Troubles in France, ej20!

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slowcoach
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Troubles in France, ej20!

Post by slowcoach »

Hi all,
We're a bit stuck, although we've limped to a nice campsite fortunately. Takes on a different importance when travelling with a 4month old! :/

'99 ej20 non turbo Forrester.

The vans been running great for a year it's just sods law eh! So..

Idle started being a bit lumpy, with more engine vibration. It revs fine in neutral and sounds normal. No error codes showing.

Then it started stumbling under load, loss of power with lots of changing down and trying to keep it alive with the clutch. I thought I found a dud plug by unplugging in sequence and not hearing a change, so I swapped the 'bad one', but think this was a red herring since no improvement. In the back of my mind though it felt like a fuel starvation. I sourced a new fuel filter but it's still the same now :/ air filter is fine. Sparks are all 'good' ie the coil pack is firing all four, and engine note changes when I take out a plug lead one at a time. Fuel pump is noisy, but always has a fair buzz, more so right now. I have my old spare in the van, but not swapped it yet as a bit stumped and lots of head scratching(current pump obviously still pumping?)

Rescue recovery coming in the morning, but I'm obviously racking my brain for options. So! Any thoughts anyone, things to test? I have tools and multi meter.
Thanks in advance guys :-)
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1984 TRAKKA Conversion Subaru EJ20 5 Speed

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Aidan
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Re: Troubles in France, ej20!

Post by Aidan »

where's the filter and which one ? have you got a fuel injection fuel tank ?
if it's not a fuel injection tank then there's no mesh filter before the pump, the fuel injected filter is the big metal one that comes after the pump
the mesh filter in the tank protects the pump and the fuel filter protects the injectors
if the pump is generic and noisy I'd suspect that and if the old one is the genuine vw fuel injection one I'd definitely swap and try that

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slowcoach
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Re: Troubles in France, ej20!

Post by slowcoach »

Just thinking also we had two long drives in awful heavy rain which leaked into the roof etc, a real storm. Could it be water in the fuel? I'm on about a quarter to a third tank now. The tanks not the best in the world (has some dents) but don't think it leaks and has never caused problems ...
Or is that just another red herring ;-)
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1984 TRAKKA Conversion Subaru EJ20 5 Speed

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slowcoach
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Re: Troubles in France, ej20!

Post by slowcoach »

Aidan wrote:where's the filter and which one ? have you got a fuel injection fuel tank ?
if it's not a fuel injection tank then there's no mesh filter before the pump, the fuel injected filter is the big metal one that comes after the pump
the mesh filter in the tank protects the pump and the fuel filter protects the injectors
if the pump is generic and noisy I'd suspect that and if the old one is the genuine vw fuel injection one I'd definitely swap and try that

Thanks Aidan, sorry should have specified. Originally the van was a 1.9 DH injection dijijet, from Australia, so had the right tank. Although, it never had the 12mm outlet, just the 8.

THE SUbaru conversion has ran perfect since august.

The filter I'm talking about is the 'coke can ' sized metal one after the pump underneath.

Pump is a good replacement (Bosch?) About 5 years old. I'll put the old pump in and see what happens, unless the recovery guy has some more info. Thanks :-)
Last edited by slowcoach on 08 Jun 2017, 20:12, edited 1 time in total.
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1984 TRAKKA Conversion Subaru EJ20 5 Speed

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marlinowner
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Re: Troubles in France, ej20!

Post by marlinowner »

I had problems caused by water in the fuel after a long wet motorway drive, OK it was a dg, but symptoms were very similar, it would rev fine in neutral but as soon as any load was put on it sputtered and misfired, could just about limp along.
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Re: Troubles in France, ej20!

Post by Da dan »

Sounds to me it's fuel. Could the pump not be pumping under load or carb blocked? Don't think water in tank as you would have found out by now seeing as you still have quite a bit of fuel there. I would put on the new pump and see what happens


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Re: Troubles in France, ej20!

Post by ajsimmo »

I'd stick a bottle of Wynn's Dry Fuel in the tank, just to rule it out. I've had a few vans in with similar symptoms, carb and injection, where water ingress has been the trouble. Usual place of ingress is a split rubber hose at filler neck, or the seal at the top of the filler breather pipe.
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Re: Troubles in France, ej20!

