NG Pajero engine stalling when cold

[Wizard1990]

Hi Guys,

i have an NG superwagon 3L V6 Petrol/LPG dual, Auto Trans, 290,000km. This car has run great for the 10 years I've had it, however just the last few weeks it has been randomlly stalling when driving in the morning.

At first I thought maybe a dirty plug or 2 was causing the issue, so I've replaced all the sparkplugs.

It started, revved high at about 2000rpm for 10mins, then settled to 900rpm but sounded a bit spluttery.The problem still persisted. After searching the forums I was lead to believe it was an air issue.

Apparently the Air flow sensor in the air box can get gunged up so I swapped out the whole airflow sensor (the one in the airbox) unit with another one.

I test drove it for about 30km, and it ran fine. No stalling, it idled at about 1000rpm. The engine did sound a bit tappy on the passenger side. I checked the oil and it was VERY low (oil pressure gauge was also reading very low as well). I topped the the oil up and it was still a bit tappy but nothing out of the ordinary. There are no oil leaks so I'm assuming it's been burning oil. This engine has never had oil loss issues/leaks before.

The next morning driving to work it got about 2km down the road and stalled. Couldn't get it to start properly again.

Does anyone have any ideas of what I should try next? I have a spare NG Pajero that I can take parts off.

Edit: This happens on both petrol and LPG.

Cheers.

[wazza87]

Diagnostics tool

I recommend getting a obd scanner.

There are tons of reasons for the symptoms you describe. Im not sure which one for your model but I have an OBD2 scanner which I use for my other vehicles and friends/family.

Not a big help, but these tools are invaluable.

Good luck

[dolphin]

unfortunetly the scanner does not pick up every electronic item under the bonnet so its abit of a hit and miss situation in finding a fault sometimes. you should try the scanner first as mentioned and if no faults found then its time to start swapping over paqrts that you have available on the spare engine.

[Les PK Ranger]

The high revving could be throttle body control (or just the cold start choke).
It could be going the other way and starving fuel ?
Maybe adjusted too low revs and when a sticky TBC unsticks, it stalls.

Can you keep it running with throttle, or does it seem to flood ?

Mine's a bit sticky very occasionally, can usually fix it by tuning key off and returning on before it dies, or take the air intake hose of the TBC and spray some TBC Cleaner spray in there, on my NF there is a little hole inside, if I cover this with a finger off and on it also helps unstick things.
I was hoping it might get worse at some stage, forcing me to go to a wrecker and pick up a 2nd hand TBC, but does it so rarely to date, that it hasn't been enough to make me do this job.