2006 Fpv Tornado F6 Ute - Cleanup & Resurrection

[JETURBO]

So tell us

You have a tornado that wont drive and tou have changed the TPS, it just idles .... So no relation between the pedal and the T/B ?

After clearing codes,and changing the TPS what codes come up now ?

Have you obviously checked all harness plugs and clips ?

[PhilMeUp]

Thursday, 15th October, 2015

It occurred to me this afternoon that despite the huge number of hours that I’ve put into this car so far, I hadn’t changed the spark plugs. Heck, I hadn’t even checked them.

Until recently I had never even removed the crossover manifold. By now I was well practiced at it.

With the crossover manifold removed, the coil cover came off.

I removed the six coils and was surprised to see water on the rear one. Water had obviously gotten in there one time when I washed the engine bay, but not enough water to get down to the spark plug and short it out.

The old spark plugs.

General consensus everywhere is that the standard Ford spark plugs are the ones to use. I get this stuff wholesale, so that worked out cheaper for me as well.

The part number for the Ford spark plugs is AGSP22YE09.

There was the problem of how to dry out the moisture in the rear spark plug hole. I couldn’t get to it physically, so put my battery-powered Ryobi blower to use. This actually worked well, and the spark plug hole was dry in a couple of minutes.

I took the coils inside and removed the rubbers. Using some CRC Electrical Contact Cleaner (expensive, but good) I cleaned the copper end on each coil. I wanted to ensure a good contact between coil and spark plug. Apart from spraying each coil end, I also used cotton sticks to clean inside the end of each coil rubber.

I put the rubbers back on the coils, and put some dielectric grease in the end of each coil.

Whilst ordering the spark plugs and various other parts for my taxis today, I figured that I’d better add a PCV to my collection of spares. Stuff the taxis, it can go on the Tornado.

I was desperate to get this thing running properly, so was trying anything and everything that I could think of.

The new PCV, plugged into the hose.

Despite the amount of water on the rear coil and in the spark plug hole, there was no sign of moisture underneath the coil cover.

I’ve never removed a throttle body from a car before, but I stared at it for a bit and concluded that it couldn’t be that difficult. I removed the rubber boot and loosened the top two bolts.

Then I got really adventurous and removed the bottom two bolts. I was terrified of dropping a bolt down into the engine back so held a magnet next to the socket as I removed each bolt.

It turned out that the magnet didn’t work on the bolts. However, it did catch the socket when it slid off the end of the extension bar, preventing the socket from dropping down, never to be seen again. At least I got something right this week.

This was all new territory for me, so I got the Egas LPG throttle body and sat down with both of them.

One thing that I had known all week was that the butterfly in the Tornado throttle body wouldn’t move. I figured that it probably should, but wasn’t sure because it’s run by an electric motor.

That Egas throttle body suddenly came in very handy. I pushed the butterfly, and it moved quite easily.

Thus, I concluded that the Tornado butterfly was also meant to move.

Oh.

Wow.

After a week of ongoing frustration I was finally starting to realise why the engine wouldn’t run properly.

I could see that there was an electric motor on the side of each throttle body. The next question was whether the Egas motor would fit on the Tornado throttle body.

Yep, same part numbers on the plastic. VP3L3U-9N825-AF was on each one.

Goody.

Finally, starting to get somewhere.

My next move was to remove the electric motor from the Egas throttle body. This is held on by five Torx T20 screws.

The sidecover came off, but I wasn’t quick enough to watch how the spring attached to each side. Time to figure that out.

I saw that there are tabs on the outside of plastic end bit. The end bit plugs into the sidecover, but is prevented from rotating by the plastic tabs.

The spring had a small loop in one end, which plugs into the side of the cog.

That cog is connected to the butterfly inside the throttle body. The spring is kept loaded to keep the butterfly shut, and the electric motor overcomes this to rotate the butterfly when the accelerator pedal in the car is pushed.

Before doing anything with the Tornado throttle body (and messing things up), I had a go at re-assembling the Egas one. This was difficult - the cog end of the spring would slip out of place too easily. I ended up bending that loop over a bit more with some pliers to help prevent it from slipping out of the cog.

I eventually figured out that the way to do it was to stretch the spring out, get it attached at each end (ie cog end and sidecover end) and then rotate the sidecover. This created the required tension on the spring, and the trick was to prevent the spring from springing loose before I got the sidecover bolt holes to line up with the holes in the throttle body.

[PhilMeUp]

It took me a while, but I eventually managed to re-assemble the Egas throttle body. The plastic end clips into the hole in the sidecover.

