Smoke from engine... Help!!

[rubes72]

Dear Guys! I know this post is in the wrong area but really need help !! Last night was on my way back to Kemaman when suddenly I felt my car has more power. I continued driving till I reached my apartment, and as I was about to pull into my parking lot, my car began to shudder and jerk. Turned the engine off, opened the bonet and smelt something burning. I disconnected the batteries and went to sleep ( which was quite hard to do at that point). Today, connected batteries turned on the ignition without starting the engine and there was this weird sound coming from the injectors sounded like tic..tic..tic..tic. Opened up the Fuel Rail Covers and to my surprise, the cables that connects to the injectors are burnt beyond recognition. Best part is part where the burnt area was is right next to the fuel line and fuel regulator ( imagine). Anyway, I have removed the part and am now looking if there is any spares. Worst case scenario, is to replace the cables myself and fix it later when I get back to KL. So ...I would be grateful should anybody be able to assist me with the following:1. Does anybody know a trust worthy mechanic in the east coast.2. Has anybody had this problem before?3. What could have caused this problem. Oops sorry my Ride is an E36 328i. Cheers

 

[Zoggee]

oolala..!!!

It happened to me at Sepang...engine judders, backbox spurtting out white smoke.Loss of power....

finally found the cuilprit...the 19mm nut of the Vanos kit went missing. replaced that and everything back to normal.

hope that urs won't be serious.if it is. then standby the moolah to fix it.

keep us posted okay??

 

[teejay]

rubes,

were the cables burnt or melted?

if burnt then a short circuit from the internal circuit would have melted thus burnt this - check for short circuits in the area

if melted, then heat from surrounding parts, i.e. starter, alternator, etc may have melted it- theory

from your explanation , when you said your car had more power, i believe that was then when there was a short circuit, causing the injectors to probably open up ,resulting in more petrol and power increase

were there any servicing/mods done recently to the engine bay?
sometimes this short may not appear in the engine bay side, but from the base of the harness itself, do check the wirings from the ecu onwards and see if there are any shorts- loose circuits, hanging wires etc

another long shot - heat from adjacent parts may have heated up the wires,not necessarily near, causing the shorting, and the shorting went all the way to the injectors end, excessive current melted and burnt wires there, question now is where is the shorting.....and where is the heated part

do check if there were any parts changed recently to your car, or did you go through bad roads etc,etc, would help narrow down the cause

you'll definitely have to replace whole harness from ecu to injectors, i only have a spare m52 ignition coil cable set, but you probably won't need to change it

 

[rubes72]

Thanks Guys!! well the cables are burnt alright. the guy that is fixing the problem said that just changing the harness won't help, so he is doing a whole diagnostic of the circuit. Strange that you mentioned, but I did see this cuci kereta fellar spary water right into the area where the EMS (ECU/DME) is located, I do not know if this would have caused the problem, and then there was also the part where I replaced my tint on my screen which caused the screen to Jamm and then it shut down the circuit to the power windows. These are the only 2 abnomality that I can think off.

My greatest fear is should the ECU itself that caused the problem. Then I'm in Shit.

Looking on the positive side, Zogee, did your cables burn? If it did then i need to look for my vanos missing nut, but I doubt my luck is that good ( depends how you look at it).

Oh yes another thing... do you think that voltage stabilizers could cause these problems? I read somewhere in the forum that a e36 caught fire and was caused by a similar device ( Just my brain on over rev).

Cheers

 

[rubes72]

Guys !
Updates on my Car. Just got my car back!!! yahoo. Working fine cost RM380.
Have you ever got the message on your OBC "1 Break light fail" well, the wiring harness at the boot was damaged, this is caused by frequent opening and closing of the boot ( where i work we are subjected to daily security checks). this has been going on for sometime. This shorted the Main Relay which then shorted one of the the cables, which then shorted the rest of the cables.
Also anither symtom would be your stereo loosing power and suddenly becomes loud. i have high power amps in my car and usually play it at high volumes. Another problem, this is just the wire mans 2 cents, is that the after market voltage regulator. when there is a short, the car looses electrical power, the Voltage regulator will try to maintain the power hence drawing more power from the battery to be supplied to the rest of the car. This causes higher voltage and the cables can't take the load and melts. I think it makes sense. So now my Voltage regulator is comming off.

I would suggest that you check the wiring harness at the boot just to be sure.

Cheers

 

[masCh]

If I had that happen to me, I'd be very glad it was "only" RM380. It sounds scary, especially when we're in unfamiliar parts of the peninsula (away from home).

I just dont understand why frequent opening and closing of the boot will short the wiring harness at the boot.

The wireman's 2 cents makes sense, except that the voltage regulator would maintain the voltage and it wont cause high voltage on the cable. During a short, the culprit would be the amperes, and amperes can melt cables by H (heat) = I (amps) x I (amps) x R (resistance, in this case, almost 0 ohms) x t (time). Isnt there a fuse in the wiring harness, I dont know? If there was, it should blow. If it didnt, change the fuse now.

 

[rubes72]

that's exactly the problem, He ran a few diagnostics, but could not find why that happened. the only thing is that the main relay was burnt. However I did check on the net ,it seems that have been occurance of the harness at the boot being damaged ( maybe rats). Nevertheless I've not heard of the Injector Harness being burnt. Maybe mine is from a special batch. So far no re-occurance so touch wood.