Thread: Cold start

Just a few ideas:

Can you hear the fuel pump when you switch the ignition to on without starting the engine?
How is the battery?
If you look under the driver's seat - try wiggling the relays' and checking for melted plastic - sometimes those relays can stop the fuel pump in the tank kicking in.

Probably not much help to you but I had/have got the same problem with my Defender TD5 . I did the usual things like glow plugs, batteries , wiring, injector loom , injectors washers, starter motor etc etc but was still hard to start when it was a cold morning (above 10 deg's it fine though) . It never fails to start , just wind's over for awhile before it fires up.

However the other day i went to start it and on the way to work and the glow light stayed on longer than usual by 5 seconds or so , i then hit the key and it fired up straight away better than it's ever started . But it's idle speed was going up and down by 50 rpm or so . It still ran fine and stopped doing it when it warmed up . When i got home from work I checked the red plug on the ECM and it was full of oil . After cleaning it , it stopped the surging idle but was hard to start again
The ECM's has been reprogrammed before i got the car, it maybe its that ?? Not sure on TD5's but i know other heavy machinary run a cold start map which brings in an elevated idle and fuel map change till coolant temp is up .
I'll keep watching this thread though for any info

One other thing to check - put a voltmeter across the cigarette lighter and crank over when cold. What voltage do you get during cranking. Apparently if less than 9v, then the ECU will struggle to work correctly. (I'm suggesting the cigarette lighter - because that will also measure any wiring loom losses that might be taking place. An even better spot would be across the ECU, but that's harder to get to.)

The TD% does have a cold map - engaged when the coolant is below 10C (I can't rememebr the exact temp), idles higher until the coolant is above that temp.

Just cleaning the red plug does not always fix a loom issue. Sometimes the ECU has flooded with oil, other times the injector loom in the head is damaged by the oil leaking through it. The Injector look in the head is a easy and cheap to fix, just make sure you get a good quality loom to replace it with. That will remove about half of the oil filled loom, the other half is in the main wiring loom and that's very painful and expensive to fix, better to just wait for the oil to drain out over a few weeks. Those injectors are fired with 100v+ and any leakage in the loom can either reduce the firing voltage - or more seriously cross feed into the other injectors causing the ECU to go crazy....

I had a similar starting problem a while ago and I suspect that it is to do with the starter not cranking fast enough and not necessarily to do with cold.

Have a look through the suggestions in this post - Starting Woes - 2004 TD5

The first thing I would check out is the starter solenoid contacts.

have you tried push starting you TD5? if it push starts fine then it is likely to be the starter.

Good luck

Thanks for all the info.

It almost sounds like fuel not getting through. Fuel pump sounds good.

I will have a look at some plugs also. Mine was remapped before I purchased also. Father in laws is also and he has same problem but brother in laws is remapped but starts instantly.

Will look and see how we go.

Thanks again

please post it up on how you go with it and what you find.
Im interested if it's just something to do with the remap and the cold start map .

earths
positive terminals and the main starter wire
Battery condition
starter condition


those things in that order every time when a td5 take a while to start when its cold.

Starter, starter, starter!

Whether it's the solenoid contacts, the battery condition or an earth my money is on the starter!