water/floods and puddle problems stopping v6

[Luke and Debs]

hi all this weekend i went to winchester to see the misses.

as i am sure u have all noticed we have quite a bit of water around so i was watching out for flood water.

did not go through anything like that but went on a b road where there was a puddle on the side of the road. only about 2ft wide but due to oncoming traffic we had to go through it at speed because it was round a bend. water sprayed up and was fired onto the grass verge and under the bongo. as i left this and went road the corner to the junction the bongo stalled (v6 auto on lpg). no power or steering etc. lights flashing. i turned everything off and tried to restart it. it was turning the engine over but would not fire up. tried this for about a minute. went to garage about 500m down the road but they said should not happen and advised bongos are quite well protected. advised they where busy and to call out my breakdown. got back to van after about 10mins and she then fired up fine. went on my trip and no further problems.

when on way back home on the sunday coming through wind and rain tried to avoid big puddles but hard in that weather got to within 30min of home and round a bend hit another puddle and stalled it again. got to layby about 20m on and then managed to fire her up straight away. so not as bad as last time.

notes are both times on lpg and lpg is mainly fitted on the left hand side where the puddles were. also these puddles are in no way flood water and i would think nothing of driving any car through so should not have caused a problem.

have no real idea what has caused this. a mate of mine had a similar ish problem on a astra van when it was water in the distributer cap.

any ideas anybody

cheers luke

[briwy]

Just sounds like the water shorted out the electrics and then the residual heat from the engine dried it out again.
If you ever had a Mini (proper one not a BMW half series) then you would be used to this.

[mikeWalsall]

Carry a can of WD40 (Water Dispersal) fluid and give the dizzy cap / plug leads a spray ..

It's strange though .. close to me (by Junct.10 M6) there is an aqueduct that over flows and floods the road underneath it ..

I purposely go that way to help 'power wash' the salt from under my Bongo ..

[ELZE]

Just sounds like the water shorted out the electrics and then the residual heat from the engine dried it out again.
If you ever had a Mini (proper one not a BMW half series) then you would be used to this.

quite agree, I had a mini cooper (the real one) and carried a plastic food bag with me all the time to wrap the distributor when it rained hard

[Simon Jones]

The seal round the dizzy cap is a potential weak spot although it's quite high up. Also worth checking where the king lead goes into the coil which is a bit lower down.

[francophile1947]

Ah the good old early Minis It didn't even need to be raining - just closely follow a lorry or bus whilst the road was still wet A can of PlastiKote seemed to give some relief

[Simon Jones]

And a rubber glove fitted over the dizzy cap. Happy days of A series engineering .

[francophile1947]

And a rubber glove fitted over the dizzy cap. Happy days of A series engineering .

Indeed, only BMC would have put the distributor directly behind the grill. Still, it only took them a few years to come up with a spray shield

[Luke and Debs]

thanks all for the advise. seen my old man earlier and he thought best to give every thing a spray with wd40

strange how it would be getting up so high.

anyone know if it could be anything on the lpg system

cheers all

[Simon Jones]

It will always start on petrol (even when hot) and then switch over to LPG. If it started fine then died when the gas clicked in then it could be LPG, but in your case it did not even start, so LPG is unlikely to be at fault. One thing the LPG ECU does is switch off the normal injectors when it's on gas, but any decent system should 'fail safe' so it will always fully switch back to petrol when there is a problem.

The crank position sensor is low down at the front of the engine and possibly may not respond well to a good soaking.

[mikeWalsall]

I waxoiled mine .. and the dizzy cap ..!!

[helen&tony]

Hi
The only mini variant I haven't had is a Moke...never had trouble with the dizzy in rain, puddles, OR a flood....Ain't maintenance wonderful!!!...
Cheers
Helen

[francophile1947]

Hi
The only mini variant I haven't had is a Moke...never had trouble with the dizzy in rain, puddles, OR a flood....Ain't maintenance wonderful!!!...
Cheers
Helen

I had a 1961 850cc Mini and it was a real PITA, until I blanked the middle of the front grill off. It was also prone to overheating during wet weather, because mud from the gutter used to spray up and block the radiator, which was sited behind the NSF wheel arch

[mikeonb4c]

Us dieselheads are smiling as we read this thread

[ELZE]

Regardless I still love classic Mini's and would have one tomorrow if I had anywhere left to keep it.