Fiat Doblo Hard To Start

[Rosamunda Froats]

Im having a long start problem with my car. It doesen't mater if it's a cold star or not, the car starts after a longer cranking time than other cars. Bought the car with the problem existing on purchase.

I've seen that the coolant temperature sensor is showing the temperature but did not check if it changes as engine warms up. I"ll check glow plugs as well but don't see how these might be a problem since the hard starting is persistent even as the engine is warmed up.

I'll get back as soon as I do these checkups

Next, I will check fuel presure. The obd scanner shows be 30000 kpa at idle and a constant of 800, 30 minutes after engine shutdown. I think i have to connect a a pressure gauge the check to be shure..

Coolant temperature is ok. Fuel pressure is 300bar at idle and up to 1100 at full throtle. I don't know the exact specs for thsi fuel pump.

I've heard these engines have a common problem with these hard stats. A tip I got was to check to see if the fuel regulator works properly.

Forget the crd parts for the moment.Have you done any basic mechanical checks, like cylinder compression and valve timing.It is very common for the timing chains to wear on these.Also,have you had the injectors performance tested for flow and spray pattern?

Decided to fit a new clutch in my Doblo van this weekend as I'm driving it to France next week and if I manage to enlarge the size of my plums 40-fold I'm going to hopefully A-frame home a serious lump of shite with it.

Its actually not too bad a job in theory, a lot more straightforward than a Mk4 Astra! No subframes or owt to come out and I am lucky enough to have one of these support beam thingys which are quite helpful on clutch jobs.

i actually got it all to pieces in about an hour and a half which was amazing, at that point it all started to go wrong. So wrong that i gave up on the pics as i was getting too stressed. Heres the sequence of events from this point.

2) spend approx 45 mins lying on my back trying to get the flipping box to engage on the spline and mate up to the engine. i got it as far as getting 2 bellhousing bolts in but it would not go the last inch even with them quite tight so in the end I dropped it back out again.

7) Fit the thrust brg then attempt to fit the box a third time, this time after about 10 mins my arms turned to jelly and I couldn't lift the damn thing anymore, just don't have the strength. Admittedly I'd eaten a only poached egg on toast all day, not a great diet for hardcore mechanicking.

11) attempt to refit the NS driveshaft. It has swung down while the box was out. I got it out in the first place by swinging the hub outwards after disconnecting the strut from the hub. That does not give enough 'outwards movement' to get the shaft back into the box, so i have to now take the hub right off.

12) undo the nut off the lower balljoint. About halfway out it gets mega stiff and the taper pops free with the nut still stuck on the thread. Now i can't get the nut off no matter what I do, couldn't jam the taper again even with jacks under it and all sorts.

16) establish that the only way to get a new outer boot on the shaft, is to remove the inner joint and boot and slide the new outer boot along the shaft. The inner boot is some odd arrangement with an integral bearing (the boot stays still and the shaft spins within it as you drive)

12 months after changing the clutch (that didn't really need doing) on my bora I've still not got a consistently good gear change. In the meantime all of the clutch hydraulics have been changed, as has the gear linkage. Next to be done is the flywheel, I'll be doing that in 2 weeks ... I wish I'd just left it until it went pop.

Ugh. The sort of job the DIY tinkerer dreads. There must be a knack to mating gearboxes and engines, but I certainly don't know what it is. Sometimes they click together like buttered bread and carpet and other times it's just IMPOSSIBLE.

Imagine my surprise when Vauxhall had kindly put an inspection plate on the side of the gearbox which meant that I could undo the clutch bolts through the gap left and remove/replace the clutch without touching the gearbox! Job done in less than an hour.

After changing the box on my Golf, I managed to leave the driveshaft on the floor, didn't notice until I'd wiggled and jiggled it for hours on my own to get it on the splines. No kit for pulling the hub off, so the box had to come back off, tie the shaft to something higher up, box back on.

I spend ages clearing out the garage, and getting the 806 in there. It's almost impossible because the access road is only just wider than the car so turning the car 90 deg to reverse into the garage is a 38 point turn.

Luckily the local Citroen dealers mechanic came out and said that it was just a case of ramming ones arm up from underneath, past the various hoses etc, loosing some blood and pulling the catch. He was right. He was also kind enough to pop the bonnet on another one in the yard so that I could see how it worked.

