Hi all
Was given the above car last year, and intended to smarten it up, fix the MOT notifications from 2016 MOT and give it to my son when he got his license (still waiting for him to apply for his provisional grrr). Anyway, early December, as I'm still trying to overhaul my K11 autotest car, I decided to use this K12 for an autotest. On the run from home to the test site (around 20 miles) I got a red engine light come on that went off after a few minutes (I did check with my reader, something about a misfire) but that went off. When I started to do the tests, I got a sudden drop in power and the engine wouldn't rev in gear, but would pick up when not in gear, and I limped to the finish. It kept doing this during the morning, and at dinnertime, I put some more petrol in, just in case I was getting a false reading (half a tank up to 3/4 after the £10 I put in). Car seemed fine on the road, and went well on the first test of the afternoon, but then the fault came back.
At the end of the day, whilst changing back to road tyres, I noticed a pipe hanging off near the petrol tank near the rear N/S wheel. On looking, this came off an (almost) rectangular shaped box, which I later ascertained to be a carbon cartridge filter (could only find reference to this on 2 eBay ads, one of which I bought). As there isn't a securing clip on this pipe, I believe it's just a breather pipe. The journey home was quite frightening as the engine would falter every few minutes, and at times I quickly turned the ignition off/on which would fix it for a short time, but did not make for a nice trip home.
Last night, I finally had a break in the weather (no garage to work in) to replace the cartridge (which I understand is part of the EVAP system to keep fuel tank pressure balanced. I had to charge the battery for a few hours before I could have a test drive, but once the engine started running (after about half a mile) it started losing power again. I pulled up and (thinking through how the EVAP works) managed to get the engine running better by taking the fuel cap off (seeming to release vacuum from the tank).
The area around the filler cap is rusty and dirty, so will replace that as soon as I can source a replacement, but would it be safe to run the car with the cap undone? Particularly as I have another autotest tomorrow. I'm pretty sure the new carbon cartridge filter is OK, so could the broken part have caused a problem with the EVAP valve on top of the air-filter housing? If so, can I test it in some way? Does the carbon cartridge filter need primed somehow? I've checked with my OBD reader, but there are no new errors showing. Anybody any ideas? Am I missing something obvious?
Was given the above car last year, and intended to smarten it up, fix the MOT notifications from 2016 MOT and give it to my son when he got his license (still waiting for him to apply for his provisional grrr). Anyway, early December, as I'm still trying to overhaul my K11 autotest car, I decided to use this K12 for an autotest. On the run from home to the test site (around 20 miles) I got a red engine light come on that went off after a few minutes (I did check with my reader, something about a misfire) but that went off. When I started to do the tests, I got a sudden drop in power and the engine wouldn't rev in gear, but would pick up when not in gear, and I limped to the finish. It kept doing this during the morning, and at dinnertime, I put some more petrol in, just in case I was getting a false reading (half a tank up to 3/4 after the £10 I put in). Car seemed fine on the road, and went well on the first test of the afternoon, but then the fault came back.
At the end of the day, whilst changing back to road tyres, I noticed a pipe hanging off near the petrol tank near the rear N/S wheel. On looking, this came off an (almost) rectangular shaped box, which I later ascertained to be a carbon cartridge filter (could only find reference to this on 2 eBay ads, one of which I bought). As there isn't a securing clip on this pipe, I believe it's just a breather pipe. The journey home was quite frightening as the engine would falter every few minutes, and at times I quickly turned the ignition off/on which would fix it for a short time, but did not make for a nice trip home.
Last night, I finally had a break in the weather (no garage to work in) to replace the cartridge (which I understand is part of the EVAP system to keep fuel tank pressure balanced. I had to charge the battery for a few hours before I could have a test drive, but once the engine started running (after about half a mile) it started losing power again. I pulled up and (thinking through how the EVAP works) managed to get the engine running better by taking the fuel cap off (seeming to release vacuum from the tank).
The area around the filler cap is rusty and dirty, so will replace that as soon as I can source a replacement, but would it be safe to run the car with the cap undone? Particularly as I have another autotest tomorrow. I'm pretty sure the new carbon cartridge filter is OK, so could the broken part have caused a problem with the EVAP valve on top of the air-filter housing? If so, can I test it in some way? Does the carbon cartridge filter need primed somehow? I've checked with my OBD reader, but there are no new errors showing. Anybody any ideas? Am I missing something obvious?
