Yesterday I was out in my car ; on exiting a roundabout , I kicked down into 2nd gear and after initial acceleration , there was a 'whoosh' noise of escaping air and I lost all power , coasted onto the grass verge .
On lifting the bonnet I immediately saw that the air inlet pipe , which came from the air filter , via the MAF chamber , had come out of the throttle body , so I put it back , hoping the car would start - but it didn't .
Not wishing to sit too long at the side of a busy dual carriageway ( the A78 ) , I tried phoning my pal to see if he could give me a tow , no answer . It then occurred to me I previously had Green Flag cover via my bank account ; not sure if I still did , I phoned them and enquired ; they replied that I still had the cover and did I require assistance ; so a call was put in around 11:30 and they texted me to say an agent would be with me at 12:49 ; not unreasonable I thought .
I went back to looking at the car and found one small vacuum pipe off at the back of the engine bay , put it back , and also the vacuum pipe connecting the plenium chamber to the fuel pressure regulator was doing nothing because the little rubber sleeve was disintegrating ( but that hadn't just happened ) I trimmed the sleeve back with my swiss army knife and reconnected ; engine still turned over with alacrity , but no ignition .
With limited tools at the roadside , not much more I could do ; I did confirm , once the car had cooled down a bit that there was no oil contamination in the coolant , and that the oil on the dipstick looked OK ; nor were there any pools of fluid dripping from the car ; the engine , having covered 215,000 miles is slightly 'wet' externally , but there were no untoward oil leaks .
I did note that there was more oil than I'd like to see inside the pipe leading into the throttle body , no doubt drawn in via the breather pipe from the cambox , and having disconnected the other end to make it easier to reinsert the pipe into the throttle body end , I noted that the MAF chamber was quite dirty and sooty . Conclusions - both the MAF and throttle body need cleaned out , and the pipe too .
Still not sure what might cause the pipe to have been blown out of the throttle body though ; having done some reading up this morning I see the M111 can be prone to timing chain issues , and I suppose if it jumped a cog , that could allow back pressure ? Still the engine turns over with no alarming noises , and the chain was NOT noisy before yesterday , so not sure it is a mechanical issue ? Not sure if the M111 is an interference or non interference engine ? If I don't find anything else wrong , I will remove the cam cover and check the various timing markings .
Before going out and just poking about , I did a bit of reading today and realise that the wiring loom can be an issue on these engines , also that oil can travel up the cable harness and contaminate the ECU ... I have yet to look at the harness as I just left the car where it is today - the recovery truck couldn't get up my street , so it is on the main road at the end of my street , 200 yds from my house , so near enough to pop back and forth to tinker with it .
I know that M111 engines are plentiful and cheap as chips , so won't be spending a lot repairing this one ; in fact speaking last night to my pal , he reckons he has one in a scrap CLK that is OK and which I can have ; but if I was going to do an engine swap , I might be inclined to look for a rusty SLK and get the supercharged M111 from that , which would hopefully give close to the power of my six cylinder W124s but with the economy of the 4 cylinder car when being driven sensibly ... Just a thought and I'm hoping it will be something simple . Not sure if it would be a straightforward swap with an SLK M111 or if there would be wiring or ECU changes needed , although no doubt everything would be in a donor car .
I will take a look at the car tomorrow ; I left it today as I know it is often wise to take stock of things and do a little research before rushing in ; but I will start with cleaning the MAF and the throttle body ; plus I will inspect some of the ends of the wiring loom and also pull the spark plugs and check their condition - all basic things so far .
Oh , a police patrol stopped just about noon and asked if I was OK , and I replied I was waiting for Green Flag and told them the eta ; they said they'd give me a tow to the layby about half a mile on as it would be safer to wait there ; and just as I was getting my tow strap out , the recovery truck arrived ; the driver said that as soon as the call came in and he saw where I was , he came to get me first as the other call he had was in a town and not in any danger ; the guy was really good and dropped me near home by 1pm . He would have had a look at my car , but we both agreed it was too dangerous to sit there any longer than needed , and the cops were keen to see us go as well . All in all top marks to both Green Flag and Police Scotland .
