New guy with a puzzle

Hi,
I just bought a 1.8I 1999 on a "v" plate and have had done a couple of hundred miles in short hops over a fortnight.

Was driving up loch lomond on Sunday which was quite a warm day and had covered 40 miles or so when i got to the slow twisty narrow section north of Tarbet.

Anyway suddenly lost power and throttle response....actually think engine just shut down and was just coasting but might have been rolling along at 1000 rpm. No movement on temp gauge

Pulled over and restarted, no problem. Few hundred yards later same issue.

Well stopped and had a look and was thinking engine seemed a bit warm for the fan not to be running but that was based on just a feeling.

Anyway 10 mins later had a go and completed the journey without any further hassles. On both occasions car restarted normally and reved fine when stationary.

No problems next day or running to work and back today.

Think it was either an overheating problem or... did notice we had ran through some water on the road a bit before it happened. (used to have a triumph acclam that cut out if you got spray into the engine).

Am getting it looked into tomorrow by a garage with the computer diagnostic gizmo.

Car running fine but worried I might get caught unawares.

Does anyone have any ideas?

If you are going to get a diagnostic check then ask the price before hand.

Quite possible about water intake, had a similar problem few weeks back in the floods, waded through a few floods with a sluggish response afterwards.

I have an ITG panel filter in the standard airbox assembly, this gives more throughput of air....... so it didnt cut the engine on me. Although inspect your air filter anyway.

Some of the other forum members had a stalling problem in recent threads, this turned out to be their fuel filter. The plastic fuel tanks of the FL are normally fairly clean inside, although its possible that some debris has washed into the fuel filter and then dislodged itself again.???

Your coolant fan only comes on when coolant temp reaches 106 oC, then shuts off at around 96 oC. This is usually only the case when idling in traffic for long periods, once moving the air flow over the RAD is more than enough to bring the coolant right down again. Or if the car heater is blowing over the heater matrix this too will lower the coolant temp.

Let us know how you get on

Hi,
Will look at the air filter as suggested thanks. The diagnostic showed up a fault in the cooling system and the fan was not coming on at all. They have replaced the sensor and all seems to be working fine now.

Need to keep my fingers crossed that the problem was temperature related but going to get the car serviced next month and might ask em to do the fuel filter just in case. Garage didnt think the issue would have resolved if it was debris in the fuel filter though i think its possible as suggested it dislodged when the pump shut off hence the restarts.

Needed a new horn as well btw... price came to £120 odd for horn, sensor and diagnostic.

And yeah Kurgan....gorgeous up there though I hate that twisty section its bloody nerve wracking with the blind corners, overtaking bikes (me till last week lol!) and wide wide tour buses! Stayed at campsite over the river from Drovers.