Thread: TD5 oil pump failures

You can all tell me I am clueless, but the design of the oil pump drive on the TD5 seems fundamentally flawed. It is surely designed to have the odd failure or three. A torqued bolt (supposedly with thread lock applied) holding a sprocket to a shaft in a hostile mechanical environment (hot,vibrating, high revving, oil infested) does not seem like sound mechanical engineering design to this mere mortal! Particularly when it is a critical link in the satifactory performance and longevity of the motor. Match this with the assembly steps and associated gremlins now becoming evident and you have a sure recipe for a few costly disasters. The marginal addtitional cost involved at manufacture of an integrated sprocket and shaft drive for the pump seems low when compared with the unplanned negatives which should surely have been considered by a competent design team. Match the initial savings of using a bolt and a sprocket from the existing parts bin against the damage the current episode is doing to LR public relations and customer confidence and it seems the designers made a wrong call. A very wrong call at that!

I agree
Me thinks that it would have been alot smarter to install a bolt with a left
hand thread!
Bad engineering on LR behalf.

Cheers Larns

Look I agree that Lr are a bit lax in some of there engine design feature's but so are Chrysler ( JEEP ) had one cost me a packet never again!!!!, Mitsibitchi don't get me started we had a Magna, the valve stem seals went at 75,000klm the torque converter at 95,000 klm, a Toyota Hilux which for some unknown reason kept warping the head!!! Replaced twice under warranty then they clamped up saying it was driver error!!!!!!
So my point being every vehicle manufacturer has there own design problem's or you were just unlucky and bought a lemon!!!!! I believe Land Rover build an excellent product but like everything there are times when you just pick a lemon, I have mate with a Defender 130 TD5 with 198,000 on the clock and believe me this vehicle works hard!!!!! But the owner keeps up his 5,000klm service's, and I think this vehicle has another 100,000 in it 8)
So really let's not panic yet!!!! As a preventative check your oil pump bolts, if no locktite fix it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8)

I've been following the chatter on the English LR site and it seems the whole oil pump fiasco is losing momentum. At present there seems to only have been 6 cases of this problem in England that anyone seems to know about. I'm sure there are a few more cases worldwide but we need to consider just how many TD5 engines have been sold around the world and how many of these have failed. It becomes a very small percentage indeed. That's not to say I'm going to forget about it. I'm still going to mention this to my dealer when I get my 100,000Km service on Thursday.

I have to admit that, since the first heart stopping panic attack and in view of the newer information, I am sleeping a lot better now too! [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif[/img]

My truck had its sump pan off yesterday for a check on THE bolt. Nothing had fallen apart. Bolt was removed and found to have sufficient threadlock to have stayed the distance. LR dealer reassembled "very carefullly" I am told with the appropriate glue. The truck has a 7/99 Australian compliance plate suggesting a manufacture of early 1999, say March or thereabouts. Interesting that the ones that have failed have shown no evidence of threadlock. The exercise was worth the comparatively small expence for the peace of mind I now have.

How many $ did they sting you for that little exercise?

The sump gasket and oil pump portion of the bill was approximately $380. Dollars well spent for my peace of mind.

Shame, shame, unfortunate and expensive though it may be, come on Land Rover if a bolt is tightened to to a correct torque or stretch is should never loosen, never mind the use of artifical compounds like loctite. When Noah was a boy he did not have such compounds, but he did have a feel for tension on bolts and might have even had a rudementary torque wrench.

This is definately an LR problem, they must have a duty of care to ensure that their engiens are bolted up corectly. Loose bolts, no way, if tightend correctly no problem!!

Shifter.