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gr8acclaim
Joined: 17 Mar 2005
Posts: 95
Location: Greenfield, Indiana
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 Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 7:29 pm Post subject: 1222 Fault Code & ANOTHER leak |
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Hey there guys, I have had an intermittent problem with my '91 325i for the past couple of weeks. It's been, off and on, kind of coughing and sputtering at idle. It'll do it at one stop light while I'm sitting, then it drives just fine up to the next and idles like a dream while I sit there, and then a couple of lights later it will sputter and almost die again. Only at idle though. It's never done it when I've been giving it gas to make it accelerate or maintain speed. It did do it once when I was driving through a parking garage, but again, I was just idling along and not giving it any gas really. And of course when it sputters, the idiot light comes on.
I did the pedal stomping trick and came up with 1222 as my code. Looked it up online and there's a whole mess of things it could be that are throwing the air/fuel ratio out of whack. So I looked it up on here and found a couple of posts from other people about this. They pointed fingers at various likely culprits like cloggy injectors and fuel filters, dirty air sensors, and even broken vacuum lines allowing air to suck in downstream of the sensors. It's winter in Indiana, and I don't want to do much to it, I can tell you that. I just figured I would take it easy for now and poke at it when we get nice days (like no actual snow or rain falling, no sub-zero windchill, etc).
Anyway, today I was at the gas station, and as usual, I checked all my fluids. Damned if the dipstick for the oil was not in there all the way. When I grabbed it to pull it out, I realized that, and kind of remembered checking it 2 weeks ago when I got gas last, then not shoving it all the way back in there good because the gas pump kept kicking off and annoying me. 
So I checked the oil and stuff and made sure to push the stick in there all the way and make a good seal with the O-rings on the top, which are there for a REASON...
Can anyone tell me if the reason for those O-rings is so that the car doesn't cough and sputter and try to die at stop lights?
I could imagine that might cause such a thing if a leaky vacuum line could -- after all there's a PCV system that sucks nasty vapors out of the crankcase, and if that is also sucking in a bunch of air, abnormally, through the dipstick tube, then it would, for all intents and purposes, be about the same as if you had a split vacuum line... Or it seems like that would make sense to me...
I may be making a wishful-thinking-type-snap-judgement here, but the thing ran PERFECT all the way from the gas station to the chinese food joint, and again, PERFECT from there to my house (which is admittedly only maybe 10 miles or something).
_________________
1992 Plymouth Sundance Duster -- 263,000 miles -- RIP due to rust;
1991 BMW 325i -- 158,546 miles (plus ? miles when the odo didn't work!)
Last edited by gr8acclaim on Mon Jan 16, 2012 8:54 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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gr8acclaim
Joined: 17 Mar 2005
Posts: 95
Location: Greenfield, Indiana
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| Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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Oh, I was also going to put in there, but forgot at the last minute...
My brake system is leaking fluid. I think it's leaking between the plastic reservoir and the metal part of the master cylinder. There's a funny little rubber seal there that is suspiciously wet with fluid the color of my brake fluid.
Has anyone else had this happen, and if so, was it easy to get the rubber seals and replace them?
_________________
1992 Plymouth Sundance Duster -- 263,000 miles -- RIP due to rust;
1991 BMW 325i -- 158,546 miles (plus ? miles when the odo didn't work!) |
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dt325ic
Joined: 24 Aug 2004
Posts: 307
Location: Atlanta, GA
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cymy
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 104
Location: San Diego, CA
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| Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 9:42 am Post subject: |
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Our cars are very sensitive to cranckcase air leaks. A poorly sealing dipstick will cause the problem as well as a loose or missing oil filler cap.
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1991 318i
2000 Ford Ranger Extended Cab
1990 R100GS
1995 R1100GS |
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85-325e
Joined: 30 Jun 2002
Posts: 4712
Location: Southampton, NY
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| Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 1:09 pm Post subject: |
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One day, in a rare occasion, I had one of these Jiffy Lube type places do my change. The car was running perfectly when I pulled it in.
When I got into the car after they ejected it from the other end, the car ran like crap. I looked in the engine compartment, and they had forgotten to put the oil filler cap back on. While it was running, I put that cap back on as it was supposed to be, and immediately, I had a perfectly idling car.
Then, to be sure, I added some small o-rings to the rubber seal of the dipstick, and low and behold, the idle was even steadier.
As said above, a tiny air leak can wreak havoc with your car... Check the bid hose too, from the air filter to the throttle. There can be pinholes in the bottom that you can't see. Those will cause problems as well if they're there. Also check all conenctions to make sure the clamps are on tightly.
_________________
Cosmo - 1985 BMW 325e, Single Owner, 265,000+ ORIGINAL miles and still going strong! But now on the East Coast and the salt air corrosion is eating my beautiful car alive... 
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gr8acclaim
Joined: 17 Mar 2005
Posts: 95
Location: Greenfield, Indiana
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| Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 9:35 pm Post subject: |
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I put another 20-30 miles on it today and didn't have a problem. I'm frankly delighted I didn't have to spend a dime to fix it! 
I just can't imagine it's that sensitive, but I knew, to a degree that they were. I knew for instance, that when you're looking at one to buy, one of the things to do is take that oil cap off while it's running, and if the idle doesn't change, then something is out of whack with the motor and you WILL ultimately have some kind of problems because of it.
| 85-325e wrote: | | Check the big hose too, from the air filter to the throttle. There can be pinholes in the bottom that you can't see. Those will cause problems as well if they're there. Also check all conenctions to make sure the clamps are on tightly. |
No worries on this. I had to buy one of those pretty much right off, and even still, it was the first thing I poked at when I heard to look at vacuum lines. And while I didn't really check all the clamps, they LOOKED good and I am positive the ones on the big hose are all good. I even bought new stainless ones for it. In all reality, seeing how bad that was when I got it, and seeing that even the rubber seals under the brake fluid reservoir are going/gone bad, I probably should consider just replacing all the rubbery things like that everywhere all at once. Just haven't had the time, and back when I did, I didn't have the money.
