Thread: 300 Tdi won't start...just out of the blue!

Okay I didn't get low on fuel or anything...although I did probably leave it get pretty low before I filled up last time but it was still going fine but the "low fuel" light had just come on. It's been running for the past 460km just fine though so surely if getting too low on fuel had done some damage wouldn't it had shown up straight away?

I had gone out and checked the air filter before I read your post and there was nothing but a couple of dead bees in the box under the filter, but something I did notice was a pretty strong LPG smell when I took the top of the air filter box off. It went away but there was definitely some LPG sitting in there somewhere.

I'll have a look for that fuel shut off wire if there's enough light.

Just wondering how dead a battery has to be before it won't start a diesel engine like this one? Does it just need to be enough to do something very little or do I need a couple of cranks if it's flooded a little? Can a diesel engine even get flooded?

The reason I ask is that I can't seem to start my car at all now and after one or two very tired cranks the batter wears out and starts clicking, but I didn't think a diesel really needed much of a battery to start...???

Originally Posted by Ean Austral

Have you taken the oil filler cap off to see if the tappets are moving when cranking. Some D1's had a bad batch of cam drive pully's and the belts rode off the pulley and broke.

Dont think your initial symptoms point that way, but maybe it could of started to go and the timing slipped before it finally broke...A long shot, but an easy check.

I think from memory the D1 fuel pump also has a fuse, could be worth checking..

Cheers Ean

Cheers for that, checked the fuse and both fuse 6 and 7 still intact.

bad batteries can show 12.7V on the multimeter but won't crank at all, just clicks on the relay. New battery will only take a 1/4 to 1/2 turn of the engine to get going. This is all well and good if the starter is in good condition. Mine wore out the brushes down to the braided wire after 13yrs, and $300 later(New brushes installed) back to new and cranking well.
Gas smells in the airbox makes me think you have gas leaking into the induction system, just like crappy old falcon gas systems that would not let you start the car on petrol or gas.
See if you can clutch start the car on diesel only, even if it means disconnecting the gas system to make sure it's not the gas system causing the problems. Clutch starting should only take about 3-5metres if the engine is running properly on diesel. like others have said, check the fuel shutoff wire at the back of the injection pump. this also leads to the infamous "Spider" immobiliser headache.

Good luck.

PS: Ritter won't return calls on parts enquires. I gave up and am going to TRS spares in SA, cause i'm in Darwin. Was in Melb last week and they were pretty lazy with their sales support.

Hey mate

I just chimed in.

Sounds strange.

Should u try a push start, put in low range 2nd, that way only a little push over a short range is required.

I do believe when I put the two batteries in which are relatively new, your starter battery is not really up to the task. It takes a lot of grunt to crank a high compression motor.

Also, try and also get the plugs to warm up if you have them. There is a reason for them being there and means the temperature in your conbustion chamber is preheated and when the air gets compressed and fuel is added on maximum compression, less unburnt fuel is washed down side walls and out of exhaust. Engineers spend a lot of time and money on RD, Go with it.

Try jump starting from the 2nd battery perhaps.

It sounds very strange, u didnt put petrol in the tank at any stage???

Hehe nope definitely didn't put petrol in but you never know sometimes, I too will always ask the obvious questions because some people tend to overlook the most obvious things

I spoke to Bee Utey and as he's mentioned before there is a small chance that when I filled up the LPG tank to full and drove a short distance then stopped a bit of LPG might have made its way into somewhere it shouldn't be, then made a bit of a mess next time I started it...could this account for the "detonation" noise I might have been hearing?

I remember you saying Big Guy that I should have swapped out the starter battery in your car for the brand new one I put in my other V8 but it was already part of the sale so I couldn't just pilfer it I will get a new one though because like you say it's not the strongest battery and I think that may be my problem now...I just need to give it a good cranking and it will probably spew a bit of smoke and get going. Not sure if it's worth a trip to Ritters though.

I never start the car without the glow plug light going out, I've been driving diesels for a while now through work cars and am aware that it just starts straight away when the plugs are warm...that's if they're working properly I guess but I haven't had a problem with them so far. Did you ever put new glow plugs in?

I have a work car with a strong battery which I can jump start with but the silly problem is when I came home last I drove the Disco in to my driveway front first and I can't get the other damn car close enough for the leads to reach...IDIOT! I can roll it down the drive way and then jump it but if it doesn't go it will be stuck sticking out of my driveway nearly on to the road and I don't really want that!

What the heck...I'll give it a go and deal with it afterwards if it doesn't work hahahaha

Okay then I rolled it back and used the work car (a pretty horrible SsangYong Musso...seriously probably the worst car I've ever driven) with its nice big battery to jump start the Disco. It cranked a few times sounding a bit tired but wouldn't fire so I thought I was stuck there so I let it sit a bit more to charge up...then gave it another couple of cranks and it fired and away it went! Blew a big giant puff of smoke out the back which is probably all the fuel that was sitting in there from me trying previously but after that it ran fine. I even stopped it and started it again a few times to see if I heard that horrible loud clatter again but I couldn't hear it and it started first time every time no worries.

So in conclusion the injector pump seems to be fine, the fuel lift pump seems to be fine, and everything seems to be okay at this stage...apart from my start up battery so tomorrow on the way back from work I'm going to get me a good one to replace it with.

From all the information I've gathered about this and my LPG system from Bee Utey and my limited knowledge of everything I'm going to guess that the clatter noise that I heard first was a bit of LPG from a newly filled tank getting in to where it shouldn't be. Then because it worried me I sat there turning the car off and on a couple of times to see if the noise was still there and in the process flattened an already weak battery so much that when the car got home and sat overnight it didn't have any guts left the morning after hence not starting. I can only assume that now the LPG has been burnt out of where ever it shouldn't have been and hopefully I can avoid it happening again because the noise didn't sound all that flash.

Hopefully that's all it was...

Put that battery on charge if possible, Its still under warranty actually, receipt should be in the folder I gave.I believe its nationwide.

I never put new plugs in but had the ones in there tested and the spray pattern was fine. Took it to diesel tuner after the LPG was fitted and in conjunction with the EGT gauge had it checked and tuned bu a diesel tuner. Receipt should also be in the folder.

You may wanna check the alternator for charge rate but its a newish Alternator so that should check out o.k also.

To get you out of trouble, just swap batteries over, the 2nd one is not a cranking battery but will be fine for a little while.

Cheers