help diagnosing a prob with my 90 please guys !!

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hawky666

Well-Known Member
Posts
1,662
Location
Calllington, Cornwall
Well.. i did it. I leant my 90 to a friend and guess what... yep, it all goes wrong.
Why do i do these things!!!

The upshot of it is that to be fair to him, he is a very placid driver, with a lot more experience of driving 4x4's than me (more yrs experience).

However..

He called me and told me that the defender had started missing a little going out of the village about 3 miles from home. It seemed to miss, then recovered and about 400mtrs later stuttered again and corrected. He then went a about 200mtrs more and suddenly he noticed he couldn't see the rd behind for smoke (white) and then the 90 lost power and he rolled to a standstill.

I went out there and after it had been stood for about 1hr i checked the oil level and colour (fine). I checked the water level (fine), a little brown but you can see into it and view the flow pipe etc, so not bad at all. No oil on the floor. No fuel leakeage etc.

I tried firing up and it took about 5 seconds of trying before it finally fired up. No immediate smoke cloud and idled absolutely fine. Revved up a few times and then started to get puffs of white smoke, but not on idle.

I was able to drive the car to a safer position and then towed it home. Drove it into parked position at home under low revs.. no big issue.

Been out today and removed the air intake pipe from turbo.. can feel the fan inside is solidly fixed, the rotation is free, and there's no mass of oil in the pipe. So i think i can rule out the turbo as failed.

Fired it up, good start up. Idled fine, then revved up and held the revs just above idle and then started to get quite a bit of smoke, but more grey than white.. and the revs seemed sputtery, so switched off and left it at that.

Where do i go from here??? I honestly thought it was going to be a turbo issue and am scratching my head now!!!!!!!

I'm thinking head gasket or even injectors.. but what's the best route to fault finding?

That's as clear a description as i can give at moment.

:confused:
 
Check the timing is still all correct, and the rockers are set correctly,

Mine was like hat after my timing belt snapped, new belt and rocker and push rods and it ran but wasn't timed spot on and had grey smoke.
 
he hasnt put some petrol in ?timing can be checked with pin in flywheel housing and pin in pump, it doesnt tell you were cam is but usually effect all
 
he did put some fuel in james, but he has a td5 disco and previously had 2 other landy's, both diesel, so couldn't see him making that mistake !!! although can't rule it out.
 
id check fuel system for contamination ,water been brown sure not the antifreeze ?cos rust colouring is sign of combustion gases ,but your symptoms dont necessarily say hgf
 
i do seem to remember the anti freeze being a redish colour.. and water doesn't look dirty, if you get my drift.
it did strike me as a poss fuel prob.. but cant see anything obviosly loose, leaking etc.
how do i tell if contaminated?
 
Sat here worrying now, about what the garage are gonna come up with tomorrow as not sure i can face having to do another bleedin engine.
Found out that one of my customers actually runs a garage up the rd. There son does hill climbing with landy's and they just hired a landy trained mechanic so just chucked it to them.
Drove it up the rd fine with no smoke, but started losing power as i entered the garage forecourt.
Fingers crossed.. and toes now. Glass of wine in hand.
 
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