Td1 towing.

Hi There,
My box trailer is 520kgs empty, and I notice there is a slight performance decrease when towing up hills.
It is an ex military trailer (which will soon be up for sale .. sighs ! :( ), so has 'block tread' tyres and is wider then the D1

I have found that if the TC is locked up, then it's not an issue (my TC locks up around 78kph in 3rd or 4th).

At lower speeds when the TC is not locked up, the performance is not the greatest, but its still overtakes vehicles of similar size and weight, so it comes down to the fact that its a relatively small 4 cylinder diesel.

I did notice a performance increase after:

- 200,000km service (clearances, fuel filter etc)
- manually operating the transmission when TC is not locked
- look ahead and drive to the coming terrain, if you see a big hill, knock it back a gear and then build up some momentum

I have been told that the 4.2turbo diesel Patrol is handy at towing, though the $$$$ are pretty high.

Brad

Yes the 300 tdi is low on power.

I drove company Landcruisers all over the territory once, and yes they go great, but the Disco has character. I much prefer British design. I'm a sentimentalist.

I am in the middle of carrying out the fuel mods mentioned in may postings to my 1995 300 tdi auto. So far the HP increase is noticable. Once I put in the EGT and Boost Gauge, I will be able to see how far I can tweak things without blowing it up.

I have towed a >2 tonne trailer with it, over the Blue Mountains, and yes, I was the slowest vehicle on the road, but I did not buy the 300 tdi as a sports car but rather as an all rounder as its never missed a beat. Solid as a rock.

check the throttle cable, SWMBOS disco lost all power going up toowoomba range the plastic adjuster had cracked and the cable had pulled through.

it might be as simple as redoing the adjustment.

For what it's worth, recently I towed our newly acquired Cub Daintree LE Camper from Toowoomba to Adelaide via Melbourne and return.

Weight being towed would have been around 900kg with all the stuff I had piled on top, especially on the way back to Qld.

Yes it wasn't the quickest vehicle on the road. That being said I kept up with the traffic just fine except for the major inclines.

I'm not a fan of working it in lockup... black smoke and EGT's go up (no gauge but that's what I'm thinking happens). For those big and long hills I'm happy to just ease off to 80-90km/hr, wack it back in 3rd (auto box) and not stress the old girl too much.

I have a larger intercooler fitted but have had the fuel screw wound back a little compared to how the dyno dude set it... sure there was more power with the way he had it, but also black smoke coming out the exhaust pipe up those hills, and I didn't like that.

dont touch the fuel pump.

If you want more oomph:

- check you've got good compression on all cylinders
- get your valve clearances spot on
- get your injectors tested/serviced/renewed
- enlarge intercooler
- better flowing exhaust
- hybrid/VNT turbo, same kind of boost pressures but kicks in at lower revs.

Fit an EGT gauge if you have not got one already. Regardless of whether you intend to play with you tdi's fuelling, even tdi's running stock can get dangerously high EGTs towing large loads up big hills! Any or all of the above can lead to more power and intercool/exhaust improvements will lower EGT's.

After cracking a tdi between the valves from high EGTs as a result of fuel tweaks my advice is fit the EGT gauge first and leave the fuel tweak till last.

Oh and then theres gearing. Defender 1:4 ratio transfer box would help when towing but would be poor on the moterway when not. A less drastic ratio change can be made at the difs if you fancy stronger R&P's with a range of non standard ratios - check out ashcrofts.

My 99 TDI is certainly not a power pack but thats not why I bought it. I tow a 6x4 with up to 3 bikes or a 15 ft pop top van and have learnt to just sit back and enjoy the scenery. I would suggest you fit an after market temp gauge first, when I fitted mine I was shocked at the water temp after a long climb. 92 isnt uncommon before I back off a bit. Im going to fit a bigger intercooler to try to gain a bit of top end and a EGT gauge.

The way I see it is, Performance, Economy, Luxury. Pick 2. I chose Economy-Luxury.

Dave

A couple of years ago when I had my 300TDI manual, I towed a loaded camper trailer and family of 5 from LIsmore to Perth and back. All up about 8000kms over 4 weeks. Average fuel consumption was 8.5 l/100kms. When driving without the camper I used to get 8 l/100kms. Can't get anywhere near that with and Patrol or Cruiser I would reckon.