Flashing Glow Plug Light/ Random Engine Cut Out

[Reluctant Ford owner]

Hi I need help!

My 10 yr old 1.8 TDCi randomly misfires and sometimes cuts out completely. Often it will go into some kind of limp mode with the glow plug light flashing. It's intermittant and the rest of the time the engine runs fine. Any ideas what might be causing this? My other half refuses to drive the car until I can sort it out.

Thanks,

RFO

[artscot79]

the flashing light can indicate an issue with the charging system the truth is diagnostics will have to be done really it can be glow plugs faulty wiring injector faults etc

[Reluctant Ford owner]

I replaced the glow plugs only a few months back. I was wondering if the glow plugs were not turning off?

[Stoney871]

Were the glowplugs original parts?

Ford's seem to dislike aftermarket bits.

[artscot79]

I had issues with old cars that were diesel where the glow plug relay was caput causing issues it caused the car to cut out as it was draining the battery but since youre able to start it i doubt it would be that the glowplug light can indicate many issues does the dash trick show any codes it could even be the diesel pump or a clogged diesel filter

[Reluctant Ford owner]

The car had an intermittent misfire ever since I first got it, but no glow plug light flashing. Only one of the plugs in it was ok. The glow plugs I replaced them with were Bosch and have been in for a while now. I changed the fuel and air filters some time ago and I replaced it again at the weekend. With the air filter there was a little square sponge that came with the filter, but there didn't seem to be anywhere obvious as to where it should go and there was nothing in the Haynes manual about it. In the filter box on the car, there was a similar bit of sponge, but it was just left floating free inside the airbox. Any idea what the sponge is for? Could this be the problem?

I've got a Scangage 2 OBD thing, which I've used on other cars to read and clear fault codes, but it doesn't seem to want to connect to the Focus ECU. I probably need to change its settings.

The annoying thing is the car is fine most of the time, then suddenly it will decide to play up. Yesterday I drove 300 miles and it only did it once. Most often when it's misfiring, it will do it soon after driving off from a start and reving the unloaded engine hard seems to make it behave. Then sometimes out of the blue when accelerating it will go into some kind of limp mode and the glow plug light flashes. Once the engine is switched off then on again everything is fine.

[Stoney871]

The small bit of sponge goes into a recess in the bottom corner of the air box.

It's an oil catcher for the crankcase breather hose.

[Reluctant Ford owner]

_{Problem has got a lot worse and now the car is difficult to start. Depending on how long the car has been standing it can take up to 60 secs for the engine to fire. This is bad when you are going along the motorway and the engine cuts out and it takes 20 secs to get the thing started again. I thought it might be the excess fuel bleed off pipes from the injectors. On another car I had, the rubber would perish letting air in, making the car difficult to start and run badly. I spoke to a garage and they said the injectors tend to go bad regularly on Fords and I should recon the injectors. I looked on eBay, it's about £100 per injector. It's not worth doing the whole set as the car is probably worth not much more than that. Seems like Ford did not standardise their OBD system for diesels until after 2004, so that's why my Scangauge 2 won't read it, and probably most other things won't either.}

_{Any more thoughts? At this rate I'm going to burn out the starter.}

[gwengo]

Mate, I had Exactly the same thing happen to me. I had trouble with staring my engine for ages, then, one day I was driving down the duel carriageway and when I got to the end the car cut out on me when I got to the island and the Glow plug light came on. I couldn't re-start the damn thing. My wife had to tow me home. Anyway, I changed the glow plugs and the problem was still there. Finally, I admitted defeat and call the AA (didn't realise I had AA cover included with my Lloyds bank account ), best decision i've ever made :D after trying a few things, he tested the cam sensor (the one on top of the engine cam shaft housing) with a sensor that he had in his van. Low and behold the engine fired up straight away. I could have kissed the bloke!!!!!!! (I didn't though ) It's a relatively cheap fix as well, £30 for a new sensor.

So I would try this before you do anything else and spend anymore money. It's funny how garages always think it's the injectors when things like this happen <_< .

[Reluctant Ford owner]

This morning I replaced the cam sensor, was £15 and easy to do. But it hasn't helped much. I had no stalling driving around town, but as soon as I got on the motorway and got some speed up, it began flashing the glow plug light, then cutting out the engine. Also the restarting was not quick. I also bought some injector bleed off hose and I've just replaced that on the car. Hopefully that will solve the problem, I'll find out on the way home tonight.

[gwengo]

Damn, really sorry to hear it's not fixed it. I was adamant it would. in this kind of situation I always try the cheapest fixes first before I take it to any garage. Do you have AA membership? I would get them to come to your house and have a look. I didn't realise this, but I had AA membership included in my bank account perks with Lloyds.

[Reluctant Ford owner]

I think the new cam sensor and bleed off pipes have helped a bit, but it is still hard to start/restart and cuts out the engine on a frequent basis.

So this morning I got 4 yogurt pots and some hose, stuck them on the injector bleed off ports and ran the engine to look at bleed off rates for the different injectors. I was going to be scientific and run it on idle for a couple of mins and then alternate high revs/idle a few times then measure the amount, but after less than a minute at idle, one of the pots was almost full! Numbering left to right when facing the car, No.1 was the best, just a small amount in the pot. No. 2 was bad, a half filled pot, No. 3 was about a quarter full and No. 4 was almost a full pot.

So it looks like the garage's suggestion was right, it is the injectors bleeding off too much fuel so the high pressure cannot be maintained in the common rail.

Anyone know where I can get some cheap injectors and if I need to get the new injectors registered with the ECU?