FTO AUSTRALIA

Firstly thanks for all the info so far, I’ve been soaking up stuff from this site for well over two weeks now.

Anyhow I’ve bought an FTO (non mivec), it's the first time I've ever owned a Mitsi hand gernade. I bought it to teach my two sons to learn to drive in.
The wifes been re-assured it's only a 2 Litre V6, it'll be fine to teach the kids to drive in,

Basicly I'm a tight prick and I didn’t want to buy a cheap arse over priced Civic with a squillion k's on the clock or something like that, besides the price was right for the FTO too.

I’ve already done a heap of work to it with stuff I learnt directly off this site such as front sway bar bushes to start with.
Cut to the chase, it’s got an overheating issue, a weird one this one is.

Thinking it's your standard coolant system neglect / blockage
- Thoroughly flushed and checked flow in the radiator
- Thoroughly flushed and checked flow in the heater core.
- Top and bottom radiator hoses checked.
- Reservoir tank cleaned, flushed and checked for flow.
- Thermostat replaced. (it's true the jigger direction does matter)
- Hoses from thermostat housing into throttle body and back cleaned, flushed and checked for flow.

No coolant leaks and no coolant loss. (marked the reservoir and it moves up and down as you would expect when driving and randomly stopping to check, eventually it returns to the mark once cooled down for a few hours)
No water in oil and no oil in water, no bubbling in water.

I now think it’s an electrical fault.
- Temperature control sensor replaced. (lge one, new from mitsi over charge dealers)
- Radiator fan relays swapped with others (three times)
- Fuse / relay box terminations, under side of this were all checked for good positive terminations.
- Electro cleaned all terminations.

The problem.
Car gets warm and sits just under half way on temp gauge okay, sits here for ages barely moving a mm but eventually it starts to get hot, on the gauge it nearly goes into the “H” (I’m not game to let it get all the way) Anyhow when I pull over and check I’ve noted the radiator fans were not running, so I hit the air con on and both fans start up okay, temp gauge cools down.

So this is where I’ve got up to in diagnosing the fault (all of the above rant, call it a nOOb novel).

It appears or so I reckon so far to be an electrical / control issue.
See randomly the radiator fans just stops working, it heats up, as before, pull over and turn the air con on and wait till it’s cooled down enough.
For sh*ts and giggles I decided to turn the air con off one day only to find the fans keep going , I'd expect this as it’s still hot but they wern't running in the first place.

I’m not too sure where to head on this one, it's if the control side of the radiator fans are the issue but I can’t seem to nail it yet.

I haven’t metered the temperature control sensor yet to make sure it’s gone low (it’s hot I know that)
What else would be in circuit to tell the ECU to turn the bloody fans on?
How could I check to see if the ECU is doing it's thing?

Wood for the trees..... so I've posted up what I've done so far. Any ideas, thoughts suggestions?

I take it you have checked fuses?

If it was a fuse, would the fans run when the air con is turned on?

They run different fuses.

Have you checked both of the temperature sensors? One is for the ECU, which is the one that switches the fans on IIRC and the other is for the dash gauge.

Cheers for the help fellas, appreciated this end shareing ideas and thoughts heaps.

Re fuses...
To be honest I only ever checked the one. Both fans run when ever the Air con is turned on, anytime all the time.
The problem I appear to have is it randomly decides not to turn the fans on.
Most of the time they both turn on together, i.e. idleing in the drive, driving etc, when ever it gets hot I stop open bonnet and note no fans running...

The Electrical diagram I've got


So in a fault state (i.e. engine very hot) no radiator fans running. Turn air con on, both fans start up.

The wireing diagram (above) shows ECU out 21 and it relies on input signals from
- A/C switch
- Crank Angle sensor
- Engine coolant temperature sensor (replaced that already)
- Idle switch
- Throttle position sensor
- Vehicle speed sensor

I'm thinking I should monitor the output of pin 21 on Plug B32 output from the ECU to see if there is an output.
In a fault state I assume there will be nothing till I turn the air con switch on.


Re the temp sensors...
The large one (towards the rear #1) is the ECU temp sensor, I worked that out and replaced it.
The smaller one (closer to the front of the car #2) is for the temp gauge. (not touched that other than to prove by un-plugging it that it works)
- un-plugged: temp gauge goes to cold
- plugged in: temp gauge works as per.

Are you getting any error codes? Do a search to learn how to see these.

This used to happen on kates car, turns out the plugs were sh*tty that plug onto the fans, i just cut them off and crimped them with new connectors.

Worth a shot.

Cheers for the help, regarding the fan plugs..... I've been there, checked them.

Re the diagnostics
Yeah I'm use to reading error codes from the engine light....
See the wife had me playing with her Yaris (sniggers ) for weeks chaseing an ABS fault. In toyotas the DIY is short two pins 4 & 13 on the OBDII port and then read the flashing codes from the engine light, the problem was it gave me two codes but I couldn't work out what bleemin way around it was, sad I know.
So I gave up and took it to the dealers.