But I still appreciate you, and others, chiming in and saying that, "Yes, that CAN cause the problem." So now I can turn the radio on again and pay attention to driving instead of focusing so much on listening to see if the motor is about to die. 
I didn't think to look there yet, or look on bavauto or pelican's sites. I really wanted to get the low-down on the gasping/wheezing/trying to stall business first. I figured there was no point in spending money to fix the brakes on a car that shouldn't be driven anyway. But since that isn't an issue, I did go and look, and Pelican has them in stock.
But no one commented on having changed them out before, so maybe no one has? Maybe everyone else just bought a new master cylinder perhaps... Maybe I should, but I'd much rather spend $10 on some rubber things -- after all, the brakes work great. It's just fluid leaking out, of the reservoir, and the floaty thing turns on the light if I ignore it too long (and even then it's still almost to the full mark).
I was hoping someone would be able to advise me on whether I can do this easily in the drive in the cold, or if it's going to entail having to bleed the cylinder and then each of the brakes themselves. Maybe I should just go pop the one off the car I've been picking off of in the local scrap yard and see how it looks. Frankly it has a much nicer looking reservoir than mine anyway, which is kind of brownish and greasy looking. That one looks brand-new.
_________________
1992 Plymouth Sundance Duster -- 263,000 miles -- RIP due to rust;
1991 BMW 325i -- 158,546 miles (plus ? miles when the odo didn't work!) |
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dt325ic
Joined: 24 Aug 2004
Posts: 307
Location: Atlanta, GA
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| Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 11:57 pm Post subject: |
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That's great that your car is running well again!
As for the master cylinder plugs, I have not changed them out on mine yet. Looks like you remove the fluid from the reservoir and remove it. Then the plugs should be pretty easy to replace. And doing that would most likely necessitate bleeding the system. I guess the master cylinder would still have fluid in it, but why risk it? If it's been a while since the system has been bled and fluid replaced, it probably needs it anyway.
I would just order two new plugs and go with those. Don't bother with the ones from the junkyard, although having a spare reservoir might be handy if you crack the plastic on yours when removing. However, if your brake pedal feels good, no need to spend the bucks on a new MC.
Good luck, and let us know how it turns out.
Dane
'88 325iC |
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dale
Joined: 22 Aug 1999
Posts: 3087
Location: Seattle, WA USA
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| Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 3:18 pm Post subject: |
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If you're wondering why the oil cap and dipstick affect idle, look at the big hose coming off the top of the valve cover that goes over to the front side of the throttle body.
The crankcase is directly ported to the intake system to suck any vapor generated from heated oil, or combustion mix blown past the piston rings (even 1% adds up to a lot at 2000rpm). Suck that crankcase vapor into the engine and burn it so it doesn't escape into the air.
Most engines have this, but they'll have a PCV(positive crank vent) valve inline as well, BMW doesn't for whatever reason.
The side effect of this is that if you have an oil leak, you have a vacuum leak, and pulling the oil cap or the dipstick allows a lot of un-metered air into the engine, and it starts running really lean, and poorly.
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87 325 5spd eta |
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gr8acclaim
Joined: 17 Mar 2005
Posts: 95
Location: Greenfield, Indiana
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 10:53 pm Post subject: |
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Dale -- I wasn't really wondering why it affected it, because it made sense after I discovered the unseated dipstick, I just wanted some confirmation that it really could cause the problem. As soon as I saw that it was not in there all the way, I just knew that the PCV system would cause it to idle off like that. I guess I just wanted some reassurance from others that it could genuinely be my problem... But it's good that someone like yourself, whom we all respect as an authority, chimed in to explain it further. Someone else is going to do this same thing, sooner or later, and hopefully they'll have enough sense to search for posts about it...
| dt325ic wrote: | | Don't bother with the ones from the junkyard, although having a spare reservoir might be handy if you crack the plastic on yours when removing. |
I wouldn't dare trust the actual rubbers from the junkyard, even if they did cost more than just a few bucks for new ones. My thought was to pop the reservoir off in the junkyard and get a look at how low the fluid would sit in the master cylinder after that, then pull the rubbers and see how low it was then. I figure that would give me a good idea of whether or not I really HAVE to bleed it.
It's not that big an ordeal, because I have a neat-o vacuum bleeder system and stuff, but if I have to do it, I'll have to do it outside, in the yard, in the snow... And frankly, I'm a big weenie about that. My feet get cold and that's it. I'm done. But at the same time, I'll be danged if I'll pay someone else to install $10 worth of rubber things and suck an air bubble out of the lines! If there's anything worse than doing stuff like that in the winter here, it's paying someone else to do something that I have all the tools and ability to do myself.
And the fluid change got done already back in April, when I changed out the rotors and pads all around, so what's in it is good stuff. If it's not necessary to do it for this rubber change, there's not any real benefit in doing it, as far as I'm concerned.
I guess the only real test though is getting back in the car afterward and stepping on the pedal. I have much experience with what a pedal feels like if there's air in the line somewhere vs a nice sealed system. If it feels good, I'm not fooling with it. If not, I'll cuss and holler, but I'll do it. But of course, either way, I'll be easy and hesitant with it for a week or two until I decide for certain if it's fine.
_________________
1992 Plymouth Sundance Duster -- 263,000 miles -- RIP due to rust;
1991 BMW 325i -- 158,546 miles (plus ? miles when the odo didn't work!) |
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