Help with Fluid Leak and secondary air monitor

[Khorvath]

Hello all. Hopefully someone can help me. I have not driven my car in quite a while. Decided to take it out for a couple rides and two things I need help with.

I'm trying to get a smog and I cannot get the secondary air monitor to reset. I've checked all the forums and tried all the procedures. Does anybody have any tips or tricks?

Secondly, after parking I had a lot of fluid drop by the driver rear wheel
..by the door edge underneath. The fluid is dark and quite thick. Dark brown or black. I can see all this dripping underneath but I'm not sure where it's coming from and what these hoses go to. Is it the convertible top? Is it something else that requires hydraulics? Hopefully someone can give me some insight.

2003 Spyder CC
Thx

Ken

 

[Felonious Crud]

Your title reminds me that I need to get some clean underpants.

Anyway, Ken, more helpfully I'm sure someone will be along soon with some useful input. In the meantime, sorry to read that and good luck.

 

[Oneball]

What’s the code you’re getting for the secondary air pump. There a number of things it could be but the code could narrow it down.

Pump failure

Valve failure

There’s a cross pipe along the front of the engine that corrodes

Disconnected pipe.

 

[Khorvath]

I'm just using a basic scanner. I'm not getting any codes of any kind. Just incomplete for the secondary air and all other monitors working fine. Is there a recommended scanner I should use where I can get more specific information?

 

[Oneball]

The secondary air system is for emissions so a standard OBD2 scanner will read.

If there’s no codes and presumably therefore no CEL what is actually wrong with the system?

Have you worked on it or reset everything and it’s saying “secondary air system not tested”? If so and you’ve got no codes then it just means it’s not turned on yet. It might need a few cold start and up to temperature cycles. Are you somewhere particularly warm?

 

[Khorvath]

I'm in San Diego but it's not exactly very warm right now. I've done about 15 cold starts. Let it all the way idle up to temperature. Drive it around a bit. Couple 20 mi drives. I even tried all the online suggestions for cycling through the monitors and I still can't get it to work. Tomorrow I will try to see if pump is working. What do you recommend the best way to do that is? Turn on the car and then touch the pump to see if it vibrates? When is it supposed to come on? Probably during the warm up time correct? And if I'm not mistaken it is not supposed to stay on for very long but I'm not 100% sure.

 

[Oneball]

The pump is supposed to come on from cold start they’re not particularly quiet so you should be able to hear and feel it. They run for 30 seconds to a couple of minutes if it’s really cold. You also get a slightly lumpy idle.

If you disconnect the pump and start it see if you get an error message. The pumps do seize. I had to replace one because it had seized and I can’t remember if I actually got an error message or if I just noticed one day it wasn’t working.

 

[Oneball]

The pump itself isn’t complicated. Have you got a multimeter so you can see if the pump is being fed power on start up?

 

[Khorvath]

Okay. Tomorrow I will try that. I will first check the fuse and relay. Then I'm going to see if I can hear or feel the pump working at Cold startup. If that doesn't work all unplug it and try see what happens. Yes I have a multimeter and could try that. Thank you

 

[CatmanV2]

The pump itself isn’t complicated. Have you got a multimeter so you can see if the pump is being fed power on start up?

I think the problem here is one of US emissions. Some states (Looking at you CA) interrogate the OBD to see if the monitors are right. Even if the system is faultless, it seems totally arcane to get these things to trigger so you can get your emissions passed.

C

 

[Oneball]

I think the problem here is one of US emissions. Some states (Looking at you CA) interrogate the OBD to see if the monitors are right. Even if the system is faultless, it seems totally arcane to get these things to trigger so you can get your emissions passed.

C

This sounds like it’s not completing the self check because it’s not gone through the cycle. I don’t think it’s warm enough in San Diego for it not to start up. I could be wrong though.

Temps are roughly the same as here. Can anyone with a 4200 confirm that the secondary air pump runs from cold start at the moment?

 

[CatmanV2]

This sounds like it’s not completing the self check because it’s not gone through the cycle. I don’t think it’s warm enough in San Diego for it not to start up. I could be wrong though.

Temps are roughly the same as here. Can anyone with a 4200 confirm that the secondary air pump runs from cold start at the moment?

Yeah. Even when they do run the cycle, the monitor sometimes doesn't reset. It seems very random and arbitrary.

C

 

[Khorvath]

So I turned it on this morning and put my hand on the secondary air pump. It ran for about 30 seconds and then turned off... drove around a bit today but I'm still having the same incomplete monitor. So I can confirm that it is working at cold start up. Not sure what to do now. Do I disconnect everything on the battery and try again. I have a half a tank of gas and the battery is less than a year old

 

[CatmanV2]

Jason on ML has some experience with these issues. I can't recall if you've raised it there?

C

 

[Khorvath]

I'm not familiar with ml.

 

[Khorvath]

I think you meant Maserati life. I did post there as well. Thank you

 

[CatmanV2]

I think you meant Maserati life. I did post there as well. Thank you

Yes I did.

Did Jason chip in? He can be a bit, well, blunt but knows his stuff

C

 

[Oneball]

If you ran it from pump on all the way up to the cooling fans kicking in and there no errors. I’ve not got anymore suggestions.

 

[Khorvath]

Some good news today. After trying to then a few times with a cold start I decided to just unplug the battery and give it another go. This time around with less than 5 miles of driving and going through the monitor Readiness procedures, I got the secondary air to work. The only one I'm waiting now for is the EVAP and I'm assuming after a little more driving that should set just fine.

Now I'm going to work on the leak. Hoping to get the car in the air a little bit and take a look to see where the fluid came from. It is no longer coming out so wherever it is must have fully drained.
K