Thread: TD5 advice.

Have you checked for oil in the injector loom and ECU plug?
This is the most common reason for rough running.
Also , does the temp gauge come up to the central position. I found mine ran rough when the temp sensor plug got dirty, although I still had plenty of power.
I assume that you have the correct gasket in the FPR, and that you checked the filter basket behind the FPR for blockage.
The next common problem is that your injector washers are leaking badly.
Regards Philip A

Check that you have got the lines into the fuel pump in their correct ports
the td5 will run if a few are wrong (can’t remember which) .

Cheers,
Paul.

Originally Posted by PhilipA

Have you checked for oil in the injector loom and ECU plug?
This is the most common reason for rough running.
Also , does the temp gauge come up to the central position. I found mine ran rough when the temp sensor plug got dirty, although I still had plenty of power.
I assume that you have the correct gasket in the FPR, and that you checked the filter basket behind the FPR for blockage.
The next common problem is that your injector washers are leaking badly.
Regards Philip A

Thanks Philip.
Loom has been replaced a few months back.
ECU plug was checked, and came back clean.
I remember wires were quite brittle on old loom, so I assume that it's been on the car for a while(BTW, no idea on history of the car too).
Coolant Temp running at: gauge just a whisker over half. Nanocom shows a steady 88-89 in almost 99.9% of driving situations.

It is a 2003, which came up with the three hose FPR and it's particular gasket on the search at the parts supplier.

This filter basket interests me. Not being a TD5 type, I have seen one comment about some filter on the FPR, by Mario(roverlord) that went something like make sure you don't lose or damage it as it's expensive ...
Didn't see any filter. small thick o ring in head and just the gasket.
According to Rave the three bolts only needed 25Nm, so we 'estimated' 25Nm + a little extra just in case. But in the end, only the torque of a wheel nut would stop the dripping from the gasket side of the FPR.
Major worry was obviously not to strip the threads in the head!.
Could excessive(but necessary) tightness in the bolts cause issues from the FPR.
Head surface was triple checked and even tho it was hard to definitely see, the small metal ruler seemed to confirm flatness of the mating surface. But again as access is less than zero this was only really an 'estimate' by eye.
At least we got the leak stopped.
The original leak seemed to be more from the little round regulator thing(I'm assuming).

ps. I have read up on a bit of info re the TD5 on here, but as I'm more a 300Tdi type .. most of the flow of TD5 info is 'in one ear, out the other'

As for injector leakage(o-ring or washers) my understanding is that any leak will fill the sump with oil. Way beyond quintuple checks on that front. Oil is still clean (very light smear of black) from the service about 2-3K klms ago. Level is good.
I've read about leaking injectors .. what other obvious symptoms are noticable from it.

Nanocom injector balances had me a little worried(only in that I don't know what are good values).
From memory some are at -20, others at -10 to -15, but two are in +5 to +10 range at about 60k/h and 2K rpm.
At idle they look a lot more similar at -5 to 5 ranges(give or take a small amount here and there).

One thing I don't like that my brother does is his insistence on doing more than one priming stint at a time .. sometimes 5 in a row!
If he does just the one, starting up is basically instant. A sec or two of spinning up and start.
If he does 3 or more in a row .. the engine 'hydraulics' itself. I'm assuming injectors and or cylinders over full with fuel or something like that.
Engine takes dozens of very short shots of starter to slowly get some movement from it.

(Now that I've seen him do this, I'll remember to use that method to lock the engine up so hard to help tighten the harmonic balancer up! )

That last bit about the priming and hydraulic lock is a worry, and I'd suggest the injector washers are leaking.
Someone concur with this?PhilipA??

Well I am no expert but it could point to injector washers.

The oil will only rise if the Orings at the top of the injectors are leaking into the rocker cover.

The injector washers will cause compression to leak into the fuel gallery and cause hard starting and reduced power. In the extreme I guess they could cause fuel to leak into a cylinder if primed over and over but remember the pressure is only 40PSI unless the engine is turned over or running so who knows.

The filter basket referred to sits under the big fat Oring under the FPR.

It is not a good sign if you had to overtighten the bolts as the gasket is a crush type and should seal properly with the correct torque. I wonder if the fat o ring slipped out of place.

My method of operation is that if something changed after you /I was working on a certain area, go back and double check your work in that area.

