Hi, thats bad luck, I think its the first time I've heard of the flap inside coming off, do you know if you have the ally or plastic manifold

 

Ouch that does not sound good.
Let's hope it's not bashed to much. Least it's still running albeit low on compression.

Hopefully you'll get away with some light machining off the combustion head.

 

This is the first time I have seen one of this late CF4 engines (plastic intake manifold) fail like this, on the early CF4 engines the plastic swirl flaps often break off and go in to the engine but because they are plastic they don't tend to do any damage. These are just like the BMW diesels, metal flaps, we don't know the extent of the damage yet but the compression test does not look good

Cylinder 1 = 170 PSI
Cylinder 2 = 75 PSI
Cylinder 3 = 200 PSI
Cylinder 4 = 125 PSI

Head is coming off today so I will update later, couple of pictures attached

Ned

 

Ouch!

Gotta wonder where the brains behind this sort of thing are at. As we all suspect, long engine life is not no.1 manufacturers' priority these days. Flappy, vulnerable bits in the inlet tract are always going to be a ticking time bomb.

On a side note - am I correct in saying that CF3 1.9 JTD 16v engines are not fitted with these flaps? I've taken a peer at the top of my inlet manifold and not spotted the connecting bar between the flaps and the actuator arm, but then again I may be looking in the wrong place....

 

There is clearly damage to the head on cylinder 2

There is also a problem with cylinder 4 as it was down on compression, we have filled the bores with brake cleaner to test the piston rings are holding and cylinder 2 has dropped a bit but cylinder 4 has dropped almost completely

I don't think the problem on cylinder 4 is related to the swirl flap as that one is complete and undamaged

Sump off and pistons out

Ned

 

All for the sake of trying to get better economy at partial throttle / Load.
You'd think just designing a slightly bendier intake tract would be better. But I guess creating tooling for that is far more expensive than the swirl flaps being placed into a design.

Some of the random problems disels get because of the ancillairy devices are just scary.
Which is why I'll stick to the trusty NA petrol. If Alfa made an electric car i'd swap out. Shame it would never have that rasp though...

 

This is not what you want your pistons to look like, this is cylinder number 2, there is not obvious damage to cylinder 4 other than the rings are quite stuck in the ring mains

Ned

 

i would be checking turbo for damage as well:wow:

 

Interesting thread. Commiserations to the OP but thanks for allowing Ned to share your misery.

 

this thread is making me feel sick... ive spent 3k fixing my 156 mjet in the last two years... and swirl flaps is something ive yet to meet... is there any way doing some maintenance to prevent this ?

 

Your one won't have the swirl flaps unless it is a really late 2005 156 Sport, the early CF4 (147, GT and Sport 156) cars have an aluminium inlet manifold with plastic swirl flaps, the late CF4 (2007-on GT, 147 & 159) has Plastic intake with metal swirl flaps, these metal swirl flaps are only held on by 2 tiny little welds

Ned

 

I suppose you could if you wanted to stop this would be to disable the error sensors on those flaps and just remove them from the inlet.
But then you'd probably need to weld the holes up as well.

Or find an inlet that doesn't have them...

As Ned has said its quite rare.

 

There is a kit available for the BMW diesels that deletes the swirl flaps, I don't see any reason why you can't just remove the flaps from the spindles

We are going to see more of these

Ned

 

**** design really and it comes down to cost.
Easier to add flaps to an original design to chase after MPG figures to sell cars.

Could easily design a tract that swils it for you more effectively. But then that would require R&D.

Bit Like the EGR, and recirculation from the rocker to air intake on petrols. Easier to route it to a seperate filter or Catch tank and keep the clean cold air going to the engine.

Instead we get lovely gunked up throttle bodies.
Well not mine as I've filtered it else where.

 

ok mines a 54 plate mjet 16v... so the cars affected are the 150 bhp mjets

 

Probably easier to spot the silver coloured flat bar connecting the 4 flap pivots together. Should be clearly visible between the head and the inlet manifold plenum, just below and in front of the fuel rail.

On newer cars with the plastic/metal inlet it will be harder to spot because the linkage between the pivots is underneath, in which case you would be looking for the pivot point castings on the top only.

I used to think my car had the flaps because I was looking for the actuator unit itself and I mistook some other ancillary for it. As it turns out the actuator on the early all metal inlet manifold models is mounted underneath the manifold with a rod that then comes up and links to the bar using a ball joint.

I'm now fairly certain my car doesn't have the flaps but I'll pop the cover off and take some pics to confirm it. It would be a handy reference to have pics of the three types of 16V manifold.

 

ok that's great, I'll take a look tomorrow:thumbs:

 

Hi,

Had the car back 2 weeks now and all is good.

The morning i collected it the technician fully broke the drivers handle off; the front hinge was already broken but Ned said not to worry they would put a new one on FOC as they already knew it was broken!.

Although the final bill caused a bit of a lump in the throat, i now know with the work carried out all is good for a lot more miles to come.

It went in a week ago Friday after running-in for it's oil & filter change and also to sort a diesel leak at the pump. We then left on Saturday to cover 837 fault free miles in two days following the RAC rally.

Thanks to Ned, James and the guy's for sorting it and providing great service.

 

Thanks to Ned, James and the guy's for sorting it and providing great service.

Here to help:thumbs:

Ned

 

Hi all I am having same problem waiting to find out how bad it is Ned you were right you will see more of this

 

Hi
Mine is a march 06 registered gt 1.9jtd will this have swirl flaps ? and if so what type ?
Thanks

 

Hi
Mine is a march 06 registered gt 1.9jtd will this have swirl flaps ? and if so what type ?
Thanks

 

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My cars just been in over xmas swirl flaps knacked new inlet manifold and switch, £580 removed from my wallet my car is an 06 JTDM and it has only done 58 thousand miles mostly motorway.It has had a remap and EGR delete which some people say increases soot into the inlet.I fitted a blanking plate to lower part of the EGR but not the upper wish I had now, maybe it would have prevented thebuild up an saved me some cash my engine is CF4

 

if the swirl flaps were to be removed, does anyone know if the actuator could be mapped out?

 

Of course , but mine is connected with no link on it - does not cause any aggro at all

 

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I agree that would do the job , sadly the pivot bearings in mine had become quite worn - so I went down this route ....

 

saintetienne ....looks like you have secured flap number 3 (which has the flap mechanism underneath). Did you disable the motor? I assume this would bring up an EML

 

I see the extra bit under number 3....

and the motor that this attaches too.

Did you just reach under and disconnect it? you had the battery out I assume

 

From what I recall (it was a few years ago now) I just popped the link off the number 3 flap. I don't think i needed battery removed to access.