The sidecover and throttle body. At the bottom of the sidecover (ie black plastic) you can see the cog that rotates the bigger cog (which rotates the butterfly). That small cog is connected to an electric motor, which is out of sight.

I removed the outer cover on the sidecover to reveal the electric motor that runs it all.

I tried rotating the small cog on the Tornado throttle body. Almost jammed up solid. The matching cog on the Egas throttle body rotated easily.

Problem solved. Almost weeks of frustration and anger, all because one little electric motor had died.

On the right is the Tornado throttle body. Water has gotten past the sidecover and corroded the electric motor shaft, jamming it up.

On the left is the Egas throttle body, which has been untouched by water. You can see the difference.

I was starting to feel just a tad more optimistic about things by now.

So, for anyone getting P0121 or P0221 diagnostic trouble codes, have a got at replacing either the entire throttle body or just the sidecover (and electric motor) part.

I’m guessing that the car computer is putting things together and they’re not adding up. The accelerator pedal is pressed downward a certain amount, but there isn’t the corresponding amount of movement in the throttle body butterfly (as measured by the throttle position sensor). The car computer decides that something isn’t right and the ETC (electronic throttle control) light appears on the dashboard.

As I’ve had the same P0121 and P0221 error codes on my other Tornado (ie the green one that will be replacing this one), I’ll be pulling that throttle body apart in the near future and having a look. At least now I know how it all works, and what to look for.

You can see the signs of previous moisture in the Tornado throttle body. I cleaned out what I could, but made extra sure that the cog teeth were clean to prevent future friction.

Thanks to my practice with the Egas throttle body, it didn’t take long to re-assemble the Tornado throttle body.

A close-up showing how the tabs on the plastic end fit into the slots in the sidecover.

I also grabbed the plastic cap from the Egas throttle body. In case you hadn’t figured it out by now, this is what caused the problem. That cap was missing on the Tornado throttle body, and I’ve washed the engine bay several times this year.

Water has gotten past that plastic end and into the throttle body area. That water has then corroded the shaft on the electric motor, seizing it up.

I now know to check on every Falcon that I ever touch to make sure that there is a plastic cap on the side of the throttle body.

The butterfly then rotated when pushed with my fingers. It was locked up solid before.

The intake manifold, before putting the throttle body back in place. The gasket was still good.

Having gotten so close to possibly having my car fixed, I wasn’t going to stuff it all up by dropping one of the bolts at the last minute.

I used some needle-nose pliers to insert the bottom two bolts for the throttle body.

I tightened up the four bolts and attached the two cables - one for the TPS and one for the throttle body electric motor.

The butterfly still rotated when pushed with my fingers.

I started the car… and sure enough, it idled perfectly.

Fixed!

I was ecstatic. After almost two weeks of frustration, I had this thing running properly again. And the solution didn’t cost a cent. Even better.

I celebrated by heading into the city, sitting down at a 24 hour restaurant and writing all this stuff.

[PhilMeUp]

So tell us

You have a tornado that wont drive and tou have changed the TPS, it just idles .... So no relation between the pedal and the T/B ?

After clearing codes,and changing the TPS what codes come up now ?

Have you obviously checked all harness plugs and clips ?

No matter what I did, I kept getting a P0121 code. Which means a throttle position sensor problem. P0221 also appeared a couple of times, which is also TPS related.

I spent ages searching through forums. There was nothing on here about P0121. There were a few posts on AFF about it, but no actual solutions.

I spent ages this week staring blankly at the engine bay, thinking there must be some wire that's not right, so some plug that's come loose. Looked everywhere.

But, as we can all now see, the solution was actually quite simple. And, in my case, preventable (ie the missing plastic cap).

[JETURBO]

Well there you go, I had a same issue with a car last month and I was about to hopefully lead you into this direction but you got it all by yourself

Well done

[camo86T]

Great work and write up as always Phil!

[Ralph Wiggum]

Good fix Phil,

Check the magnets in the motor car, they come loose and drag on the armature causing the throttle to lag/not correspond with the request from the PPS.

Also next time you hit boost that plastic cap will be gone.

Get in the habit of squirting a small amount of WD40 in there after you was the engine bay.

EDIT= also another prime example that a fault code is evidence of a symptom not a cause. You need to arm yourself with a program like forscan so you can log commaned TPS vs Actual TPS

[FiftyOne]

Hang in there Phil, maintain the rage

[.Stripes.]

Good stuff Phil! Love your ability to step back and figure things out. Congrats on sorting out the issue!

[Tocchi]

Nice work Phil, glad it's sorted.

Water seems to not like you one bit