Thread: Defender 130 td5 engine cuts out

This received from MDAKinc who is unable to log in.....

4 Aug 2023 Hamelin Pool, WA

Land-Rover engine fault

1. Yesterday, 3 August, the engine suddenly stopped as we were turning into the Overlander roadhouse to get fuel. Because the fuel gauge does not work reliably when reading the main tank, it is difficult to keep track of how much is in that tank, so I interpreted the engine stopping as my running out of fuel, particularly as I knew we were low.
2. I went through the ‘out of fuel’ routine to re-prime the engine: leave ignition off for 15 seconds, then turn on for 30 seconds. Do this 5 times and then press the accelerator to the floor and start the engine. It worked. (We ran out of fuel on the rear (main) tank between Esperance and Perth about three weeks ago. I went through the routine and the engine worked fine until it stopped yesterday.)
3. We then set off from Overlander on the road west to Denham but after five ks the engine stopped again. I repeated the re-prime sequence and off it went, only to stop again after another 5 ks. This pattern was repeated until we limped into Hamelin Pool camp site, where we spent last night.
4. When we got there, we wondered whether we had stirred up dirt in the tank by running out and whether this could have blocked the fuel filter. So, I put a new fuel filter on.
5. I drove back up the road for five ks to the junction with the main road, but it packed up at the junction. This time I gave it the computer re-set treatment (per Phil): turn ignition on and wait for the fuel pump to stop. Press the accelerator to the floor 5 times until the check engine light comes on, and then leave the ignition on until the system has cycled and the pump has stopped. Press the accelerator to the floor and start it.
6. After that, it started fine and I drove 7 ks up the road where I turned around, so I had done 15 ks by the time I got back to the Hamelin Pool turnoff, where, as I backed off the accelerator, it quit again.
7. I gave it another re-set treatment and drove back to the campground where Di noticed that fuel was streaming out of the fuel filter. It turned out that I hadn’t screwed the drain plug in the bottom in firmly enough. I did it now and the leak stopped.
8. This morning I gave the engine the re-set treatment and it started first go. But as we drove off it belched white smoke and quit only three ks up the road.
9. I gave it the re-set treatment again, but this time when I tried to start it it wouldn‘t turn over one complete revolution. It felt as though something in the combustion chamber of one cylinder was stopping the piston. I kept trying and eventually, with some unhealthy knocking sounds, it cranked and started, whereupon it ran normally until we got back to the campground. I left it running for half an hour while I talked to John and to Bruce Davis. Bruce Davis didn’t really know: could be injectors … Or dirty fuel. There is a supplementary filter in the fuel pump, he said, so it could be worth checking that.
10. John suggested checking the wire connections at the top of the fuel tank, so that combined with Bruce Davis’s suggestion makes it worth while to take the fuel pump out, which I will do today.
11. The other thing is that while the engine was idling for more than half an hour, it ran fine, without the knocking that we detected after it had failed to crank, but it was putting out smelly smoke the whole time, perhaps a faint bluish white colour.
12. So here we are at Hamelin Pool where we’ve got showers and toilets for $30 and we can tinker without undue stress. But the lingering thought is, what do we do if we can’t cure this? We could stagger on to Denman, perhaps, 100 ks away but if we can’t get anyone to help fix it, maybe we will have to end the trip and have it sent back to Mad Dog on a truck.

5 August: update.

1. We have decided to get the LR to Perth to Kevin Faulconbridge at Jordan Rovertech motors. He’s been recommended by John, whom we met at Hamelin Pool, and by Phil who works here and who knows Land Rovers. However, Kevin can’t start to look at until Monday 14 August. We’ve booked that date with him.
2. Yesterday I took the fuel pump out, and checked that the screen filter in the ottom wasn’t direty. I sprayed the connector plug with contact cleaner.
3. Phil came over this morning and perfected my system for purging air. (I’ve described his system above.) It started at the end of it. I left it to idle for half an hour, by the end of which it was putting out foul-smelling diesel smoke. As I drove off that turned to white smoke, which dissipated after two ks. Soon after that, the engine started to miss, and stopped. And so on.
4. Paul, the RAC man in Denham (100 ks from here near Monkey Mia) says he can take us to Perth but it’ll be expensive. He can take us as well as the LR. But he says Steve and Shane Whyatt, LR people in Geraldton, are good. So I’ll ring them on Monday. And they’ve got a tilt tray dual cab which could come and take us and the LR to Geraldton.

