Thread: 4BD1 ever let you down?

Nothing mager has happened to ours only ever been strandard because of stupid things like bent tie rods etc

torture it... it wont care...

a good hydraulic or extended running without oil is the only way to kill them

heres a list of survivable tortures

you can install pistons the wrong way round and belt the glow plug untill it digs its own precombustion chamber in the piston

you can forget to install the big end bearings

you can screw the cam timing and lock then engine up on the starter by way of interferance between valve and head.

you can run it without coolant till it grinds to a halt.

you can run it without oil and so long as you only leave it idle once you bar it over with fresh oil it will go again.

you can run it with about a 50/50 oil/water mix in the sump

and most of that you can do to the same engine after its been hydraulic locked and with no other rebuilding apart from replacing the con rod it will go again.

Never ever been let down in over 700k of travels. Bulletproof motor. Never even did a fan or aircon belt, Felt so guilty I had the injectors cleaned a couple of times and was told by the diesel tech both times that they really didnt need cleaning.Even towards the end of the first motors life it was still running good with only 200psi compression (not much more than a petrol motor). Never even had the pump cleaned or adjusted.

Been towed home three times.
Twice due to the same electrical fault two days apart (fire causing electrical fault), once when the oil feed to the alternator started blowing oil. It was easier to tow it home (about 1.5km) than to get oily on the side of the road.

Otherwise, I've had turbo oil feed lines come apart at the fittings (not factory parts), turbos die and radiator hoses go. All could be rigged enough to drive home.

Usual reason is running out of fuel. Less common now I have a gauge on the auxiliary tank, although since it does not have a warning light, it still happens occasionally. On one occasion I had to prime it sitting on the tram tracks in Ballarat Road in Melbourne!

The only actual stoppage related to the engine was with the starter. The ultimate problem there turned out to be a faulty earth strap. Also had an alternator failure, but this did not result in a stoppage.

Possibly related to the engine, recently had a broken gear lever, which held us up for a couple of hours.

Overall the engine has been quite reliable, but then I have done less than 500,000km (just). Noisy, shakes, smoky, but reliable.

John

in short no, it has not let me down, but...

I do know of one which was hydrauliced (in deep water) and subsequently broke a crankshaft several 000s of ks later, and...

I saw one at a DoD surplus sale at holesworthy that had a "leg out of bed"...and I can't image how they managed that !

No. It is heresy to say it would happen.

JC

yep, i snapped the main shaft in the little lt85. It now has a 4 speed. (well it was the motors fault for having too much torque...)


oops, just realised that i'm on dads computer, logged in as him......

Andy

(andrew e)