Broke a gear selector rod (plastic) trying to pop the ball joint off the gearbox selector arm. These things are virtually impossible to see or touch on an 806 because they are on the back of the gearbox which is under the windscreen.

The second time I had to do it I physically ran out of strength trying to line up the input shaft and had to call a mate out to come and help lift. At least I didn't break anything that time and this new clutch is holding up very nicely.

On an 806 you are supposed to drop the subframe but that mechanic I mentioned above is some kind of angel because his tip was to just loosen the front bolts and drop it an inch and then the gearbox will come out, which turned out to be solid gold advice.

Like all modern pugs the long driveshaft is supported half way along by a bearing that runs through the lower engine mount (actually torque reaction link, but anyway). You undo two little nuts that hold two funny bolt that clamp in the bearing, and the whole thing is supposed to slide out.

In the end I had to cut through the dowels that locate the engine mount (link) thing onto the back of the block so that I could slide the drive shaft (what was left of it) out with the bearing and mount still attached and get it pressed out. The way of cutting them was to hold a hack saw blade in my hand so that it cut my hand at the same time as the dowel....

I know this sort of thing - this 'old woman who swallowed a fly' spiralling jobs thing - has happened to me, but I can't remember any particular instance thanks to the human brain's excellent capacity for repressing traumatic memories.

One day, many years from now, I'll break down and have a full on manic episode in a department store at Christmas triggered by the sound of a coin being thrown into a charity bucket or something. Everyone will stare and look awkward while I scream about spending half a day mating a gearbox with engine and then stepping on the forgotten spigot bush (Whoa, first memory unrepressed).

I've only ever had engine-to-gearbox mating success once and that was when the engine and box was out of the car (it took 1 minute). I've spent a day trying to get the box up to the engine with all those locating dowels and bolts.

Oh, and a VW T2 panel van with a Type4 engine, and automatic gearbox (which you're right in thinking was a pretty awful combination to start with). Those vans are, like, 15' long or something? Somehow the engine and box seemed to be linked with a 14' shaft - normally on an aircooled VW, you remove the four bolts between engine and box, take a few wires and hoses off, yank the engine off to the rear, and have a cup of tea.

On this muthafugger, you yank the engine and then keep walking backwards with it. Seriously, we were actually out of the back of the van and it still had this shaft supporting the engine. Because we'd not expected this, we hadn't lined up any support mechanism so now we have a few hundred kilos of Type4 engine bouncing up and down on a once-perfectly-straight shaft.

Needless to say, when it did go back together with a new motor, this gearbox shaft was probably not quite as straight as VW intended and proceeded to smash the living hell out of the gearbox the first time it was driven. Didn't really make the van much slower to be honest.

I've been meaning to drop the gearbox of the 'Hairdresser special' to try and investigate an irritating clutch judder. After reading your post, I decided to leave well alone - 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' and all that.

I don't want to sound like Mr Thicky, but how did you get the clutch off the input shaft whilst the box was in situ? That inspection plate does sound like a good idea though, saving you the arsehole of removing the box just to inspect the friction plate.

'Cos there's a cover on the gearbox endplate, which covers the mainshaft end bearing. When you take the cover off, you can pull the mainshaft out a couple of inches. Something like that - it's been a long time!

Driving a Ram ProMaster City makes you roll like Elvis. Oh, you think I've lost it, do you? You probably know Elvis owned some of his era's finest automobiles including lots full of Cadillacs, Mercedes 600s, Lincoln Continentals, Rolls-Royces, and his favorite Stutz Blackhawk. He also owned a faded old 1948 Chevy Panel Van, still in storage at Graceland. Why? Well, when Elvis wanted to move about incognito, he donned a hat and drove the van. I get it.

After months of reviewing flashy sports cars, luxury sedans, and SUVs, I'm in the Ram ProMaster City -- rolling incognito in a gray one that blends into urban scenery. Ram starts with the Fiat Doblo van that's built in Turkey and earned its worth in global markets with contractors and delivery services. Its cute shape is somewhere between Kia Soul and Ford Econoline, but for Ram duty, designers grafted on a crosshair grille. Steel wheels behind hubcaps fit the part.

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