Thread: A few lessons learnt.

Wow! thats one flogged Fender!. Thanks for the entertaining and informative post. Gee, you must have given it heaps!!!. Agreed, the Pootrol will have more power and a stronger driveline but I do not think it would come away unscathed either. How did you twist that driveshaft?!.
Regards
Robbo.

Originally Posted by robbotd5

Wow! thats one flogged Fender!. Thanks for the entertaining and informative post. Gee, you must have given it heaps!!!. Agreed, the Pootrol will have more power and a stronger driveline but I do not think it would come away unscathed either. How did you twist that driveshaft?!.
Regards
Robbo.

Hard landing after being air bourne whilst on the limiter in 2nd or 3rd low with the tyres at 10 psi and a rear locker.

I was trying to get to the top of a dune and get a winch line down to secure a prado which was on the verve of rolling. The prado was stuck side ways on a slip face with 2 wheels off the ground, the only thing stopping it going over was the sh1tty plastic side steps that prados have wedged into the sand.

I ended up flying over to the UK for a day and a half shopping trip for the rebuild as getting TD5 parts in Dubai is quite hard, especially stuff like head, main and big end bolts the prices over there are also much cheaper than here. I ended up coming back with out 50 kgs of gear including my new intercooler, VNT turbo, Safari snorkel which in the UK cost only about $265, it was much cheaper there than what I was quoted in OZ. I had my ECU remapped at BAS and also picked up one of their boost boxes as well.

The engine seemed to go together pretty well, and was bolted back in place and everything re-connected. I was not there when they fired it up for the first time but they assured everything was fine and it was running well and it should be OK to take out on a test drive. I started it up and it was idling nicely I gave it a small blip of the throttle and it made a knocking sound so I immediately shut it down and went and found the boss of the place and mentioned that there was a knock. He started it up and sure enough there was a noise but the knock was detonation and not a bearing knock. We shut it down and what had happened was one of the injector O rings was leaking badly and had allowed approx 15lts of diesel into the engine, it was coming out the breather into the turbo then into the engine causing it to detonate. I pulled the rocker cover off and you could see the diesel bubbling out the side of injector with the fuel rail pressurized. So I left it with them for a few days and let them drain the oil and change the injector seals etc again. I suspect the seals were installed dry and may have caused the leak. There were no obvious cuts or marks in the seal that leaked, but with new seals the problem was solved. One of the things I learnt during this is to pressurize the fuel rail prior to installing the rocker cover to leak check the injectors from obvious leaks. I have had the injectors out twice previously and they went back together perfectly, but not this time when done by someone else.

I started the engine again and it was running sweetly at idle with no obvious problems so I nervously blipped the throttle again and then **** myself as the engine detonated again a couple of time then raced off to a high RPM in a run away condition. My hand was already near the key and I tried to shut it down as soon as I heard it start to detonate, but it was to late the engine was off by itself. I ran around to the engine and ripped the pipe off that goes between the turbo and the air box, the pipe gave way at a hose clamp near the MAF sensor and I was able to smother the engine by blocking the pipe. All up this would have taken approx 10 seconds from go to stop, it was not a lot of time but long still far to long. Luckily this happened after we had drained all of the diesel and old oil out of the engine as otherwise with the engine in this run away condition with the best part of 20lts of fluid in the sump it might have ended up bending rods or doing other major internal damage. I think the engine is going to be OK, there are no obvious signs of damage but time will tell. What had happened was after the first incident the new Alisport intercooler was full of fuel below the line where the hoses go accross the intercooler was somewhere in the region of 1lt of diesel/oil mix. They had pulled off the intercooler hose where it connects to the inlet manifold and wound it over and it seemed quite dry so hey didn't pull the intercooler out to clean it. But what happened was at idle the air was passing over fuel in the bottom of the intercooler, but when I blipped the throttle as the air pressure built up and it started to force this fuel into the engine allowing it to become a self feeding run away.

After we removed the intercooler and all the hose I flushed the intercooler out with a bit of petrol to remove all of the reside prior to next start was well cleaned all of the hoses etc from any other diesel contamination.

It all went back together and was ready to start again, but by this time I was quite worried about what else might go wrong and if there going to be any other problems with the engine. I had spent a hell of a lot of money by this time including a months rental of a car whist my 110 was off the road.

