank exhaust on its way to the turbot and the leading face/front of the RH cylinder head? I look to have fixings there for a heat shield with nothing attached to them! Photo to follow when I can.. Bed time now though!

I'm starting to like this car now. It's running problems seem sorted, just a few minor electrical gremlins to sort out now. This evening I've retrimmed all the rear deck and engine cover with new carpet as the old was sun damaged, and finally fitted a new gear stick gaiter. Tomorrow is the headlining.. Not looking forward to that job!

Steve,
Yes the turbo gta.
Definetly had metal plates there that screwed to the bulk head.
but yes they should be there, bloody sharp as well cut myself on them on several occasions.

Dave

This is what I have, looking directly down in the most forward right hand corner of the engine cupboard. The loom emerging from the cabin is on the right, and the big blue chavvy hose is the air feed to the turbo.



There is all the heatsheilding against the bodywork, but there are some M6 threaded holes (circled red) that have nothing in them, and I think it could seriously do with some heatshield between the exhaust pipe and engine, vertically along the blue line. I wonder if this is actually a standard part that I just happen to be missing..? Please let me know if other cars have more heatsheilding in this area than I do. I am aware im missing a heatshield above the CAT on the otherside so I wouldn't be surprised if someone in the past missed this one off too.

You can just see my heatsheilding around the TDC, this is now internally fed with cool air taken from the side of the duct up and into the engine cover on the right hand side of the engine bay