What is being described as the " computer rest procedure" is actually the bleed sequence. no matter.

If MDAKinc has access to a nanocom either you or he can send me a P.M. and I will talk him through it.

If he doesn't, then it'll be guesswork, as in, it could be, Injector washers, Injector, or harness, oil in ECU, fuel pump, or bad fuel .

If he desperately needs it fixed pronto, he can get it to here and I will do it when it arrives, problem with that is I'm near Albany.

Whyatts would be good as long as they are still familiar with the 20+year old TD5.

Hamelin bay isn't too bad a place to be stuck.

Originally Posted by discorevy

Whyatts would be good as long as they are still familiar with the 20+year old TD5.

I had a good experience with Whyatts 2 years ago with my TD5.

Originally Posted by PWat

I had a good experience with Whyatts 2 years ago with my TD5.

Definitely recommend Whyatts in Geraldton from personal experience. Not only have they been the LR gurus in the district for many years, but are also the RAC agents for all breakdowns, tows etc.

11 August

Shane Whyatt of Geraldton has fixed it. Injector seals were the problem.

Strange as we had had them replaced by Bruce Davies of South Windsor last year.

Shane has given us excellent service.


4 Aug 2023 Hamelin Pool, WA
Land-Rover engine fault

1. Yesterday, 3 August 2023, the engine suddenly stopped as we were turning into the Overlander roadhouse to get fuel. Because the fuel gauge does not work reliably when reading the main tank, it is difficult to keep track of how much is in that tank, so I interpreted the engine stopping as my running out of fuel, particularly as I knew we were low.
2. I went through the ‘out of fuel’ routine to re-prime the engine, prescribed in the Land-Rover owner’s manual: leave ignition off for 15 seconds, then turn on for 30 seconds. Do this 5 times and then press the accelerator to the floor and start the engine. It worked. (We ran out of fuel on the rear (main) tank between Esperance and Perth about three weeks ago. I went through the routine and the engine worked fine until it stopped yesterday.)
3. We then set off from Overlander on the road west to Denham but after five ks the engine stopped again. I repeated the re-prime sequence and off it went, only to stop again after another 5 ks. This pattern was repeated until we limped into Hamelin Pool camp site, where we spent last night.
4. When we got there, we wondered whether we had stirred up dirt in the tank by running out and whether this could have blocked the fuel filter. So, I put a new fuel filter on.
5. I drove back up the road for five ks to the junction with the main road, but it packed up at the junction. This time I gave it the computer re-set treatment (per Phil): turn ignition on and wait for the fuel pump to stop. Press the accelerator to the floor 5 times until the check engine light comes on, and then leave the ignition on until the system has cycled and the pump has stopped. Press the accelerator to the floor and start it.
6. After that, it started fine and I drove 7 ks up the road where I turned around, so I had done 15 ks by the time I got back to the Hamelin Pool turnoff, where, as I backed off the accelerator, it quit again.
7. I gave it another re-set treatment and drove back to the campground where Di noticed that fuel was streaming out of the fuel filter. It turned out that I hadn’t screwed the drain plug in the bottom in firmly enough. I did it now and the leak stopped.
8. This morning I gave the engine the re-set treatment and it started first go. But as we drove off it belched white smoke and quit only three ks up the road.
9. I gave it the re-set treatment again, but this time when I tried to start it it wouldn‘t turn over one complete revolution. It felt as though something in the combustion chamber of one cylinder was stopping the piston. I kept trying and eventually, with some unhealthy knocking sounds, it cranked and started, whereupon it ran normally until we got back to the campground. I left it running for half an hour while I talked to John and to Bruce Davis. Bruce Davis didn’t really know: could be injectors … Or dirty fuel. There is a supplementary filter in the fuel pump, he said, so it could be worth checking that.
10. John suggested checking the wire connections at the top of the fuel tank, so that combined with Bruce Davis’s suggestion makes it worthwhile to take the fuel pump out, which I will do today.
11. The other thing is that while the engine was idling for more than half an hour, it ran fine, without the knocking that we detected after it had failed to crank, but it was putting out smelly smoke the whole time, perhaps a faint bluish white colour.
12. So here we are at Hamelin Pool where we’ve got showers and toilets for $30 and we can tinker without undue stress. But the lingering thought is, what do we do if we can’t cure this? We could stagger on to Denman, perhaps, 100 ks away but if we can’t get anyone to help fix it, maybe we will have to end the trip and have it sent back to Mad Dog on a truck.

