On Friday the speedo on my 1.4 Puma stopped working on my way home.
I was worried that the key had lost its link with the immobiliser but diagnostics showed a code for a problem with the speed sensor so on Sunday I had a good look at this but I found it very difficult to get at both the sensor attached to the gearbox and the connector under the coil pack so I left it.
On Monday the car started as normal but died almost immediately. When I tried to restart the starter motor did not operate and some of the dashboard lights went out but then returned. Reading up about the problem seemed to point to a break in the wiring to the starter motor and I had been moving all the wiring about trying to get to the speed sensor.
I checked all the fuses but could see no problem so I took out the battery and battery box to give me more room to get my hand in among the wiring. I managed to disconnect the wires from the VSS and found that the insulation on all three had totally disintegrated so I pulled back the outer casing and insulated the wires so that they did not touch. With fingers crossed I tried to start the car but there was no change.
After a further couple of hours trying to check all the wiring I decided to have another look at the fuses under the bonnet and found that the 15 amp fuse for the ECU had blown but in such a way that unusually the break was not easy to see. I replaced this fuse and everything was OK again and the patch on the VSS wiring even meant that the speedo worked again. I mention all this in case it may help someone else in the future
I was worried that the key had lost its link with the immobiliser but diagnostics showed a code for a problem with the speed sensor so on Sunday I had a good look at this but I found it very difficult to get at both the sensor attached to the gearbox and the connector under the coil pack so I left it.
On Monday the car started as normal but died almost immediately. When I tried to restart the starter motor did not operate and some of the dashboard lights went out but then returned. Reading up about the problem seemed to point to a break in the wiring to the starter motor and I had been moving all the wiring about trying to get to the speed sensor.
I checked all the fuses but could see no problem so I took out the battery and battery box to give me more room to get my hand in among the wiring. I managed to disconnect the wires from the VSS and found that the insulation on all three had totally disintegrated so I pulled back the outer casing and insulated the wires so that they did not touch. With fingers crossed I tried to start the car but there was no change.
After a further couple of hours trying to check all the wiring I decided to have another look at the fuses under the bonnet and found that the 15 amp fuse for the ECU had blown but in such a way that unusually the break was not easy to see. I replaced this fuse and everything was OK again and the patch on the VSS wiring even meant that the speedo worked again. I mention all this in case it may help someone else in the future