On lifting the bonnet I immediately saw that the air inlet pipe , which came from the air filter , via the MAF chamber , had come out of the throttle body , so I put it back , hoping the car would start - but it didn't .
Not wishing to sit too long at the side of a busy dual carriageway ( the A78 ) , I tried phoning my pal to see if he could give me a tow , no answer . It then occurred to me I previously had Green Flag cover via my bank account ; not sure if I still did , I phoned them and enquired ; they replied that I still had the cover and did I require assistance ; so a call was put in around 11:30 and they texted me to say an agent would be with me at 12:49 ; not unreasonable I thought .
I went back to looking at the car and found one small vacuum pipe off at the back of the engine bay , put it back , and also the vacuum pipe connecting the plenium chamber to the fuel pressure regulator was doing nothing because the little rubber sleeve was disintegrating ( but that hadn't just happened ) I trimmed the sleeve back with my swiss army knife and reconnected ; engine still turned over with alacrity , but no ignition .
With limited tools at the roadside , not much more I could do ; I did confirm , once the car had cooled down a bit that there was no oil contamination in the coolant , and that the oil on the dipstick looked OK ; nor were there any pools of fluid dripping from the car ; the engine , having covered 215,000 miles is slightly 'wet' externally , but there were no untoward oil leaks .
I did note that there was more oil than I'd like to see inside the pipe leading into the throttle body , no doubt drawn in via the breather pipe from the cambox , and having disconnected the other end to make it easier to reinsert the pipe into the throttle body end , I noted that the MAF chamber was quite dirty and sooty . Conclusions - both the MAF and throttle body need cleaned out , and the pipe too .
Still not sure what might cause the pipe to have been blown out of the throttle body though ; having done some reading up this morning I see the M111 can be prone to timing chain issues , and I suppose if it jumped a cog , that could allow back pressure ? Still the engine turns over with no alarming noises , and the chain was NOT noisy before yesterday , so not sure it is a mechanical issue ? Not sure if the M111 is an interference or non interference engine ? If I don't find anything else wrong , I will remove the cam cover and check the various timing markings .
Before going out and just poking about , I did a bit of reading today and realise that the wiring loom can be an issue on these engines , also that oil can travel up the cable harness and contaminate the ECU ... I have yet to look at the harness as I just left the car where it is today - the recovery truck couldn't get up my street , so it is on the main road at the end of my street , 200 yds from my house , so near enough to pop back and forth to tinker with it .
I know that M111 engines are plentiful and cheap as chips , so won't be spending a lot repairing this one ; in fact speaking last night to my pal , he reckons he has one in a scrap CLK that is OK and which I can have ; but if I was going to do an engine swap , I might be inclined to look for a rusty SLK and get the supercharged M111 from that , which would hopefully give close to the power of my six cylinder W124s but with the economy of the 4 cylinder car when being driven sensibly ... Just a thought and I'm hoping it will be something simple . Not sure if it would be a straightforward swap with an SLK M111 or if there would be wiring or ECU changes needed , although no doubt everything would be in a donor car .
I will take a look at the car tomorrow ; I left it today as I know it is often wise to take stock of things and do a little research before rushing in ; but I will start with cleaning the MAF and the throttle body ; plus I will inspect some of the ends of the wiring loom and also pull the spark plugs and check their condition - all basic things so far .
Oh , a police patrol stopped just about noon and asked if I was OK , and I replied I was waiting for Green Flag and told them the eta ; they said they'd give me a tow to the layby about half a mile on as it would be safer to wait there ; and just as I was getting my tow strap out , the recovery truck arrived ; the driver said that as soon as the call came in and he saw where I was , he came to get me first as the other call he had was in a town and not in any danger ; the guy was really good and dropped me near home by 1pm . He would have had a look at my car , but we both agreed it was too dangerous to sit there any longer than needed , and the cops were keen to see us go as well . All in all top marks to both Green Flag and Police Scotland .
Last edited:
