New 400i owner! Need good mechanic in Chicago area!

No suggestions about a mechanic but just curious how much work you're willing to do.

 

Welcome to OUR world!
You have got a LOT of work ahead of you!!
If a spare charged battery or 'jump box' does not start your car, it is not the alternator.
Oil leaks, if not bad get used to them. Coolant leak that needs to get fixed.
Electrical issues: have a look at the fuse / relay panel and see if everything looks in its normal place and look for burned contacts on the white connector plugs.
Just a couple of things you might be able to do on your own.
Ken

 

A word of caution: no booster on our cars! You can jump start with another battery, but a booster will kill the ignition module.

If the car does not start, it could well be a leaky pressure regulator or a faulty pressure accumulator (one of each per banks of 6 cylinders). I would try to start the car with the k-jet sensor safety switch disconnected in order to be sure the pumps are sending fuel.

 

John at Autosprint is highly recommended. Autosprint is on Addison in Chicago. For body work none better than Skip McCabe at McCabe Auto Restorations in Mundelein.

 

Welcome Mike! Please post some pics!

Ruben

 

Yikes, that’s both scary and good to know! Not sure if this is a dumb question, but why is it that a booster would kill the ignition system, but not a battery jump?

Thanks,

Ruben

 

Booster are pulsing a high current boost that fries the electronics components. That's why MSD does recommend the use of a big cap: it dampens the surge.

Modern electronics are more capable Tu survive these surges.

 

Hi Mike,

Congrats on your purchase and your issues are all too familiar! I am in the western suburbs of Chicago with a silver 80 400GTi and have had work done by John at Autosprint as well as Todd at Continental. John had a 400 as his personal car and knows all the gremlins well. The only challenge is getting an appointment as they are often very busy. It may be good to start with a fresh battery to ensure your have the power to turn the engine properly. With CIS they can flood easily. I had hard starting problems both cold and hot and turned out I needed new warm up regulators. I also had the distributor rebuilt, cap cleaned and MSD wires upgraded then reset both banks. It runs perfect with the proper spark and fuel system pressure. In many cases it is a convergence of a few different issues. Depending on your desire for originality, there are stainless aftermarket exhaust options that are half the cost of the originals however they don’t always fit easily. Most are silver but black center sections look much better.

 

Good day Ruben,

Empirical and anecdotal evidence would suggest that it is unwise to boost or jump start cars that have the Marelli ignition modules, as in many cases the modules simply do not survive. That being said I have not seen or heard of anyone doing any level of forensic analysis on the failed module and so any explanations as to why or how this can occur is conjecture. My feeling is that the Marelli module had limited electrical protection circuitry designed in. Even now, some 40+ years later a lot of commercial and industrial equipment cut corners with regards to these type of circuit protections.

My advice would be to not boost or jump start marelli ignition modules unless absolutely necessary. It would be far safer to bring along a spare (charged) battery and use it instead.

Cheers,

Sam

 

Good day Raemin,

This has and is not my experience with the electronic components themselves. The reason is because of new and modern electronics employ process geometries that are far smaller than those used in the past. As a result the insulating layers are magnitudes thinner and so the devices are far more susceptible to all sorts of electrical transient events....even static electricity can be a killer to these devices. With that said there are far more electrical protection devices now available simply because of the frailty of the newer electronic components. Unfortunately a lot of equipment do not include these protection devices and so devices tend to fail more often these days resulting in... more sales... hmmm... I wonder if this is by design ?

Cheers,

Sam

 

I wonder if Todd at Continental is the same guy who worked at Joe Marchetti's International Auto in downtown Chicago in the early 80s?? He worked on my 1980 400i for several years. Of course we were all a lot younger then!

 

Pocket boosters were not as widespread as they are today, which is probably why our cars were not protected against such surge currents.

On a similar note, the car is not designed so as to fully protect modern devices that you may plug in the cigarette lighter: the relays do not have resistor or reverse voltage protection, the side mirrors do use a two big solenoïds that do send a massive amount of back emf. I almost killed my audio while playing with the Vitalonis!

 

Back to the subject :

I would check first that the ignition module still works. If it works I would disconnect the green plug on the K-jet distributor, as this will manually override the fuel pumps and pressurize the injectors regardless of the pressure control valves and accumulators.

If the above fails, there is probably an issue with the K-Jet and (probably the warm-up regulator/WUR). There is a good step by step procedure made for the 928 that is easy to implement on our cars: https://928classics.com/bosch-kjetronic-cis-fuel/

 

Could be. His full name is Todd Lauti and he is the master mechanic who does the Classiche work at Continental. Great guy and just has a feel for the analog cars.

 

That's him! Thx. I will give him a call and rehash old times. Incidentally, I still have my 400 and it still puts a smile on my face vey time I fire it up.