5 August: update.

1. We have decided to get the LR to Perth to Kevin Faulconbridge at Jordan Rovertech motors. He’s been recommended by John, whom we met at Hamelin Pool, and by Phil who works here and who knows Land Rovers. However, Kevin can’t start to look at until Monday 14 August. We’ve booked that date with him.
2. Yesterday I took the fuel pump out, and checked that the screen filter in the bottom wasn’t dirty. I sprayed the connector plug with contact cleaner.
3. Phil came over this morning and perfected my system for purging air. (I’ve described his system above.) It started at the end of it. I left it to idle for half an hour, by the end of which it was putting out foul-smelling diesel smoke. As I drove off that turned to white smoke, which dissipated after two ks. Soon after that, the engine started to miss, and stopped. And so on.
4. Paul, the RAC man in Denham (100 ks from here near Monkey Mia) says he can take us to Perth but it’ll be expensive. He can take us as well as the LR. But he says Steve and Shane Whyatt, LR people in Geraldton, are good. So, I’ll ring them on Monday. And they’ve got a tilt tray dual cab which could come and take us and the LR to Geraldton.

7 August 2023 update
History of LR work since March 2022
March 2022: Clutch thrust bearing seized and melted its case onto the shaft from the engine, so I had to drive 700 ks to Victor Harbor, SA, without the clutch. March 2022: New clutch, flywheel, and thrust bearing fitted by Humberstone’s garage.
After the new clutch, we had starting problems all the way back to Sydney. The Land-Rover usually starts instantly, but after the clutch replacement, especially first thing in the morning, it would take a bit of cranking before it started, but it always did.
The problem turned out to be partly that Humberstones in Victor Harbor had put the starter bolts in but not done them up, so by the time we got back to Sydney, it was nearly falling off. We fixed that, but in May or June 2022, the LR started a new problem: it would drive normally for about 8 ks, then stop altogether and not start for about half an hour, after which it started and ran normally until I was almost back at home. This pattern was repeated.
Crank Angle Sensor. We replaced the crank angle sensor, but this did not fix the problem. Then it turned out that the clutch replacers had pulled one of the wires off the crank angle sensor and not re-attached it properly. We fixed that, and the car fault was much improved, but starting still hesitant.
Injector Seals Bruce Davis in south Windsor, Sydney, replaced the injector seals and copper washers in July 2022. That improved the starting, but did not altogether cure the problem.
EGR valve. I deleted this in August 2022 in accordance with online advice.
Fuel pump. I put in a new fuel pump in December 2022. Starting problems continued, but car ran OK once started.
Fuel pressure regulator. In March 2023 my son John rebuilt the regulator with a kit. He tested the resulting pressure and it was correct.
Crank angle sensor wiring. In April 2023 Bruce Davis, the LR man in Sydney, found that the clutch installers in Victor Harbor in March 2022 had pulled the wires off while removing the gearbox and had replaced them in reversed order. Bruce’s man Tino found this out and replaced them in correct positions. This greatly improved the starting, although it gradually appeared that I still needed to give the fuel pump about an extra ten seconds before engaging the starter first thing in the morning.
Fuel Cooler. In June 2023 coolant leaked from the fuel cooler. I took it apart and fitted new seals. It has been fine since.
Present problem: car will only start after I go through the 5-stroke purging procedure each time, whether the car has run recently or not. It runs well and normally for 4 or 5 ks and then misses and stops.

