Dear Red1600i and Manfred
Thank you very much for your suggestions. I have read the entire thread from Marty and I really hope this doesn't turn into such a long winded problem.
Its been a terrible weekend. Having read the first suggestion I checked the lambda sensor location and earth points. All looks fine. I went for a drive and all seemed fine, I drove in town for about twenty minutes. feeling confident I joined the motorway and bang, no power. Roadside assistance had to tow me home. This morning I took every electric connector apart and again I could drive fine around town. I covered about 30kms without problem, joined the motorway and once again it stopped. I had to come up with some fancy story to get Roadside Assistance to help me. They were not impressed
Anyway, the second time I was taken to the ANWB service center. Luckily they love the car and it seemed to spark a lot of interest from the ANWB men who had a kever years ago.
Getting back to Marti's story, I think we have identified that I may also have a fuel problem. Since I bought the car I am on my third petrol pump. On delivery the garage saw the pump was leaking. they replaced it with one of the replacement pumps on this site. A week later I went back to the garage complaining of a strong petrol smell. Upon inspection it seems this new pump was actually leaking out of the electric connectors. This was once again replaced, and 3 weeks later I noticed the underside of the chassis was wet. (I don't notice the petrol smell anymore its normal to me). I am now waiting for the garage to send me a third replacement pump.
However, the wet patch is now less. A leaking pump is unlikely to stop leaking, so maybe the pump has lost pressure. In testing everything possible the ANWB man said he could hear the petrol pump pumping but the injectors were not 'clicking' or pumping fuel. Apparently if the fuel is not delivered at the right pressure the injectors don't have enough resistance to push against.
Three apparently reliable petrol pumps seems excessive. I am using one pump per 1000 km's. I have read the info section and it might be relevant that my Ultima Edicion is retro fitted onto a 1971 chassis. This means a secondary return fuel line has been routed back to the pump. I have looked at the return line and it is not 7mm, in fact it looks like a 4mm fuel line. Could it be possible that my fuel pump destruction is caused by a serious imbalance of fuel pressure in the out and return fuel lines.
Later this week I will replace the fuel pump and investigate routing new fuel lines. I'll let you know how I get on.
Tim
