NB: TURNS OFF WHILE DRIVING!

[luzinit]

Hi all,

Didn't want to start a new thread for this one. I had this happen to me whilst driving home on the m2 today. Power cut out and luckily there were no cars around me and I managed to pull into a shoulder lane.

This was the third EGI relay to fail on me and luckily I had a spare.

I noticed that the relay was quite hot, is this normal?

It sounds like I have electrical gremlins in the car after going through a few relays now I, what should I be checking for?

I've also noticed that my battery tends to run flat if the car is not started during the week. Somehow I think this is all related but I'm not an auto electrician so not sure where to start.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Tony

[speed]

Take it to an auto electrician. People can tell you to take off this and that and you can spend time doing the trial and error method but what for? You know it's an electrical issue, you know it prevents the car from running, so why not pay an expert to fix it and guarantee their work?


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[Magpie]

Speed

Unless you have experience reading electrical schematics and comfortable using a multimeter to fault find then I concur with using an auto electrician. However fault finding is not cheap if the error cannot be duplicated/repeated.

The ONLY reason the relay will get that hot is if you have a bad connection in the part(contacts) that control the EGI. If the EGI is drawing excessive current it will blow the EGI fuse, if the relay is hot and the fuse does not fail it is resistance at the relay connector.

Have a look here http://mx5cartalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=622189#p622189

[luzinit]

I hear you but if I can troubleshoot and learn something new then why not? It's part of the enjoyment of owning a car for me - to be able to tinker and learn from it. Ultimately if I get stuck then yes, an auto electrician is where I'll take it.

[Magpie]

I'll never begrudge somebody for wanting to troubleshoot and find intermittent faults. I enjoy it myself but find it very frustrating and you need to be very methodical about it. Like my recent lights issue, I tried new globes, relays etc and sometimes it worked sometimes it didn't untill I found the couple of doddgy connections. Then after fixing these the lights kept flickering. Turns out HID's will flicker when the battery power is too low.

Good luck with the fault finding and keep the forum informed of what you find, no matter how silly it appears

[93_Clubman]

Caffeine's early NB8B has also gone through a few EGI relays, but don't think he's been able to tie it down to anything.

[luzinit]

Thanks for the replies speed/Magpie.

I'll do some troubleshooting with a multimeter and will report my findings back here. To provide some context/background, I studied computer systems engineering and have done a few electrical engineering subjects, so reading schematics and using a multimeter should be ok. Having said that though, that's about all I can do in the electrical field!!

Was more so hoping it was a common/known fault with these things, but sounds like I have to get my hands dirty.

Will post anything I find back here to help the next person out.

Cheers,
Tony

[manga_blue]

I took most of the load off the OEM relay by installing a pair of 30A relays to the 12V side of the coilpacks. They draw power through 50A wires direct from the alternator white wire post and only use the original output from the OEM relay to trigger them. It means that the OEM relay now stays cool and it's lasted for years. I had blown a couple of them previously and they showed signs of overheating in their coils and had serious pitting on their points.

[speed]

Thanks for the replies speed/Magpie.
Will post anything I find back here to help the next person out.

Cheers,
Tony

You're welcome, apologies if I came across as harsh.

Sounds like Manga is onto something with a tried and tested solution.
I still wonder if there is not something else that is causing the issue though.

I guess you will have a better idea once you've had a play with your multimeter.

Good luck!

[zero00]

Electrical gremlins can be so damn annoying!

Back a few years ago, I think it was 1990, I had an R30 auto Skyline - coming home from Albury to Wagga Wagga one night, maybe 2am or so, sitting on around 100-110 coming past The Rock on the Olympic Way the car suddenly lost all power, no lights - nothing! I just pulled to the side of the road and thought 'how the hell!! What now?'

Amidst the turmoil I had not turned the ignition off, but then everything was DEAD!! I was just about to get out of the car when it simply restarted! With not hesitation I hooked the belt back in, dropped it into 'overdose' and continued home some 33km, parked and went to bed

I mate I had rallied with for many many years was, and still is, an Auto Electrician - he went completely over the car and found nothing wrong - ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!! I drove that car for many years, finally unloading it in 1998 with almost 500,000km and in that time it never occurred again!!

The common agreeance was that all power was sapped out by a UFO - nothing else was logical!!

[luzinit]

OK so after replacing the stock fuel pump which was starting to become quite noisy and getting a new EGI relay, car has been working fine for 2 weeks. Thought it was all OK until I broke down in the middle of pacific hwy Chatswood.

Checked all fuses and they seem to be ok. Egi relay looked burnt out though.Tried hard wiring the relay to get it going but won't start. Waiting for nrma now right now - anyone have any other suggestions to get her going? If not she's going to be towed to mania! Damn I hate this car right now!!!!

[luzinit]

Got the car going, blew a fuse and EGI relay, whilst troubleshooting I found some really dodgy alarm installation wiring that will need to be sorted out. I'm talking exposed wiring and wires soldered directly to relay pins. Will report back when I find out more.

[gobsmax]

How goes the car? Any updates since?

[luzinit]

Learnt a few things but haven't solved it 100%. What I do know is that eBay aftermarket EGI relays are rubbish. They have a much lower heat/current threshold than OEM relays. My issues with the car were exacerbated by two of these eBay relays.

Checked the visible grounding points in the engine bay (I think there are 3 or 4) and gave a few a clean at the contact points.

This didn't seem to help as the EGI relay was still overheating really badly. That being said, my second hand OEM EGI relay still lasted about 2months which is a lot longer than the eBay ones.

I've been putting off troubleshooting further as the car was still working OK, however 2 nights ago it failed again due to the relay. With the EGI relay cover off, I could see that the issue is that the coils aren't generating a strong enough magnetic field to close the switch/arm on the relay. Read up on it and shorting the coils inside the relay can do this.

This weekend I will need to check my ignition circuit for any shorts and have bought some extension leads to use with my multimeter, one of the annoying things about having a battery in the boot and ground points on the other end of the car.

Will report back with any findings. If anyone has any suggestions/tips, please feel free to chime in.

[luzinit]

Also for anyone else interested. I PMed caffeine and his issues with his relay was due to a dodgy light bulb connector (I believe he had bulbs constantly blowing in addition to the relay woes). After he fixed this, his issues haven't reappeared.