Cut out, wont start, turning over slow.... help would be great :(

[ashleyt33]

I was driving the 172 tonight, turned the aircon on and a strange smell came through the vents, so I stopped, gave the car a few minutes, now it will not start, it will turn over, but slowly and sounds totally different when trying to start, like a slow electric motor. It also smells like hot plastic / rubber around the alt/aircon/PAS area under the bonnet.

The car has never missed a beat, had cambelt and dephaser done 9k ago, and aux belt and tensioner 1k ago.

I will start stripping bits at the start of next week, just wondering if anybody has had the same issue, or could point me in the right direction.

Many thanks in advance folks.

 

[Chilli]

starter probably shorted on something, or a short somewhere, and in line has knackerd your battery. the battery may be ok, just depends how many time you have tried to turn it over, may just be a bit flat.

alternativly the aux belt has come off? have you checked that? that could have been the burning rubber smell. as its come off and chewed up..... and the battery is flat because the alternator isnt charging it up.

as for it turning over but not firing, could be the TDC sensor or just not enough power in the battery to fire it up.

 

[ashleyt33]

Aux belt is still on, and had jump leads to my pajero on it to, made no difference. Its very strange.

 

[MicKPM]

Does the vehicle sound like it has compression or does it seem to be turing over a little too easily despite the cranking speed being slower? Is the aux belt on properly? Check the entire belt run to make sure nothing has broken as i've seen alternators fail with broken castings and they tend to just fall a few inches; belt tension goes to s**t so cannot 'drive' the accessories and slips the belt however the belt stays in place, appears to be tight-ish by hand and looks okay. Voltage check the battery... does it have 12.5-13v? Check ALL earths are intact under the bonnet and in the passenger wheel arch.

Come back when you've done all this

Mick

 

[ashleyt33]

It sounds like it has compression, but I will test it.

Battery is fine, and swapped for another, no different.

Belt run looks fine, and it seems tight enough.

I will take a proper look at the alt Tuesday when I am off work.

Its strange that it was triggered by turning on the aircon.

When you try and turn it over, it sound like a loud washing machine on a low spin (best way to describe it).

I will take the aux belt off and see how it turns over on Tuesday.

 

[ashleyt33]

Well, I found the problem after further investigation.

The Crank pulley decided to split its self in 2, and the rubber vibration damper that is part of the crank pulley came adrift.

It did not come out the way I would have expected, it went inwards, got picked up by the cam belt and melted its self to the cam belt pulley.

Managed to remove the rubber from the lower cambelt pulley without moving the belt, but the damage is done. 0psi compression on all 4 cylinders.

All from a damn aux belt pulley on the crank. Annoying thing was that the aux belt kit, and cam belt were only done 9k ago.

Oh well, gonna pull the head off tomorrow and go from there.

I have found a cam belt guide on here that looks great, but can I still lock the cams now the timing is totally out? Thats my only gripe at the moment, getting the crank and cams back in time once I have sorted the head.

 

[mr.pink87]

To take the head off, you only need to hold the campulleys with the locking tool on the timing belt side of the engine. When you reassemble everything, you insert the cams with the horseshoe locking tool in place.

 

[ashleyt33]

Cool. Will the locking tool only slot in if the cams are both in the correct place? or could I get it 180 deg out?

 

[mr.pink87]

The slots on the cams are offset. Offset needs to be below the middle axis but that is all explained in the manual.

 

[ashleyt33]

Haynes? Did not realise it covered the F4R?

 

[mr.pink87]

Nah, the proper Renault manual for the F4R is floating around on here.