Knackered 300TDI

[Siska]

On the weekend I changed the timing belt on my 300 TDI Defender. All went smoothly and drove well afterwards. I was planning on doing an oil change and filter at the same time but ran out of time. I also noticed that the leak from the rocker cover gasket had gotten a whole lot worse than it was when I previously checked. I checked the oil and it was registering at the bottom of the dip stick, so thought that seeing I was going to do an oil change I wouldn't bother topping it up.
Until this morning I had driven it 250-300km and all was running smoothly.

Driving it to work this morning about 35km into my 60km trip the oil light flashed on for about 1.5 seconds. It then started making a bit of a top end rattle/clicking that increased/decreased with engine revs. I drove to the nearest petrol station and put in a liter of oil. This made no difference to the new rattle. I then drove it a further 15km to the nearest Land Rover repairer. I popped the bonnet and the mechanics couldn't hear the noise/rattle that I was referring too.
One of them took it for a drive around the block with me as a passenger. It still had plenty of power and in the passenger seat I couldn't really pick up the noise. When we stopped we noticed a big pool of oil on the ground and checked the back of the engine and the rocker cover was pouring oil. Checked the dipstick and there was no oil showing on that.
The mechanics replaced the rocker cover gasket, and topped up the oil. It took 3 liters They cleaned the back of the engine etc. They told me because it had been so low on oil they couldn't gaurentee that there had been no internal damage. They also told me to check oil daily and hopefully I'd dodged a bullet.
Well I got in and started it up. Still could hear the rattle/ticking/clicking noise. Thought I'd take mechanics advise and just see how it went. Thought it may have been a bit under powered on the way home, but then also thought that I may have been just overthinking/stressing about every little thing. About 2km from home I had to stop at an intersection, and when I took off I noticed it was blowing a bit of black smoke. I continued accelerating and engine made a big death rattle and lost most of its power. I was luckily right outside a mates house so pulled into his drive.

I turned the engine off as soon as I could. When my mate came out I turned it over and it started first flick of the key and doesn't sound too bad, but as soon as i gave it some revs it made a ca dunk ca dunk type of sound. I immediately shut the engine down again.

Obviously something serious has occurred and it's not looking too good. Just wondering what the worst case scenarios are, and what would some realistic costs/prices be to have this repaired? I know this is a bit of a how long is a piece of string question, but hoping to get some rough ball park ideas.

Cheers

[steveG]

Doesn't sound too good.
Wondering if it could be a combination of issues, since I wouldn't have thought that low oil would have caused it to blow black smoke.
I'm thinking along the lines of something going wrong with the timing belt change and the oil issue is a bit of a furphy.
I've got a surplus 300tdi sitting here, so PM me if it turns out to be catastrophic and you need something to get mobile.

Steve

[Dougal]

Sounds like oil loss has damaged the turbo.

[Blknight.aus]

the rocker shafts got the rockers siezing onto the shaft.

when you're down on power its because the valves arent closing and you're loosing compression, if its really bad the clackering noise is the pistons closing the valves for you.

the oil will be feeding up around the thread and shank of the rocker cover bolts and working past the seal.

you also probably havent seated the seal properly if its leaking that badly that quickly.

I have V8Ians tdi300 sitting here looking for a home if you want it....

[Siska]

Thanks for the replies. It's off to the mechanics today to get assessed. Not sure what to hope for. Thanks for the offers of replacement engines, but now living in NZ that will make things a bit hard.

Just wondering if it will be cheaper/easier to replace the engine does anyone know of a decent source in NZ with reasonable prices? I'm hoping Dougal might know of someone?

[Dougal]

Just wondering if it will be cheaper/easier to replace the engine does anyone know of a decent source in NZ with reasonable prices? I'm hoping Dougal might know of someone?

You won't have much luck in NZ. Stuff here gets driven into the ground. There was one 300tdi for sale from the dodgiest wrecker I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with.

[heathanconcrete]

Sounds like you've stuffed up something with the timing belt change , it can be a tricky job.
The lesson to take from this is keep a very close eye on oil consumption after any work ;-)