Thread: Oil in Air filter

I have the problem in my 200tdi Defender, the mechanic said that it is a pretty std occurance ????.

Both Disco TDI's in our family do it. With or without a snorkel. I haven't checked the Defender 130 (TDI) yet.
It has me absolutley stumped. For oil to be where it is, it has to come from down the snorkel.
From memory I don't think it is a problem in the TD5 but I haven't replaced the air filter in that for some time.
I would be interested in the cause or theories.

Surely this must be coming from a crankcase breather pipe that connects into the air intake pipework or air box itself?

Either that or the air is more polluted than we thought?

Hi Gillie

I have recently re-worked my air intake [300tdi Def with "donaldson" canister] and can suggest 2 possibilities:-
1. I found a hole in the air intake hose that fits onto the air filter intake of the canister - the oily deposit led me to find the hole,
2. the canister had gaps in some of the seams; eg. 1/2 of the intake inlet join to the canister was not sealed at all - these gaps were big enough that the engine would continue to run with the air intake blocked!!

So, if you have any oil fumes floating around in the engine bay, they could be sucked into the canister and onto the filter.

This is a big problem on the pre TDi 2.5 turbo diesels.
I wonder if you have a blocked filter in the crankcase breather system???
Andrew