Freelander 1 Another Stinky Smokey Exhaust - Solved

The quick backstory to this one is that the vehicle has been sat on the drive for a year, since the start of the first lockdown. It’s only been shunted about monthly to keep things moving and avoid flat spots on the tyres. Now, getting it ready for an MOT to get it back on the road again I’m confronted with a new problem. Lots of white/(possibly with a blue tint) strong smelling smoke coming out the exhaust.

Suspecting it could be failing turbo seals, I’ve tried running the engine with EGR completely removed, so clean air goes straight into the inlet manifold, and not through any hoses. At idle, and less than 1800 RPM, no smoke. But anything above 2000 RPM, and clouds of smoke appear, with a very strong smell that hangs.

I’ve done a complete oil change, fitted a new breather filter (blue cylinder type). And there doesn’t seem to be excessive oil in the air induction pipes etc. It’s a TD4 with 120k miles on the clock.

My question is, could failing seals on the turbo still be leaking oil via the exhaust side? Or am I barking up the wrong tree in thinking it could be turbo related? And should instead be concentrating efforts onto the fuelling side of things? e.g. injectors, HP pump, or sensors?

My original thoughts as to it being turbo related, was that I thought the strong horrible smell could be burnt oil, (I know failed seals / pistons in the engine can leak oil too, but hoping it’s not that devastating). Difficult to say for sure if the smoke is just white, or has a blue tinge or not. If it’s a fuelling problem causing the smoke, is it likely to smell strongly as well?

Any thoughts or experience on where I should be concentrating efforts next would be really appreciated, as I’d still like to get the Freelander back on the road this spring.

Thanks

How old is the fuel? If its been in there for a year, then it'll be well past its best, and won't burn cleanly.

Thanks Nodge, Good point.

I put a new fuel tank cradle on last summer, so had the tank pretty empty. Possibly just 10 litres or less left in it. Thinking the same about the fuel not being at its best after all this time, I added a couple of 5 litre plastic canisters before starting things up last week. At best I probably have a mix of 50:50 of old-to-new fuel. So maybe it's worth trying to reduce that ratio much more by trying to fill the remaining 3/4 of a tank up with new stuff. And hopefully that will dilute the naff fuel enough.

I'll do a few trips to the garage with the canisters, and let you know how I get on.

Thanks again.

It's been a long drawn out process of changing and cleaning things. But it seems to be sorted.

I think the critical things that solved the issues were:
1. New turbo core, (and unsticking/cleaning the vane mechanism)
2. Two duff injectors, so replaced all four with refurbished ones.
3. Fuel rail pressure sensor and harness replacement.

Definite improvements were seen after doing those things.

Other bits that were changed/cleaned, but I don't think contributed significantly to the issue.
1. Inlet manifold completely cleaned out (yuk! - and still dead patches on the lawn to prove it)
2. Intercooler EGR and boost pipes all cleaned.
3. New MAF (didn't make any difference, but had to be ruled out)
4. New fuel pressure regulator (slight improvement, but pressure sensor was more significant).
5. Crankcase valve and filter (done at the outset)
6. New fuel and fuel filter.
7. Four new glow plugs, (once reasonably confident it was solved, and while I had the manifold off).

Credit card still recovering from all this stuff, but it passed the MOT today with flying colours, so hopefully will behave itself for a bit.

4Bee4Bee said:

It's been a long drawn out process of changing and cleaning things. But it seems to be sorted.

I think the critical things that solved the issues were:
1. New turbo core, (and unsticking/cleaning the vane mechanism)
2. Two duff injectors, so replaced all four with refurbished ones.
3. Fuel rail pressure sensor and harness replacement.

Definite improvements were seen after doing those things.

Other bits that were changed/cleaned, but I don't think contributed significantly to the issue.
1. Inlet manifold completely cleaned out (yuk! - and still dead patches on the lawn to prove it)
2. Intercooler EGR and boost pipes all cleaned.
3. New MAF (didn't make any difference, but had to be ruled out)
4. New fuel pressure regulator (slight improvement, but pressure sensor was more significant).
5. Crankcase valve and filter (done at the outset)
6. New fuel and fuel filter.
7. Four new glow plugs, (once reasonably confident it was solved, and while I had the manifold off).

Credit card still recovering from all this stuff, but it passed the MOT today with flying colours, so hopefully will behave itself for a bit.

Click to expand...

Where did you get your recon injectors from?

They were £130 each from Bearmach. Supposedly remanufactured by Bosch.
https://www.bearmach.com/land-rover...hicles-manual-gear-box-type-stc4555e/STC4555E

Initially, I changed just the one that was the obvious culprit after trying to clean the nozzle in an ultrasonic bath with no success. It helped considerable, reducing the white smoke on tick over by about 80%. So decided to bite the bullet and do the remaining three as well. (that wasn't a good month for the credit card!)

I'm surprised more people haven't taken inspiration from this DIY injector refurb thread...

https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/injectors-diy-refurbishing.325624/

GrumpyGel said:

I'm surprised more people haven't taken inspiration from this DIY injector refurb thread...

https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/injectors-diy-refurbishing.325624/

Click to expand...

Ah, good old pop rivet. I'd forgotten about him.

I did try doing the first bit of that injector overhaul initially, stripping down the lower half of the injectors and putting in the ultrasonic bath. This achieved a nice clean spray pattern coming out with carb cleaner. But although I took extreme care to keep all the parts in order, and reassemble torquing up to markings I had made on the case, I didn't have any success. (If anything it seemed to make the duff one even more smokey). So I bottled it, not wanting to mess up the top half, reading about ruining the calibration etc. - But thinking about it again now, what do you have to lose if it's not working already? My only thought at the time was if I managed to mess these up further and they could see they had been tampered with, would it mean I'd lose the £50 deposit on the returns being rejected? Anyway. I hope others have more success than me. I'm sure if it's just a blocked nozzle problem they will.

If my machine was a second car, and not my daily driver I'd have a go at refurbing, but I can't be without it for how long it would take me.
I reckon at least one of mine is duff but I've found a place that supplies refurbished ones for £90 so I may bite the bullet and do all four. Funnily enough, my first set of injectors were replaced at ~75k and that set has now done ~80k

At least diesel injectors are something i don't have to worry about!... one of the few things ..

kernowsvenski said:

If my machine was a second car, and not my daily driver I'd have a go at refurbing, but I can't be without it for how long it would take me.
I reckon at least one of mine is duff but I've found a place that supplies refurbished ones for £90 so I may bite the bullet and do all four. Funnily enough, my first set of injectors were replaced at ~75k and that set has now done ~80k

Click to expand...

Recon you need to get a cheap set of injectors from a breakers. Recondition them, bung them in, then recondition the ones you take out ready for next time