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1994 petrol GLS 2.0i hatchback

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 9:59 pm
by Tydfil
Hi everyone :wave I'm new on here and hope some kind person can help. I love my old car. She's done nearly 290,000 miles. I have two problems though.

1. I need to locate a part for my front suspension and my mechanic has drawn a blank as to where to locate it. :scratch It's the housing for the shock absorber or, as he put it, suspension leg. Any suggestions, please?

2. Engine restart problem - the old girl starts fine from cold but, if I try to start her from warm if she's been off for up to 20 minutes, she struggles for almost a minute before the revs settle down and off I go. If I try to drive straight off she coughs and splutters. This causes a problem for my on call firefighter husband if he gets a shout and needs to use my car, because the old girl's having none of it!

Re: 1994 petrol GLS 2.0i hatchback

Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 1:42 am
by Robsey
I presume the suspension leg on your car is bent or heavily corroded.

They rarely pop up for sale from new, however I did manage to pick up one from a dealer clear out last year.

The only recommendation I have is to find a second hand one from ebay or a scrap yard.
If you are being very pedantic, you can get it stripped down, shot blasted and powder coated. It will come up like new.
Then reassemble with new parts.
All components are still available from either the dealers or from ebay.
Failing that, you tend to find that a few forum members may have a spare leg lying around in their garage or shed.

I completely rebuilt the front of my car with "Febi" parts.

As for not liking hot starts - this is quite common on the later 8 valve 2 litre engines (C20NE).

It could be the idle control valve sticking, and dirty earth wire or a vacuum leak.
Possibly even an injector wire breaking down. Are your spark plugs getting sooted up? Could be a coolant temperature sensor giving "cold" signals to the engine ecu, which then enriches the fueling to the car. This can cause spluttering like a choke being stuck on.

Which engine do you have?
C20NE, EcoTec or the RedTop?

In the old days of carburettor cars, hot start issues were always due to the fuel getting warm when stood in a hot engine bay.

First things first - is the car overdue a good service?
A good service and a check-over and clean of the ignition components will help rule out most causes of a spluttery engine.