The Astra (X reg) died on us in traffic a week back. It’s looking like ECU failure. The Fuel pump relay turns off 15-20 minutes into a drive and won’t come back until the car has been sat for half an hour or so.

Using my OPCOM diagnostic unit and the TIS2000 DVD I got from eBay, I traced it all back and it looks to be pin 23 on the engine controller that should switch to earth, enabling the relay, has a problem. Not sure if it’s temperature or what, but it’s a pain.

If you short out the relay (I used tweezers), it runs perfectly. If you short pin 23 to earth, the relay works. Heyho.

ECU has been packed off to BlueStreak Europe for testing and repair (hopefully), with the keys and the immobiliser. They should be calling me tomorrow, and I’m expecting the ECU back in a few days..this company don’t hang about!

In the meantime we needed a vehicle as Jem is imminent to drop sprog. Automatics are hard to find..and I found a cheap MK3 1.4 3 door Astra a few miles away. “perfect” I thought.

Hmm. Yes. It’s done 76k. It’s MPi. The engine is simple. The car is simple. It’s covered in dents, has rust in them and has been neglected badly. It starts and runs…but as soon as you try to pull away at speed, you have lots of noise and no go at all. It really is alarming.

The Autobox has been refilled – it was near empty. It all seems OK in itself..it’s an AF13, like both the other Astras were. The engine is a C14SE, and runs nicely at idle. Yet working together it struggles to get to 40, and if you hit even a gentle hill, it drops off the speedo and roars while barely moving.

I popped the airbox open to check the airfilter. 3 things occurred. There was NO airfilter, the pipe from the box to the throttle body was split hugely, and the airbox fell off. Had to laugh.

I patched that up, we gained about 7mph. I cleaned the throttle body, we gained about 3mph.

Tonight I used the paperclip trick to read out the fault codes from the ECUs on the car. I can’t use my OPCOM, as this Astra has a 10 pin ALDL connector and is quite simply not advanced enough to plug into.

I got a “MAP sensor voltage high” from the engine, and 2 codes from the gearbox…one Selector signal issue, and one kickdown switch error.

I took the battery off to clear them, then I couldn’t restart the car! The battery earth terminal was mostly green and fluffy. I wire-brushed it, bits came off. After some gentle cleaning and praying, it works again now. But it does need chopping off and remaking.

All in all, the car is pretty damned solid. Underneath is near perfect. The exhaust has suffered a bit, but someone, sometime loved this car. Then someone else got hold of it and filled it full of dents, it got a smack in the face that resulted in a broken headlamp mount and an indicator held in with filler, and it got a “mutant” bootlid sticker.

Then it ended up in a dodgy backstreet dealership where it went through an MOT that HAD to be a bit iffy, and came to me much the worse for wear.

If I could sort out the “no go” problem, it’d be a decent little motor. I can fix all the issues with the other bits. If I could find the last owner, I’d beat them silly. Some people have no idea how to look after automatics.

Pics are here: Link

Tiredness apart, I’m still fighting the car. I have a tyre with a slow puncture, and I’m SO glad I bought the diagnostic and reference kit, as I’ve had to use it to clear a few faults. The thermostat is working perfectly, the timing belt is good, the new water pump is also running in nicely. I’ve found out my 2000 X plate car is in fact an April 2001 car (ECU date), I know a hell of a lot about its data flows and sensor interactions, and that EGR valve fault has been sorted I think. I had to put the valve in a vice and use a pair of stilsons on it, then a hammer, a blowtorch, some carb cleaner, some WD40 and some threats, plus a 12v benchpack, but I seem to have revived it. I’ve blanked it on the engine with a plate, and just bolted it off to the side with the plug in.the engine seems happy enough. We’ll see tomorrow.

What else do I need to do..fix this tyre, get a front one replaced or swapped for the spare, new bulb in the boot light, touch in a few scratches, get some new wipers, get the wheelnuts airgunned off and retightened by hand (I HATE it when they’re that tight they don’t come off in an emergency), and for preference strip and grease up the wiper linkage, as it looks quite dry and judders a bit. All minor things.

One oddity is that on paper this Astra-G is a heavier car than the Astra-F..yet on the F I had a 2 week tank..same tank on the G, now a 3 week tank!

I’ve reprogrammed the dash panel as well to turn off the 20000 mile servicing..damn silly. I’ve set it to every 12 months.

Car apart, the cats are fine if a little odd at the moment..Jems still hurling every day..it’s all fairly normal here..heh.