Thread: If not the red ECU plug, what next?

You may have to clean it a few times as there will still be oil in the harness.

After getting the engine side loom replaced on Charlie, I had to clean the loom from the engine to the ecu a couple of times over a few months to get the last residual oil out.

Cheers

Steve

Hello,
I have just been though this and spent he last 2 days getting rid of the oil, I fitted new injection harness, no oil in the red plug that I could see but gave it spray and still missing.... so the plug on the engine harness that plugs into the injection harness there is a rubber seal on the wire side of this carefully prize this out and clean with a airline and brake clean and cotton buds, still had trouble so I scrubbed the outside of the red plug took the ecu apart no oil but cleaned out anyway cotton buds and brake clean again..... so today driving around with no missing at all......... I love my D2
Ian

Originally Posted by jmac

I have ordered a new injector harness, but I had expected that cleaning up the red plug would give instant, if temporary, results. Is this not the case?

Hi, real results you can expect only after you replace the harness cos the problem is at the plugs to solenoids...there is the bad contact and there starts the oil ingress...and clean the upper plug too as Ian said not just the red plug

Many thanks to all replies. I will keep cleaning, flushing etc, and replace the injector harness later this week. People scorn the D2 for reliability problems but ours has, as stated, the best part of 400000 on the clock and until this minor issue was running like a Swiss watch. I fully expect a catastrophic engine failure sometime next week now that I have said this.

Originally Posted by jmac

Hi All
I'm a new member as I have just 'inherited' a 2001 td5 manual Disco with 355000k's showing. It has been my wife's car (she has just bought a brand-new Defender) for a few years, and until Sunday was running beautifully. Now it seems to be missing on one or more cylinders at idle, smooths out a bit above about 1500rpm but accelerates only with reluctance. Starting is intermittent only and it is pretty much un-driveable. The red ECU plug was quite oily, so for the purposes of diagnosis I gave both sides of it a good flush out with metho and reconnected it. Starting more reliably now but still missing at idle. Can anybody suggest the next logical step? I have ordered a new injector harness, but I had expected that cleaning up the red plug would give instant, if temporary, results. Is this not the case?

Could be Fuel pump , Is it noisey

Originally Posted by rangieman

Could be Fuel pump , Is it noisey

That's what happened to ours, although no noise at all. Missing on idle and drive-ability was very poor. Dismissed the fuel pump initially as it started, and drove (kind of).

Swapped the injector harness, at first I thought it fixed the issue but went back to running on a couple of cylinders up the road. Unscrewed the fuel filter and bingo... no fuel pressure? The pump was dead but the car still drove? although very poor. No complaining as my wife managed to limp home in it when the issue appeared.

$500 for a new VDO pump and she was fixed.

i agree it can be the fuel pump by the symptoms but you'll never get high pressure at the filter even if the pump is good cos only the low pressure feed is through the filter the HP feed goes directly to the FPR which keeps the constant 4 bar in the rail and lets back only what exceeds that...the best way the check the pump is to addapt a gauge to be able to fit it instead of the FT sensor in the FPR...then if you dont get 4 bar there the pump is gone

it happens often that the high pressure stage of the pump doesnt work and the engine runs at idle or witout load on the low pressure feed which works, being a sealed circuit it can run on a self sustained fuel flow, IMO it's happening inside something like in boyle's self flowing flask... so there is the chance to hear the pump running but to not have enough pressure...the certain case is when the pump is completely dead and no sound comes from it

OK, fuel pump next, if injector harness/ red plug clean doesn't work. Do the easy stuff first! I can hear the fuel pump whining when the car is powered up, but then it stops after a few seconds so I assumed it was reaching a satisfactory pressure level then stopping. On any other car, with those symptoms, it would almost definately be a fuel flow issue, I think. Thanks again for replies and help, car not fixed yet but I am no longer stabbing in the dark.