-6 this morning did not make the e36 happy. M42 engine. Started on three (maybe two cylinders). No power - obviously. A whiff of funky electrical smell, but no codes. I'm thinking coil. What's the word from the hive?
-6 this morning did not make the e36 happy. M42 engine. Started on three (maybe two cylinders). No power - obviously. A whiff of funky electrical smell, but no codes. I'm thinking coil. What's the word from the hive?
Wow...
Wouldn't coil throw a code for sure? Or did you not keep the poor thing running on 2/3 cylinders long enough to make it cycle through its checks?
Funky electrical smell inside the cabin or underhood? I'm guessing the former since you probably had no reason to have the hood up 'til you finished trying to start the car and go on your merry way...
I don't know E36s well, but are there any relays or fuses in the cabin? IIRC, the main relay/fuse box is right where it was on E30s, on the fenderwell under the hood...
You're probably on the right track. The only way I can pursue my in-cabin theory is if there's a bad connection at the ignition AND enough other wiring weirdness to get it to limp along on that bad connection (like the ignition switch is making partial/intermittent contact and causing the relays downstream to "flicker"), and we all know how much sense it makes to chase the complicated answer first...
-6 was it also sitting in the wind with a minus 35 windchill factor.....i would feel lucky if it even tried to start. did it clean itself out after running for a while or did you just shut it off. a 25 year old car in -6 weather will be a little reluctant to start.....you know if your were 25 in car years you would be about 200 and i am just in my fifties and i hate to move around when it gets in the thirties anymore
I ran it for 5-10 minutes - no change in condition. Had noticed on other cold days it stumbled a little when first catching, then stabilized. This time, no stabilizing. I think the smell is under hood - with an open fresh air flap feeding the smell into the cabin. Tucked it in the garage. I may fire up a torpedo heater - warm things up and see if it changes anything - then start poking and testing.
-6 F on a carwith Bosch EFI from the 90's is about as cold as its likely to ever start without a block heater. The Germans seemed to think all you needed was evermore fuel as it got colder, so they tend to foul plugs on cold start.
Well, there's your problem... coil #3 actually melted out some of the plastic
And to add insult to injury, a wire connector snapped moving the coil off it's mount.
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