Cool. o ring was checked again prior to final fitting of FPR. 99% likelyhood that it didn't slip out off or down.
My method to fit the FPR(brother couldn't do it) was to fit the two top bolts up by just enough to hold gasket into place, brother then did the bottom bolt through wheel arch gap.
Because my arm and hand was so bruised trying to get to those two top bolts, we then swapped.
So(from below again) I then held the FPR against the head whilst he did the two top bolts, and I then did up the bottom bolt.
We then torqued them up, he the top two and me the bottom one communicating to each other when to do each one.
Prior to tightening the FPR against the head, we both did a final peek to be sure that the o ring was still in place while the gap was large enough to peek through.

The only chance that the o ring had to move from the final peek was then I pushed the FPR against the head for him to do the top bolts.
That o ring sat partially in the head, but a small portion also sat proud of the surface which made it easily seen.

Is that the way the o ring is supposed to sit in it's recess? Or all the way in?
I'm assuming it seals against the gasket considering it's location.

This filter basket is something I'm curious about now. Neither is saw it or noticed it in any way.
I'm thinking if its partially blocked in some way this could definitely cause a loss of power at speed, but then allowing low speed travel(ie. fuel flow issue).

The workings of the FPR gasket makes sense, and I guessed that anyhow due to the strange shapes of the ridges.

What actually happened was that our first attempt to fit the FPR was totally disastrous and we didn't see the o ring to begin with.
Fitted up FPR and first gasket and with ignition on fuel pump then forced enough fuel for us to drown under from the leak around the FPR-gasket mating face.
We got new gasket and o ring, fitted o ring this time .. and then the leak we found was small dribbly drops.
On removing the FPR first time around, my 3/8 drive socket set simply didn't have enough torque to undo the bolts had to use an extension on the short ish handle I have in 3/8 drive.
Bottom bolt needed a 1/2 drive long extensions and a breaker bar .. and much groaning and swearing.
I'm estimating at least 100Nm .. almost certainly more tho .. Having done and redone my 300 Tdi harmonic balancer (at 80Nm) I reckon I have enough feel for 80-100Nm now!
It's hard to tell how much I had to use on the bottom bolt tho(due to extensions) but less than the 80Nm I'm now used too.

Is there an sure fire easy way to remove this filter/basket thing without losing it or damaging it?
If it's a good quality stainless material then a magnet will probably be no good and I won't risk poking into that recess either?
Would air into the spill return line 'push' it out?

I resisted removing the inlet manifold, as it'd have made the entire job a massive job, rather than a big job.
If we remove inlet, then I'd be inclined to get it cleaned as well, and if doing that then also do the I/C too .. (he installed new silicon turbo hoses recently too).

Arthur,
you appear to have gone above and beyond the call of duty for your brother, and have covered off on lots of stuff, and described situation very clearly.
the last bit, and at risk of asking silly questions, about replacing the IC hose. Are you 100% certain that the hose ends are still secure? I replaced mine, and the blighter slipped off repeatedly, causing everything you have described...... A handful of ant nest on the silicone hose was the temporary fix, a "T" type clamp sorted it......

Thanks for the tip.
Will double check it again.
Did you lose any pressure in the manifold, or does the turbo pressure reading come from the turbo side of the system?
They use a sensor on the inlet as far as I can see, so I'd have thought a drop in pressure would be an indicator for that.

Nanocom seems to be reading fine .. it does get to 1.2 kPa under hard acceleration.
General readings for ambient pressure is just a smidge under 1kPa or so ... 0.997 and suchlike.

This feels like fuel starvation, as when it does die(engine stop), it's then very hard to start(like no fuel) and then does the chittty-chitty start after a few minutes of cranking + pumping pedal.
(ps. never crank for more than about 10-20sec on the starter .. don't want to kill starter either!)
Things we've tried for quicker start are fuel priming where I'm only doing one sequence(brother does 3 or more in a row) and just having ignition on for 20-30sec for pump to operate to get fuel up to the injectors.
Neither methods will help to start it easily after a shutdown episode.

Car starts instantly if it hasn't experienced a shutdown episode tho.

I'm curious about what and how the car runs if it experiences a limp home mode?
This is sort of what this may feel like.
Whatever this issue is, it just wont' allow the car to travel past 60k/h .. and up to 60k/h it feels normal.