Exhaust Glowing Red

[woody151171]

hi everyone i have the seat alhambra 2ltr petrol on a p plate

today i was stuck in traffic when the engine stopped,i tried starting it again and it wouldnt fire up, because i was on a slight hill(uphill)i put it in gear and cranked the engine to get me out of the flow of traffic,i then went to get some petrol thinking it might be that,but when i put it in it still wouldnt fire up.

i then phoned my mate for a tow and tried bumping it,still wouldnt start i looked under the car and the exhaust was glowing red,so it got left where it was,does anyone have any idea whats up

[seatkid]

If you "flooded" the engine maybe because of an ignition problem or had a bad misfire, unburnt fuel may have found its way into the catalytic convertor. The cat runs at a high temperature normally, but the addition of neat petrol causes the temperatures to rocket. In many cases the cat will destroy itself if this persists for more than a minute or so. You can usually detect a pugent bad egg smell in this situation, which is due to the formation of Hydrogen Sulphide at these temperature (unless the fuel is ultra low sulphur). To test whether your cat is kaput, go along to an MOT test station and ask for a quick emission check to check out the cat. They should charge you

[woody151171]

thanks mate but car wont start ,so dont know what to do, still turns over fine but doesnt start

[seatkid]

OK, from your description it sounds as if you had ignition failure.

 

Because of your prolonged cranking on a hot engine, your cat (and lambda probe) now probably dead - that shouldnt stop you from starting the car - check the ignition out - sparks at leads etc.

[woody151171]

cheers seatkid will do today and let you know

[woody151171]

put on new roter arm and dizzy cap but no spark at leads or king lead,but power at 13+volts on king lead,took exhaust apart and all looks fine,bypassed the 30 relay and still no spark

its got me baffled lol

[woody151171]

can anyone help ,please

[insider]

Ignition coil?

[mobile armchair]

rotor arm/ distributor drive shaft is not working in sync? Don't know what it looks like on this car, but seems like something on the drive has 'jumped' a peg and completely mistimed your ignition. Could be either the distributor drive, or some cam lobe in the mechanism which isn't knocking it round like it should. Worth inspecting this mechanism, (and replacing ignition coil as these develop intermittent faults under load that might not show under test.)

 

good luck

[seatkid]

OK you have 13v on the king lead so the coil is not o/c - so the likely cause is the hall sender in the distributor.

 

When my golf died in the same way, I went to VW and they offered a new exchange distributor for

Edited October 11, 2008 by seatkid

[woody151171]

thankyou i will try as suggested and let you all know

scott

[woody151171]

insider you were spot on,allthoe i was getting 13volts from the coil it wasnt producing a spark on the rotor,

[seatkid]

Glad you got it going.

 

Take it along to an MOT station and check the emissions - to make sure the cat and the lambda werent damaged.

[mobile armchair]

Yeah, glad you got it going, and coil much cheaper than distributor.

 

Still trying to work out why original failure would make your exhaust glow red though, rather than just stop the car. At least you can get it checked out now.

 

My 2-litre petrol Galaxy used to suffer from weak spark, always cured by new plug leads every 12,000 miles, and we never worked out why.

 

Anyway ... problem sorted!

[seatkid]

Still trying to work out why original failure would make your exhaust glow red though, rather than just stop the car. At least you can get it checked out now.

The coil failed when the engine had been running for a while and so the cat was up to normal operating temperature. Woody had to move the car out the flow of traffic so he cranked and cranked the car while in gear so cranking for a considerable while. Meanwhile the fuel injection was still working so neat unburnt fuel got into the catalyst and.......red hot glow (and highly likely damaged cat)