Re: Focus Inlet air leak?

Jason 2 wrote:
"Chris Bartram" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:s%Hqi.5808$By5.3751@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi Chaps

I've just had a look at a neighbour's 1998/9 Focus 1.6. It's running badly- the idle is a bit shaky and it's down on power. I did try to get some fault codes out of it with VAG-COM in ODB-II mode, but it complains and says the car isn't ODB-II compliant. Is this to be expected?

Anyway, a bit of hands-on investigation gave the sound of an air leak around the passenger end of the engine- in the vicinity of the pressure regulator. You can hear it with the engine running, and it's very clear when you turn it off- there's a hiss for a few seconds. The way the car idles and drives supports the air leak idea too.

We've wiggled hoses to no avail, and even tried the old 'spray it with wd-40' trick (no plus-gas to hand!) to see if anything changes. Nothing.

Is there a common thing to look for? I did wonder about the manifold itslef- it's plastic- but that looks a bit fiddly to get off to just look at. The inlet trunking *looks* ok too, but we didn't remove it.

Thanks

Chris

Leave it well alone if you don't know much about cars - or your neighbour will be blaming you next. Anything that goes wrong will be as a result of what you did in his mind.

That's a very suspicious mind you have ;-). Really, my neighbour isn't
that kind of guy. He'll be grateful of any help I can offer.

I do know enough about cars to get by. Not very much about the Focus, or
any ford really though. VAG floats my boat. A few years ago I did pretty much everything myself- these days I don't have the time or the inclination to fetch cars to bits too much.

Tell him to take it to the Ford garage and get it fixed.

Not really a good option on a 3/4 kanckered, accident damaged (at the
back), 9 year old Focus worth three fifths of *** all. If he could
afford dealer daignostics, or indeed, independent garage diagnostics, trust me, we wouldn't be looking at it. The pubs are open.

If you can't fault find and diagnose

But I have. It has an air leak on the inlet side. I was hoping for a
pointer as to any common troubles to look at, as I'm not familiar with
Focii. It may have other problems too, but the air leak needs fixing.

then I would doubt your ability to fix it for him.

I'm not going to. He'll fix it *if* we can be sure what's leaking. If we can't find the leak, or we do find it and it's still running badly, he'll have to take it to a garage. Anyway, how have you reached that conclusion?

You will end up ordering the wrong parts and be stuck with them or break it and end up paying for the repair yourself.

We're not intending to order anything yet, if at all. After all, it could just be a split pipe that we can't see.

God knows what you told your neighbour, but having someone that doesn't have a clue and just sprays WD40 over the engine is a liability.

In what way? I didn't spray it over the engine- just over the suspected
leak area. More conventionally plus gas was used for this. If you hit
the leak, the engine note changes slightly as it gets sucked in and burnt instead of fuel. I wasn't doing what so many people do- blindly spray WD over the engine in the face of any running problem- though perhaps my original post was misleading if you've never heard of that method if detecting an inlet air leak. It's a reasonable diagnostic step, given that I had neither the time, energy, or inclination to blindly start fetching the damn thing to pieces without knowing where the leak was.

Don't be putting WD40 near anything rubber or near seals, pumps, aircon parts or starter motors and alternators. READ what it says on the can. It strips varnish and causes rubber to perish in no time.

OK. I've *never* read the can, in over 20 years of working on cars. So, following your advice, I did. It says nothing about plastic or rubber. So I went and looked at the website.

[quote]

WD-40 can be used on just about everything. It is safe for metal,
rubber, wood and plastic. WD-40 can be applied to painted metal surfaces
without harming the paint. Polycarbonate and clear polystyrene plastic
are among the few surfaces on which to avoid using a petroleum-based
product like WD-40.

[end quote]

I'd be pretty amazed if there's a load of seals on the inlet manifold area that get wrecked by a petroleum based product. don't you think the manifold would have dissolved from the (petroleum based) fuel by now?

It would be interesting to see the plastic inlet manifold!
Tell your neighbour to come to this group and I can ask him some direct questions, then tell him what info to give the Ford garage to get it fixed properly.


If you do have some valuable knowledge I'd be very glad to hear it. The neighbour doesn't have 'net access. What do you need to know?

Here's the facts so far:

The car has been running badly. It falters under accelleration, and the idle is a little rough. The plugs & air filter have been changed, with a slight improvement. I have a look, try the diagnostic software, with no success. Looking under the bonnet, there's the sound of an air leak, that I cannot see the location of. Is there a common failure point on 1.6 Focus cars that merits closer investigation, so I can *try* to save this guy some cash, and he can run his clapped out Focus for a bit longer? The car isn't worth much more than a few hours of professional diagnosis- someone drove a 4x4 into the back of it and drove off, so it's now a case of try and keep it running for a year or so.
.

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