Engine Pinks

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petrolhd306
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Joined: 11 Jul 2001, 20:40
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Engine Pinks

Post by petrolhd306 »

My 306 XR recently developed engine pink. Never had this before until recently.
The engine pinks under light to moderate loads but there is no significant loss in power. In most cases the pink is very light but the knock becomes serious when the engine is worked excessively like climbing a hill.
I have tried different brands of UL patrol both 95 and 98 RON but problem still persists. Already tried changing spark plugs but there is no improvement.
Need help desperately. Thanks.

petrolhd306
Dave Burns
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Post by Dave Burns »

Weak mixture and too far advanced ignition timing are the most comon causes of pinking but there can be other's like carbon deposits causing hot spots leading to pre-ignition and hence pinking, check timing and injection, if they are ok a de-coke may be required.
Dave
petrolhd306
Posts: 7
Joined: 11 Jul 2001, 20:40
Location: Singapore
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Post by petrolhd306 »

Dave,
Thanks for the response.
I have a bottle of Redex which I purchased a long time ago. During the days when carburator cars were the norm. I am thinking of adding my old Redex into the petrol to clean up the carbon deposits before I take a different approach.
Since the old Redex is formulated for leaded petrol, it may make the situation worse and it may also damage the cat as the Redex may contain lead.
I am just speculating that the Redex may contain lead here. For all you know, the good old redex is perfectly alright for mordern day cars with "cats".
Any comments would be very much appreciated.
Thanks
petrolhd306
Dave Burns
Posts: 1915
Joined: 14 May 2001, 05:30
Location: United Kingdom
My Cars:
x 2

Post by Dave Burns »

My first car way back when was a ford anglia, I thought I would do it a favour and give it a course of redex treatment, unfortunately it did'nt take kindly to it and decided to sieze up, that was my first and last experience with redex, I've tried the injector cleaners and the slik 50's and what have you but I've learned that real cures and fixes dont come in a bottle, no doubt thousands will swear by these different potions, my feelings though are that thousands are wasting their money.
Good luck
Dave
petrolhd306
Posts: 7
Joined: 11 Jul 2001, 20:40
Location: Singapore
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Post by petrolhd306 »

Dave,
Thanks for the immediate response.
Cheers,
Petrolhd306
petrolhd306
jonah
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Post by jonah »

As Dave says, weak mixture or advanced timing are the likely causes, but these are probably controlled by the ECU and not adjustable. If the ECU is allowing the engine to pink then one of its sensors might be dead, such as the lambda sensor or knock sensor (i.e. the thing that detects pinking and causes the ECU to retard the timing!)...
If these were all working then I'd expect carbon build-up to be pretty slow so the pinking probably wouldn't start suddenly.
Another possibility is a partially-blocked injector, giving a lean mixture in one cylinder - that should be obvious from the colour of the spark plugs.
Jonah
petrolhd306
Posts: 7
Joined: 11 Jul 2001, 20:40
Location: Singapore
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Post by petrolhd306 »

Gents,
Thanks for the help.
After many days of head scratching, I finally found what I suspect is causing the problem.
Further inspection revealed that the timing belt tensioner has seized which has caused the valve timing to go off by at least one cog. I was lucky that the belt did not snap as I noticed there were a lot of rubber shavings from the belt.
I am trying to reset the cam timing but have problems locating the timimng marks on the flywheel as outlined in my Haynes manual. All I could find is a small window that permits viewing of the backside of the Flywheel and I could see a dowel like mark on the flywheel when the camshaft timimg mark is more or less aligned. I have no way of locking the flywheel in a fixed and exact position so that the camshaft alignment could be set.
Any inputs would be much appreciated.
Thanks
petrolhd306
Dave Burns
Posts: 1915
Joined: 14 May 2001, 05:30
Location: United Kingdom
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x 2

Post by Dave Burns »

Yep you were lucky there, could have been major damage if it broke. Petrol Xantias have a hole drilled in the crankshaft pulley and block for timing purposes, I would be surprised if this was'nt also the case with Peugeot's since they mostly use the same engines.
Good Luck
Dave
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