[4 Aug 2023 Hamelin Pool, WA
Land-Rover engine fault

1. Yesterday, 3 August 2023, the engine suddenly stopped as we were turning into the Overlander roadhouse to get fuel. Because the fuel gauge does not work reliably when reading the main tank, it is difficult to keep track of how much is in that tank, so I interpreted the engine stopping as my running out of fuel, particularly as I knew we were low.
2. I went through the ‘out of fuel’ routine to re-prime the engine, prescribed in the Land-Rover owner’s manual: leave ignition off for 15 seconds, then turn on for 30 seconds. Do this 5 times and then press the accelerator to the floor and start the engine. It worked. (We ran out of fuel on the rear (main) tank between Esperance and Perth about three weeks ago. I went through the routine and the engine worked fine until it stopped yesterday.)
3. We then set off from Overlander on the road west to Denham but after five ks the engine stopped again. I repeated the re-prime sequence and off it went, only to stop again after another 5 ks. This pattern was repeated until we limped into Hamelin Pool camp site, where we spent last night.
4. When we got there, we wondered whether we had stirred up dirt in the tank by running out and whether this could have blocked the fuel filter. So, I put a new fuel filter on.
5. I drove back up the road for five ks to the junction with the main road, but it packed up at the junction. This time I gave it the computer re-set treatment (per Phil): turn ignition on and wait for the fuel pump to stop. Press the accelerator to the floor 5 times until the check engine light comes on, and then leave the ignition on until the system has cycled and the pump has stopped. Press the accelerator to the floor and start it.
6. After that, it started fine and I drove 7 ks up the road where I turned around, so I had done 15 ks by the time I got back to the Hamelin Pool turnoff, where, as I backed off the accelerator, it quit again.
7. I gave it another re-set treatment and drove back to the campground where Di noticed that fuel was streaming out of the fuel filter. It turned out that I hadn’t screwed the drain plug in the bottom in firmly enough. I did it now and the leak stopped.
8. This morning I gave the engine the re-set treatment and it started first go. But as we drove off it belched white smoke and quit only three ks up the road.
9. I gave it the re-set treatment again, but this time when I tried to start it it wouldn‘t turn over one complete revolution. It felt as though something in the combustion chamber of one cylinder was stopping the piston. I kept trying and eventually, with some unhealthy knocking sounds, it cranked and started, whereupon it ran normally until we got back to the campground. I left it running for half an hour while I talked to John and to Bruce Davis. Bruce Davis didn’t really know: could be injectors … Or dirty fuel. There is a supplementary filter in the fuel pump, he said, so it could be worth checking that.
10. John suggested checking the wire connections at the top of the fuel tank, so that combined with Bruce Davis’s suggestion makes it worthwhile to take the fuel pump out, which I will do today.
11. The other thing is that while the engine was idling for more than half an hour, it ran fine, without the knocking that we detected after it had failed to crank, but it was putting out smelly smoke the whole time, perhaps a faint bluish white colour.
12. So here we are at Hamelin Pool where we’ve got showers and toilets for $30 and we can tinker without undue stress. But the lingering thought is, what do we do if we can’t cure this? We could stagger on to Denman, perhaps, 100 ks away but if we can’t get anyone to help fix it, maybe we will have to end the trip and have it sent back to Mad Dog on a truck.

