Seem to have no spark.

[pieter]

Hello everyone,

 

My girlfriends fathers 2001 v8 4.0 s-type is refusing to start.  Last time it ran was December 2014 due to it needing inner/outer sill's. So over the winter he wouldn't go out and turn the car over (Huff because it wasn't getting welded like yesterday) 

 

So in March this year I finally had a bit of free time to get the Jag into the garage to begin the welding so the day before I charged the battery and next day fitted the battery and she failed to start. It makes all the right noises you hear the fuel pump and she turns over fine just doesn't attempt to start.

 

So checked the inertia switch as never had any warning lights o the dash, slapped it onto the fault reader and no codes where reported.  So did the battery terminal reset and nothing.  SO decided to pull the coil packs and plugs and well every plug was covered in Oil

 

 

Coil packs weren't much better, so got a new set of plugs and cleaned up everything and tried again but still doesn't seem to  have any spark. I'm not great at electrics, I do have a multimeter if anyone can advise on what I should be checking.

[Old Peter]

Hi Pieter and welcome to the club,

 

You have done the things I would have suggested, so I would guess the problem needs some electrical expertise.

 

Hopefully some expertise will soon be forthcoming.

 

Regards,

 

Peter. 

[KEN33Y]

Hi Peter and welcome to THE JAGUAR OWNERS CLUB. As Peter has expressed you have carried out the normal checks to such issues however, a multimeter will not assist you here. You could pull a plug out to establish a spark by playing it's lead back on, hold it with an insulated pliers just short of the block and get someone to turn the Carr over whilst you watch for the spark. If no spark then I would suggest a local auto technician.

[jag2]

hi Pieter welcome mate, s-type 4ltr scarce car. think Kenny has given you good advice

[mindofitsown]

Can't help much but that spark plug is shocking. It does look as if water (not just oil) has been about. In which case damp may have infiltrated the coil packs making them useless. Is every plug affected with no spark?

[pieter]

Thank you everyone for the welcome and sorry for the late reply.  Sorry i did forget to mention I did try bridging the plug and nothing. 

 

@ Mindofitsown

 

2 where fine, the other six where like that. I did think about getting a cheap coil pack from the auction site just to see if that at-least gives a spark.  The spark plugs aren't the only shocking thing about it here's a few pics of the  one of the sills:

 

The other side is just as bad.  I will order a coil pack and see if that gives a spark but failing that he'll just need to get a auto sparky.  thank you all again for your help and advice :)

[jag2]

aye that's what to do mate, if your father in law wats to keep it but the sills are an mot fail best thing to do is to dump it sorry to say but its a money pit. atb charlie

[Old Peter]

Hi Pieter,

 

I would follow the route of a replacement coil pack. As far as the sills are concerned they can be replaced.  I did that on an A40 in 1968   ---  I had the sills made to size and pop riveted them on myself.   _-----  I did work in a steelworks then.

 

Whatever you do, don't scrap the car.  The car will be worth more money if repaired as there are only a few on the road and you will recoup any expenditure.

 

Regards,

 

Peter.

[O.T.H]

Hi Pieter

I had 2 new sills fitted on my X Type costing just under £500 but well worth it I love the car and if something

really goes wrong I would have another ==But like Peter said you have a great car there and its well worth doing

 

 

Frank

[pieter]

Thank you again everyone :).  Once I finally manage to get it running somehow, I'll get it in the garage and get it all welded up been welding for the best part of 25 years started of training to be a blacksmith at 15 and somehow got into welding car's over the years so done a lot of sill replacements, think the first step will be to throw the cover sills.

[mindofitsown]

Gosh! Those sills are even more shocking! Interesting how different peoples' backgrounds impact on their fears/confidence. Those sills would frighten me to death but clearly don't scare you with your experience. The whole forum now knows who to contact for welding issues ...haha!

I was trying to establish if ALL plugs gave no spark. If that is the case then although the coil packs are suspect, it may indicate a primary problem with the ECU not providing pulses to the coil packs. This might be for a variety of reasons but quite often is caused by a sensor input (needed by the computer to issue pulses) not being present. A classic is the crankshaft position sensor for instance which can be quite cheap but cause mayhem. Let us know how you get on with a coil pack check first. Regards. 

[pieter]

Don't get me wrong I still look at those sills and say oh FFS!  My life would be made easier if he gets the panels but no doubt I’ll just be using sheet metal.   I'm hoping it's down to the coil packs and not the ECM but it the coil pack doesn't work I'll try the crankshaft position sensor (thank you)  and if that doesn’t do anything I'll give up and he'll just need to get someone in to have a look at it, the strange part is he knows an  auto sparky but for some reason isn’t wanting to ask him.

[pieter]

Sorry for the lack of updates. The car was finally looked at and its giving off a few error codes

 

P0102 mass airflow  low

P0304 CYL4 Misfire

P0305 CYL5 Misfire

 

C2500 cam/crank ?!

[pieter]

Got another guy to come up with his computer to recheck,the car is now firing a whole new bunch of codes.

 

P1233 Fuel system disabled

P1641 (rear module) Fuel pump circuit

B2172 ?

B1681 passive anti-theft sys transceiver mod sig not received)

U2195 scp (J1850) invalid or missing data for scc

U2625 cp comm bus fail