Thread: Td5 suddenly dying.

Originally Posted by justinc

In the complete absence of any codes then we will need some more info.
When trying to restart it does it start up straight way or catch a cylinder at a time and after lots of cranking eventually run?

After lots and lots of cranking it sort of stutters into life belching great clouds of black smoke. I've only managed to get it to restart once and it lasted only a few hundred metres before death overtook it again. Before death though it had good power and was able to rev up to a bit over 4,000rpm with no problems. I wasn't watching the fuelling numbers on the Nanocom live data and stupidly I wasn't recording the data.

Is the fuel pump even in the least bit noisier than usual at that point?

No, not that I heard although I was doing about 100kph at the time.
During the purge cycle that I ran there were no strange or even different noises from the pump. The pump has since been replaced with no change in behaviour.

When it shuts down, is it like a coil lead being pulled off a petrol engine or does it just slow down and stop gradually?

Just like a coil lead being pulled off of a petrol engine.

The dealer is now going to put the old injectors back in with new copper washers and O-rings. They seem to think that one or more copper washers are the culprit. Given the failure mode I can't see that but then I'm no diesel specialist or even anything better than an old bush mechanic steeped in Series III Diesel and Series IIa petrol motors. I still don't trust them to not damage either or washers when they fit them either.

Today they've shorted the inertia switch at the other end of the loom. They've substituted the crank position sensor. They've checked the little gauze filter in the FPR, replaced the fuel filter and measured fuel pressure and flow which is good as it should be with a new pump.

Black is no air and lots of fuel... are you 100% certain there is no collapsing intercooler hoses or air intake to turbocharger restrictions? What about the condition of the turbocharger itself?

Originally Posted by justinc

Black is no air and lots of fuel... are you 100% certain there is no collapsing intercooler hoses or air intake to turbocharger restrictions? What about the condition of the turbocharger itself?

The standard TD5 turbo to i/c pipe delaminating problem?

Originally Posted by Graeme

The standard TD5 turbo to i/c pipe delaminating problem?

Nope. Been there and done that. Replaced the hoses with pretty blue silicon ones about 3 or 4 hundred km ago. Turbo is also good - spins freely and very little discernible play - just barely perceptible. Intercooler got a good wash when the turbo hoses were replaced.

bit left field and it's probably the washers, even if a bit weird with no strange fuel pump noise, but ....rag left in the airbox?

Originally Posted by discorevy

bit left field and it's probably the washers, even if a bit weird with no strange fuel pump noise, but ....rag left in the airbox?

I thought I was being a bit over the top when I took the air filter and MAF out to check for some sort of blockage... but no, no rags or collapsed air filter. Nothing security in the MAF either.

Does it have an inlet EGR butterfly that might be closing? However even if so, it should idle.

Edit. ILT wasn't fitted until MY03 so wont be the cause.

My bet is on the copper washers as well... combustion gas can pass through them and creates back pressure within the fuel rail... that's why it eventually starts after a purge, if the pump is genuine it will not make much noise, mine didnt when the washers were gone