Post by multisi »

Are there any error codes flashing when you plug the error code wires together ? Could be a failed sensor issue, a crank sensor failed on me and gave bad running problems. The ECU will go into Limp mode so you can still drive it but runs poorly.
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Re: Troubles in France, ej20!

Post by slowcoach »

Thanks everybody! So after the worst garage experience of my life and a lot lighter wallet, the garage finally listened to me and drained the tank. Hey presto! It runs nice again. Fuel that came out was really yellow, might have had a bad fill from a service station here? New fuel was transparent.

I wish I hadn't called them after all this, a bit more time with the van myself and I would have drained it myself. Just a bit more complicated with our new family, so thought I'd play it safe and get the 'the pros' who turned out to be total numpties with a busy body bean counting boss lady. 4 hours of labour :-\ plus they almost charged me €135 for ONE spark plug lead, so I said no thanks, nothing wrong with this one . Didn't even know u could buy just one! Ha. Oh dear...
Thanks Andrew for the text reply about fuel types (don't use sans plomb 95-E10). On to a new day and forget about this one!

The French rescue system is basically a tow truck who will not try to fix you on the road (we weren't on a motorway), just get you to a garage. Can't fault rac though, good communication.

EDITED for clearer info :-)
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Re: Troubles in France, ej20!

Post by Domino »

Subarus can be very fussy about what fuel is used ,,, don't ever put BP fuel in as it will also have a bad effect on how it drives ,,, they also run a lot better on 97 or 99 Ron fuel

glad your sorted :ok

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Re: Troubles in France, ej20!

Post by dandaz »

france can be expensive ,my one wiper for a landy was 50 euro...

I hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday.. :ok

btw where are you?
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Re: Troubles in France, ej20!

Post by Dazco »

Glad to hear it's all sorted :ok
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Re: Troubles in France, ej20!

Post by Dollytony »

Domino wrote:Subarus can be very fussy about what fuel is used ,,, don't ever put BP fuel in as it will also have a bad effect on how it drives ,,, they also run a lot better on 97 or 99 Ron fuel

glad your sorted :ok

I always put standard unleaded from BP in mine never had a problem, what should I be looking out for?
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Re: Troubles in France, ej20!

Post by Domino »

Dollytony wrote:
Domino wrote:Subarus can be very fussy about what fuel is used ,,, don't ever put BP fuel in as it will also have a bad effect on how it drives ,,, they also run a lot better on 97 or 99 Ron fuel

glad your sorted :ok

I always put standard unleaded from BP in mine never had a problem, what should I be looking out for?

it doesn't show as much in the none turbos but the fuel is still crap and my ECU mapper won't map a car with it in the tank due to how it effects things,,, if someone new to the subarus asks on one of the forums about a misfire the first question is what fuel is used as we all know BP causes running problems in them ,,, they tend to make them hesitate and not drive as smooth ,,, engines taken from uk cars will run better (map is for 95 Ron) but BP still to be avoided in my opinion ,, put it this way ,I don't tend to let my cars ever run low but iv driven my £30k scoob past a BP with my red light on and risked running out just to avoid putting it into the tank :D :D

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Re: Troubles in France, ej20!

Post by slowcoach »

Hi fellas, thanks for all the input. It looks like we're not entirely problem free.. :-\ today I had the beginnings of the hesitation again at high revs (how it started, progressing to all revs).

I stopped and changed the fuel pump to the old one mentioned above, turns out it's dead as a dodo! Anyway, during that I had the filter tipped up and emptied it all out. Put it all back together and she runs great again for the 20k to the next campsite, ran up to 5k revs many times to test it, and where we are now.

Could it be just remaining gunk or water in the tank, collected by the new filter? If so, think I can keep emptying it out when it goes bad? Not having a bootfull of filters, I wonder what's best way to clean them on the road, or is emptying ok? Worked today.. trying to stay off the motorways.

We're now just north of Caen, having aborted (temporarily) going further south just yet.
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