5 August: update.

1. We have decided to get the LR to Perth to Kevin Faulconbridge at Jordan Rovertech motors. He’s been recommended by John, whom we met at Hamelin Pool, and by Phil who works here and who knows Land Rovers. However, Kevin can’t start to look at until Monday 14 August. We’ve booked that date with him.
2. Yesterday I took the fuel pump out, and checked that the screen filter in the bottom wasn’t dirty. I sprayed the connector plug with contact cleaner.
3. Phil came over this morning and perfected my system for purging air. (I’ve described his system above.) It started at the end of it. I left it to idle for half an hour, by the end of which it was putting out foul-smelling diesel smoke. As I drove off that turned to white smoke, which dissipated after two ks. Soon after that, the engine started to miss, and stopped. And so on.
4. Paul, the RAC man in Denham (100 ks from here near Monkey Mia) says he can take us to Perth but it’ll be expensive. He can take us as well as the LR. But he says Steve and Shane Whyatt, LR people in Geraldton, are good. So, I’ll ring them on Monday. And they’ve got a tilt tray dual cab which could come and take us and the LR to Geraldton.

7 August 2023 update
History of LR work since March 2022
March 2022: Clutch thrust bearing seized and melted its case onto the shaft from the engine, so I had to drive 700 ks to Victor Harbor, SA, without the clutch. March 2022: New clutch, flywheel, and thrust bearing fitted by Humberstone’s garage.
After the new clutch, we had starting problems all the way back to Sydney. The Land-Rover usually starts instantly, but after the clutch replacement, especially first thing in the morning, it would take a bit of cranking before it started, but it always did.
The problem turned out to be partly that Humberstones in Victor Harbor had put the starter bolts in but not done them up, so by the time we got back to Sydney, it was nearly falling off. We fixed that, but in May or June 2022, the LR started a new problem: it would drive normally for about 8 ks, then stop altogether and not start for about half an hour, after which it started and ran normally until I was almost back at home. This pattern was repeated.
Crank Angle Sensor. We replaced the crank angle sensor, but this did not fix the problem. Then it turned out that the clutch replacers had pulled one of the wires off the crank angle sensor and not re-attached it properly. We fixed that, and the car fault was much improved, but starting still hesitant.
Injector Seals Bruce Davis in south Windsor, Sydney, replaced the injector seals and copper washers in July 2022. That improved the starting, but did not altogether cure the problem.
EGR valve. I deleted this in August 2022 in accordance with online advice.
Fuel pump. I put in a new fuel pump in December 2022. Starting problems continued, but car ran OK once started.
Fuel pressure regulator. In March 2023 my son John rebuilt the regulator with a kit. He tested the resulting pressure and it was correct.
Crank angle sensor wiring. In April 2023 Bruce Davis, the LR man in Sydney, found that the clutch installers in Victor Harbor in March 2022 had pulled the wires off while removing the gearbox and had replaced them in reversed order. Bruce’s man Tino found this out and replaced them in correct positions. This greatly improved the starting, although it gradually appeared that I still needed to give the fuel pump about an extra ten seconds before engaging the starter first thing in the morning.
Fuel Cooler. In June 2023 coolant leaked from the fuel cooler. I took it apart and fitted new seals. It has been fine since.
Present problem: car will only start after I go through the 5-stroke purging procedure each time, whether the car has run recently or not. It runs well and normally for 4 or 5 ks and then misses and stops.

QUOTE=MDAkinc;3174849]My td5 Defender 130 (2002, 232,000 ks) runs and drives perfectly for about 15 minutes, and then the engine stops and the check engine light comes on. Attempts to restart it result in it firing feebly on 1 or 2 cylinders, but not enough to keep it going.

Then, if I leave it for about half an hour, it suddenly recovers and drives normally until the next cut-out, etc etc.

In my attempt to solve this problem I have put in a new fuel pump, a new fuel filter, and the two air bleed valves in the fuel filter connectors. All to no avail.

Another symptom, possibly a red herring, is that the fuel filter gets very hot. I don't know if this is normal or not.

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

Kinc[/QUOTE]