Irish Mini Owners Club

My spi has been running really rich. Since I had the radiator off to fix an oil leak now the temperature gauge in the car isn't working and the car is running really rich I checked the plugs and their all back . Also I drove the car to work yesterday and the heater was still blowing cold air after 10min on the motorway so I checked the thermostat and its working fine I checked the temperature sender wires that go into the bottom of rad and theirs a voltage there I also checked the connections into the inlet manifold and their all secure which is where the one that signals the ecu is any ideas I think the temp sender is the problem because this is the only one I touched. I also checked that inlet and exhaust manifolds are secure. All help much appreciated

You may have an air lock in your heater system which is causing the temp gauge not to work and also give you cold air out of the heater.Take off one of the heater pipes,hold it up high,remove the rad cap and pour water down the pipe until it runs out of the rad and then reconnect.This should remove the air lock.

Yip I've had a similar problem too. Sounds like an air lock in the manifold. The resign the engine is running rich is because the automatic choke is not disengaging. It wont disengage because the CPU thinks the engine is still running cold because there is no water running in the manifold where the sensor is. As KMG said just bleeding the system should solve the problem

Sorry for the slight thread hijack..............but could an air lock like that cause loss of power too ?

Well if you are having the same problem then yes. With the cpu thinking the engine is cold and so not disengaging the choke, it will be running too rich. Every time you go to put the foot down the engine will struggle, in essence your flooding the engine every time.

I had a similar problem alright, running rich, idling very fast all the time.......I would accelerate.....no power and the car would stall. Wouldnt start then, as if it was flooded. Worked itself out though in the end.

Right I got the airlock sorted and the heater is working now but everything else has stayed the same temperature gauge not working and the car is running extremely rich is there anyway to test the temperature sensor to see if its working?

Well you could take the sensor out and put a multi-meter on it and test the resistance, then put it into a pan of boiling water and see if the resistance changes. You could also do this with it in the car but I'd imagine it would be hard enough to get the multi-meter on it, but it would save you draining the system. Test it cold and then test it when the engine is good and warm. This is just an idea I've never tried it out myself, maybe some one might have a better idea.