Nervously I started it again and everything seemed to be working fine, it was still blowing out quite a bit of white smoke from the exhaust which was residue from the previous problem. After letting it run for a while everything seemed OK, so it was ready for a test drive. I had also asked them to replace the clutch master cylinder as well due to it leaking. The problem now was it would not go into gear, and if you started it in gear the clutch was dragging and the car was trying to drive itself forward. We stuffed around for a few hours trying everything we could to get it to work, adjusting the pedal, pulling off the slave cylinder to see if the rod was still there and in the fork. None of this was touched when the engine was removed. They then wanted me to buy a new slave cylinder which I reluctantly did as I was 99% certain the was nothing wrong with the existing one which was only 6 months old, but we were running out of options so I agreed and through it in, but to no avail, the clutch was still buggered and the pedal felt fine. It really should have been working. It was becoming obvious that we were going to have to split the box from the engine to investigate further, which I left them to do. The next morning I went back to the workshop and they were scratching their heads and could find no problem. This was not looking good as we all wanted to find a confirmed problem which we could fix. I played around for a few hours checking everything I could as they had also done. I initially thought the problem was going to be the clutch plate had been re-installed the wrong way around or the throw out bear was not sitting in the fork correctly, but they assured me it was all fine when the pulled it all apart. The only other thing to suspect was a problem dual mass fly wheel, but they had another one there in their workshop and it had similar play and movement to mine. So it all went back together again and for some reason it was again working perfectly. We have no idea what went wrong but it was back to normal again thank fu@k.

I phoned them yesterday morning and they said it was all working fine and the boss was about to take it for a test drive and I was right to come on down. When I arrived it was parked in a different place so I was starting to feel good that this ordeal was finally coming to a finish and I could take my car home again. I went up stairs and spoke to the boss who was not real happy and said do you want the good news or the bad. My heart sank and I thought to myself for fu@k sake what now, enough is enough.

He said it was driving fine and everything seemed to be working well BUT there was an excessive amount of white smoke coming out of the exhaust. We discussed it for a while and I thought there was a fair chance is was just residue fuel in the exhaust from the previous fuel in the oil problem and decided to take it for a run to try and burn it out of the exhaust. When I got it on the road I was sh1tting myself as the amount of white smoke pouring out the exhaust was bad, my 110 looked like it should have been in a Red Bull air race with trailing smoke. I had no choice but to keep driving around the block as it was a one way system, the smoke was so bad that I pulled up at a set of lights and a truck was honking its horn at me trying to alert me to the fact I was driving a smoke factory. I was pretty p1ssed by now and thought no **** Sherlock I have just spent a fortune to have this piece of **** smoking like this. When I got around the block I felt that it was getting slightly better and gave the engine a quick once over and thought what do I have to loose, if its buggered it buggered, so took it on a longer drive and rang its neck a bit to try and clear it all out and bed everything in, and if it broke it broke and they could fix what ever they had fu@ked up. After about 10 km it was better but still not good so I ended up driving about 40 km in all and it all seemed clearish, but was now blowing blackish smoke under initial acceleration. I figured maybe this is due to my new ECU map which is maybe a bit more agresive. After some deliberation I agreed to take the car and drive it around town for the next week or so around town to see how things go. The engine was also quite fumey at idle with the oil cap off as well, but I thought this maybe due to the new rings not yet being bedded in. I have now put about 100km on it and so far so good. My only real problem is I now have lost all confidence in the car and I am waiting for something to go wrong at any moment. It is going to take me a while to get the confidence to take it back out into the desert again which is a shame as I have spent a lot of money on new toys such as the VNT etc which should make it a hell of a lot better off road. If it breaks down in the desert recovery can be a problem as recovering dead vehicles in soft sand is a nightmare depending how far you are from the nearest road.

More to come later about some things I learnt during the rebuild.

Over last couple of months since the engine has been going down hill and during the strip down and rebuild and learnt a few things after spending many hours on the internet researching and looking at broken bits.

The two most important lesson I learnt during this time was was the need for a better air cleaner than what land rover have supplied if you are running in dusty and dirty conditions and the need for an uprated intercooler if you have had your engine chipped or ECU remapped.

As water is not much of an issue out here I never bothered fitting a snorkel, the chance of me driving into deep water is not real high. I figured the standard LR air box and paper element would be up to the task if the filter is changed regularly but it is not.

