Replacing ignition lead set

I live in Bavaria and work in the UK... coming from SA, the land where laws are openly ignored, to the German State, was an paradigm shift for me... Do you know there is a law covering how much noise your vacuum cleaner may make... wait..there's more... there is an app for your phone to measure this noise. No matter what you do, there is a law covering how to do it, when and when not to do it, where to do it and what you may do/not do. And have no doubt, Germans know these laws..... To make matters challenging, the laws are written in legal German so are extremely difficult to for a non native German speaker to understand. But Bavaria is a small slice of heaven and the Bavarians are great people!, all part of the fun of adapting to another environment

My leads were not such a success. Firstly the leads were the wrong length (cable about 3cm too long, solid part that fits onto the spark plug about 1.5cm too short.) So these were actually the wrong leads.I used my old leads that looked fine. I swopped both ignition coils and went for a test drive. Got about 100m and realised that the vehicle was absolutely unhappy. (It had idled OK) Rough, no power. Returned and replaced 1 ignition coil with one I had removed (same make and serial number). Vehicle ran smooth and tomorrow will take for a long test drive. So all I actually ended up changing was 1 ignition coil.

Maybe there was a bad connection when I installed it the first time? I pressed the leads home hard and the ignition coils seated well so I was pretty sure I had installed everything correctly. .Who knows. As long as it runs well tomorrow and the hesitancy is gone when I start on a cold morning, I will be happy.

Problem Solved:
I had a look at the new set that I had removed and saw that the inside of the leads had a lot of silicon grease in them. So I removed everything from the vehicle and cleaned the inside of the connectors, all of which had small lumps of silicon grease either covering the connector spring or in the brass connector. The spark plugs also had silicon grease on them, which I cleaned off.. So I thoroughly cleaned off this grease, leaving a thin film on the rubber boots, replaced everything and took the vehicle for a good run. Ran like a dream....So the whole key was getting rid of the silicon grease on the connectors.

A successful and very simple excercise.

That is great news Julian.

Hopefully you can send the wrong leads and coils back?

Robin

wrote:

In some German states it's not even legal to wash your car at home on a Sunday.

Some estates in the UK have covenants that prevent car maintenance on the driveway, but these are roundly ignored.

It should be illegal to wash your car any day, that's what rain is for, we have a covenant on our estate about caravans being on the drive, that is ignored too, it also says that we can't open a pub, a hotel or a brothel, not aware that these have been ignored though.

The final chapter has now been written, I hope. A long and very expensive path, but I share what I experienced so that this may help someone else in the future.

The problem:
Misfiring on all 4 cylinders when cold. As soon as the temperature needle raises off the stop, the misfiring ceases and the engine runs smoothly. The misfiring was random between the cylinders and later in the episode, caused the EML to come on.

Initial attempts to solve (summarised in sort of chronological order):
Flushed the engine with STP 3plus times.
Improved general running but not the misfiring
Replaced the ignition leads and coils with good quality examples.
NGK Iridium Spark plugs less than 1 year old
Increase in misfiring
Cleaned the connections to the spark plugs thoroughly.
Reduced misfiring, but still present.
Had the engine flushed with something that cleaned the valves (unknown, if interested I can ask my garage)
Made the engine run extremely well when warm.
Misfiring still present when cold, but reduced in nature.
Researched the Big Jimny postings on this problem, but this time deeply.
Found a post from a long while back where someone had a similar experience and fixed it by fitting genuine Suzuki parts.
I bought genuine Suzuki leads and coils, plus new NGK Iridium spark plugs
EXTREMELY expensive.
Had my garage fit and test on their diagnostic system-
It appears that this has solved the problem.

My Conclusion:
When it comes to electrical components that affect the running of the engine, only fit genuine Suzuki parts if you are trying to solve some form of engine problem.

Comment:
Maybe others have had success fitting internet sourced coils and leads, but unfortunately this was not the case for me. I wish it had been, as this episode has cost me in total 30% of what I paid for the vehicle. I became fixated on fixing it and I expect that had I waited for warmer weather this would have dissapeared for the summer..

If it returns, I will live with it....