I don't want to give up on this yet.
Okay I get error code 13, air flow temp?

To be sure I'm reading it correctly (not rocket science aye) I decided to buy a diagnostics tool.
Quick search on the internet thingie for newbee noobs like myself
http://www.evoscan.com/

On it's way (delivered) for a tad over $100nzd ($78aud)
- EvoScan 1.3D USB OBDII/MUTIII/SSMII Datalogging Cable
- Mitsubishi/Subaru/OBDII/CAN EvoScan Software

Okay some progress today….. bloody Mitsi’s, still not sure what it is however!


Could it be something as simple as a radiator efficiency issue?
When it's hot (nearly at the H) if I put my foot on the clutch and bring up the revs to around 5000rpm the temp gauge starts to drop.
A point to note here when it’s hot (as above) in the past I’ve pulled over, poped the bonnet and noted “No radiator fans running”. They do start up (both of them) if I turn the air con on however.
This is doing my head in!

I’ve noted it is taking longer before it starts to over heat now.
This could have something to do with the ambient temperature here today too. We got to a high of 9c today . Kiwiland gotta love it!

Progress so far.
To get it to over heat
- I’ve got to take it out onto the open road, i.e. 100km/ph
- Temp sensor (for ECU) replaced with new
- New thermostat
- Coolant flows all appear to be normal
- The water level in the reservoir tank does go up as it warms up and down as it cools down, it always returns to the mark I've made on the tank once it’s cooled down.

Try running your overflow pipe where its meant to go (higher than the engine)

Over flow pipe, you bloody legend SilverGPX!
I hoped if I took a pic of the entire engine someone would see something out of the norm, your a legend man, cheers.
Where is it meant to go, route?
Can someone please take a pic of their engine and post up? or at least where it's meant to route?

Mine runs accross the top of the wiper motor/the top of the air intake pipe/and to the water manifold

cheers Phil, kinda hard to see with all that "RED" but I get the idea, there is two white plastic twist / loops thingies on the wiper motor mounting bracket that is runs through, right?

Yes there is ties on top of the wiper motor.
Right click the photo, save picture as, put it on your desktop, open with windows photo gallery, zoom in to the area, you can see the plumbing quite easily then.
The hose also has heat/vibration guard insulation in certain spots.

If your car overheats while driving slow or stationary then you should be looking at the thermos. If it's overheating at speed then you have a blocked radiator.

Update…..

- Re-routed reservoir pipe.
- Re-flushed the radiator again (correctly this time)



Pulled thermostat out, dropped coolant, 500ml radiator flush & topped up with water, went for a drive and got it all nice and hot.



Dumped water & flushed the entire cooling system again except this time I used an air compressor.

I'd borrowed a home made tool from a mate to flush the system with water and compressed air.
Basicly it's a cone shaped thing, one end plugs into a garden hose and has a compressor plug on it running up the centre, the other cone shaped end (you get the idea)

Turned the garden hose on, hold onto it like hell and put it on what ever you want to flush, plugged in the air compressor air for a few seconds and woosh out comes all this shite and crap rusty flakie type stuff, again and again removed air, allowed it to fill up with water, plug in air…… wash and repeat.
I can't believe the amount of crap that came out of it, seriously what retard would neglect a cars cooling system for so long it gets rusty water in it.

The good news is I took it for a run today, not as long as I did the other day.
- The heater actually spits out hot air and manages to keep doing that. Before it was hot for a few seconds on high and then felt more like warm air.
- The temp gauge didn’t even budge.

I’d heard about air locks etc around the office and how to burp it. So I went up and down a steep first / second gear hill a few times for good measure, just to make sure there were no air locks in the system and too see if it’d heated up.

The temp gauge didn’t even budge again, you bloody beauty!
So far so good fellas and thanks for all your help too

Good job, just keep an eye out for leaks for a few weeks, and recheck the radiator level every morning while cold.

By doing such a thorough flush you may open up a few week points to leakage. One of those damned if you do damned if you don't lol!

Future leaks ha they're the least of my worries... Cheers for the heads up though.
I've got way bigger issues now, a gear box that needs new bearings I'm not looking forward to that, stacking myself even thinking about it just quietly.
Dam why is Seedney so far away and cost so so much to ship something over to Bennoz to get fixed.

EVOSCAN tool, if your a lazy arse like me and love techie things.
Earlier on in the thread I said I was buying a diagnostics tool that can plug into the ECU OBD port.
Two screen shots, first one is it working showing no errors. To make sure it was working I un-plugged the air flow sensor and read it again (second screen shot)

The early FTO's don't appear to be able to read live data with the Evoscan programme or whats more likely is I haven't figured out how to use it correctly yet.

I'm contemplating ordering an Evoscan, I emailed them last week, asking if they know how well it supports the FTO.
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