I quite often had sand in the bottom of the air box, not a lot but still some and the paper element were always loaded up with quite heavy contamination of dirt and dust etc. I admit I had been to blase about this and just kept replacing the elements on a regular basis and never really thought much more of it. During my second last trip that I had to pull out of due to lack of engine power, I had a real scare as the element had been sucked off its base towards the outlet of the air box leaving a gap where air could flow into the engine unfiltered. I really had to ring the neck out of my poor old engine as we were in some pretty heavy dunes and I was down on power so I had to drive the nuts off the thing more than normal and I think the engine has sucked the element off its base. During the rebuild it was obvious the guides were quite worn and needed replacing. I didn't realise how much wear and errossion the compressor on the turbo has suffered until I compared it to the new VNT, the compressor tip to case clearance was at least 3mm more than what the new turbo was, indicating that over the years a lot of debris has entered the engine.

I am now fitting a safari snorkel and have ordered a Donaldson top spin pre-cleaner from the states to help relieve the load on the standard air box and element. I don't really care of I loose a small bit of power running the pre-cleaner if it means it will help extend the life of my engine and turbo.

My other big lesson I have learnt is if you remap your ECU don't be cheap and fit a larger intercooler as over time the increased EGT is going to cost you somewhere down the line. I should have had my wake up call when I first warped my exhaust manifold and snapped some studs. It happened again but this time the studs remained intact. I have since relieved the webs between the ports on the manifold and hope the problem will now be solved. I was not overly worried about the manifold warping, but when we stripped the engine down we found considerable wear on the compression rings as well as 2 broken rings which have damaged the piston. I think this excessive ring wear can be attributed to high EGTs and then led to the failure of the rings in #1.

If I had fitted and uprated intercooler from the start I am sure lowering this charge temp would have saved me a lot of grief over the years with warped exhaust manifolds and internal engine damage. Coupled with a good snorkel and pre cleaner I am sure my engine would still be running and not have required a complete overhaul at just 142 000 kms even though it had done a lot of work.

I have now fitted a non aircon intercooler from Alisport so as to have the largest one I can get my hands on, its core is a bit larger than the aircon one. I am now going to need to fit a roof mounted condenser which is OK as it will also remove another heat source from in front of the intercooler and radiator.

I would also recommend doing all work yourself if you have the resources and ability. I wish I had hired some garage space, taken a couple of weeks off work and carried out the rebuild myself. At least you know how it went together and can only blame yourself if things go wrong afterwards, instead of always wondering if they really did locktite the oil pump bolts etc.

The bloke who did most of the work on my engine seemed like a pretty good hand, I don't think he did a bad job, it is just he is not a land rover specialist and was doing his first complete overhaul on a TD5 and was learning along the way.

If you have increased the fueling I hope you have an EGT monitor. It sounds like you give the thing a pretty hard time and it sounds like you have run high EGTs for extended periods. Have a look on the madman site and get yourself an EMS so you can set a few alarms to give your engine a chance that you will not continue to drive it with signs of impending doom.

If you pressurise the engine do not be surprised if you get oil leaks.

I have a TD5 disco and have not waded it through water deep enough to get up to the airfilter but did get a snorkel as the air filter was under constant demand to catch the grime picked up from the air intake in the wheel well. I don't know if it is the same set up in the defender.

Lets hope your TD5 handles the abuse, there are plenty of people who have chipped and had exhaust manifold problems. The intercooler will have an effect on your EGTs but I expect that extra fuel is a big contributor.

Good luck.

Merry Christmas

Thanks mate, just had a look at the Madman site and the EMS looks like a good unit that pretty well covers everything you need. I have a few friends who regularly go down to South Africa and might get them to pick one of for me.

Sadly I dont have an EGT monitor yet it is something I need to get as I do drive the poor old thing hard. One of our problems here is we have very little aftermarket stuff available locally so you need to import everything.

Merry Christmas to you and your family.

If you think a Patrol will be better buy one,I wouldn't jump any dunes in it though,unless you want to change the chassis as well as the tailshaft. Pat

Originally Posted by PAT303

If you think a Patrol will be better buy one,I wouldn't jump any dunes in it though,unless you want to change the chassis as well as the tailshaft. Pat

My thoughts exactly Pat.I don't think that there would be a vehicle made that would take the punishment meted out to the Defender.To complain about the twisted propshaft to me is ludicrous ...look what he was trying to do....Rant Over.