air in diesel system

Hi folks,

I drive a defender 110, Td4, 1989.
I get some trouble the last few days in a altitude of about 4000m (Bolivia). After a few km drive, our Landy becams air in the disel system. Mostly it's happens when we drive uphill. In the city where we stop and go we don't have problem. Our solution to drive was to pump out the air manualy from the system.
Our injectors have about 55'000 km. Any ideas ?

You have a leak somewhere. Inspect all your fuel pipes and everywhere a pipe connects to another fitting. I used to have an LDV van that died every time I went round a roundabout. The fuel filter housing use dto fill with air. Never found where it was getting in.

Welcome to landyzone. Do you have a 200 tdi? or what engine have you got. The higher up you go the thiner the air gets and the turbo is important to keep the engine happy, if its broke or not working properly its going to strugle .

Welcome to the forum. As said before some information on the engine type you have would be helpful. The reason we need to know is that the earlier Luacs CAV systems do not cope well with air at all, whereas the Bosch system can cope with more air up to a point.

hi, the landy is a 110 td4 model, the engine is the J19 diesel, 2.5 liters, was remanufactured by turner engineering when it had 220,000 km (since then it has +100,000 km). hope this helps -- that problem makes us nervous because we have planned to travel quite some miles in high altitude here in bolivia, chile and argentina - and we don't want to stop every 10km to pump out the air manually from the diesel cycle system.

any thoughts and help much appreciated

sylvismile said:

hi, the landy is a 110 td4 model, the engine is the J19 diesel, 2.5 liters, was remanufactured by turner engineering when it had 220,000 km (since then it has +100,000 km). hope this helps -- that problem makes us nervous because we have planned to travel quite some miles in high altitude here in bolivia, chile and argentina - and we don't want to stop every 10km to pump out the air manually from the diesel cycle system.

any thoughts and help much appreciated

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Ah don't think it's a td4

Or a TD6?

Right from the mix of information there I am guessing it is a 19J? 2.5 Turbo Diesel?

Not a TD4, they were in Freelanders.

The 19J has the Lucas system. It doesnt like air at all, it just can't cope with it.

Just to give me an idea where the problem may be arising, when you pump out the air, where do you let the air bleed from?

First thing you must do is check all diesel line connections, do you see any weeping joints?

Then on top of the fuel filter remove the bolt and the banjo, (watch out for the washers) and look into the bolt, there is a tiny little hole here, ensure that it is clear with a stand of wire or something. If this hole is blocked all and any air cannot be vented and it goes to the pump where it will cause problems.

Try that out and see if that makes any difference. Failing that it is probabaly a bad union, it could be small enough to draw air without actually letting diesel out. It would be worth removing all the connections, checking them all and then refitting with a little PTFE.

dodgy spill pipes will introduce air, if they are the braided type bin them anyway

thanks for your replies. we will be in a garage tomorrow and check all your indications there, then testdrive the car again in altitude for some miles.

hope this issue will be gone then, because we want to drive over to chile via a 15,500 ft high pass.

you might want to adjust the fuel mix for high altitude. There are details in the factory workshop manuals i think

How exactly is he going to alter the fuel mix in a diesel?

oops

Check that bleed banjo on the fuel filter first.

It is a SELF BLEEDING device, but will not work if the tiny hole is blocked.

It is absolutely vital that this thing works correctly, because your fuel system WILL draw some air all the time especially when the fuel level is low, or on rough roads when the fuel gets quite frothy (i.e. air bubbles) due to the fuel sloshing around in the tank. The self bleeder WILL sort all that out, but ONLY IF the little hole is clear and there isn't too much air getting in. You can afford to make it twice as big, and then it will work better and take four times as long to get blocked.

CharlesY