Thread: Shoot me I've purchased a lemon!! DOH!!

Hey All,

Having some sad times at the moment and would be really gratefully for any help and advise.

Will try and keep short...bought a 96 300tdi 290K...2 weeks ago to travel oz in. Looked sounded an felt fine on test drive but the gears where clunky but careful slow changes seemed to help so I bought it....

Since then this is what has happened...

Head Gasket failed forcing compression in to coolant. Overheating and then coolant streaming out of cap

Battery dead

Aircon compressor bearing REALLY loud!

Lights intermittent brakes sides etc.

Oil leak at the gearbox side off transfer case

Power steering sqeaks slightly

Gears really gudder and clunk if I'm not careful with the clutch and the peddle seems to judder when depressed.

.............Ok so theses are the problems and this is what I've done.

Lights fix

Battery replaced

Rinsed and shook radiator, flushed and back flushed all pipes, block and matrix until clear (cooling system was filthy with brown shiz!)

In process of ordering and replacing bearing in compressor wheel

Head Gasket replaced with a friend. Skimmed, pressure test, reseat, cleaned block and follow torques and rave manual to the letter.

Oil, Oil filter, thermostat and airfilter replaced

Temp sits below half up hills and under load so all good there

So heres the main problem that I can't seem to google an answer for.

When I start the engine from cold theres large amounts of black and then white/blue smoke and it STINKS of diesel or at least I think it's diesel. The white smoke settles after a minute or so but the smell is still very strong. It will blow smoke when I press accelerator and there is also black smoke randomly coming out when driving. I've done 200km since head was replaced. I'm not convinced that the valve clearance have been done properly as my mate seemed to think they where fine :-/ I wasn't around when this happened so just thought I'd mention it. No water in oil sump, or filler cap and no dripping of water from exhaust which is a relief. Ticks over nicely, doesn't seem to run rough thro the revs. Oil filler cap has the moves like jagger but doesn't get blown off but you can feel a very slight chuffing but no visible smoke.

It seems to pull away very slow at low revs then the turbo kicks in and it seems to accelrate well, then when the revs get to between 4200-5000 it seems to not want to pull hard. Not sure if this is normal as this is the first Disco I've drove.

So many problems, so little cash to fix them with.

Any ideas to the smoking. I'm Spending every spare second trying to get this beast back in good form

If I do get to the bottom of all this I do intend on updating this thread so that hopefully someone else can benefit.

Thank

"...Head Gasket replaced with a friend. Skimmed, pressure test, reseat, cleaned block and follow torques and rave manual to the letter...."


- There's your problem, using a friend instead of a new gasket...
-- After being skimmed, pressurised cleaned out and talked into submission.... no wonder you've got problems !

Wot Isuzu sed... sure you have'nt moved your timing (belt) by even one notch ?


You have'nt bought a lemon, merely paid too much for what you've got. - I know the feeling , so not in a position to take the shot.