Long Time Admirer, First Time Owner

Hi All, Dan here,

Bought myself my first Landy yesterday after years of abusing 2WD cars with spots of light offroading (I do a lot of hiking / climbing / camping trips), so decided to bite the bullet and picked up a cheap Freelander TD4 S as a winter workhorse-slash-fixerupper. Really good condition for age (2002), 120k on the clock and lots of new bits and pieces fitted for last MOT - brakes/lines a tyres namely - along with a reconn'd rear diff. A lot of car for very little money. Its already been fitted with a Pieberg MAF, EGR blank, and a Synergy 2 mod (which I need to figure out how to use) and a Cyclone "oil filter" (I suspect he means crank case breather). The car certainly needed a bit of love and a lot of elbow grease to remove 15 years worth of gunk and grime - £25 later and I must say the lads at the hand car wash place did a fantastic job

Now obviously, its a fifteen year old car - and a fifteen year old Landy at that, so it comes with a few gremlins. Here are the ones Ive noticed so far;

• Front nearside suspension kinda crunches/squeeks when I drop off the kerb or go over a speedbump, but is otherwise silent over normal bumps in the road. Suspect drop link or strut top. Will investigate.
• Wheels feel like they "bind" a bit at full lock - though Ive been told this is normal, I might check the operation of the VCU anyway just to rule it out.
• Speed... or lack thereof. Acceleration in low gears actually feels quite perky. But 5th feels like a bit of a brick wall, and going from 50-70mph takes an age to achieve and difficult to maintain if on any sort of incline. Could be perfectly normal for the car, could be something simple like a partially blocked fuel filter, or could be down to the turbo - I have no idea if the turbo is actually spooling up.
• Couple of minor niggles like tailgate key not turning, odd bumper clip missing / broke here and there, arial snapped off, broken wingmirror glass, moss in the sunroof... normal stuff really...

I feel the technical gurus on this forum will get to know me by name in no time at all....

Hi there Dan,

Sounds like you're up for diving right on in, which is handy with a landy indeed!

I don't have any direct knowledge of the freelander 1, so cant offer much help with the body and suspension but have had several 320d's over the years with both types of M47, and a mate with a reasonably heapish rover 75 with the M47R in so hopefully can help a bit there, along with enough years wasted cocking about with diesels old and new!

I'd immediately lean toward saying either the fuel filter is fairly blocked, the in tank / inline (wherever it is on a freelander) fuel pump is getting slow / dying (as the two easiest things to check). After satisfying yourself these are non issues another easy check is operation of the VNT ring on the turbo, and the solenoid that applies that vacuum to it. A brief search revealed this handy post:

https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/td4-lack-of-power-at-70mph-fixed.77147/

The gist is the ring can either stick causing a situation that gives you boost at low engine speeds, and then chokes the turbo owing to the ring being closed up still at higher loads and speeds, or vice versa the ring is stuck fully open giving you little boost at low speeds and then an overboost scenario at high engine load/speed (which will cause the ECU to restrict the fuel injection duration / quantity to prevent engine damage). The same problems can occur if the solenoid itself fails and applies too much / too little vacuum to the VNT ring. if you scroll far enough into the post I linked there is a handy picture showing it all.

If the ring is seized, I.e you cannot move the actuator arm at all either by hand or using a siphon syringe, a quick cheap fix I've used before on an old passat is to pump loads of foaming oven cleaner (whatever brand you like) into the turbine side of the turbo (i.e the cast iron part), either by taking the exhaust off or into the old EGR port on the manifold, quick footnote - do not get any onto the compressor housing or any aluminum parts of the engine, as they will be eaten.

The last thing that comes to mind (and is cheap and easy!) is if the MAP sensor is at fault or clogged with filth, as this will then read the manifold pressure incorrectly and upset the fuelling. (it's a separate part from the MAF, not to confuse)

The crank case breather is indeed the "cyclone" filter, it superseded the old bog roll style filter that required changes (and was just a very poor design).

Never had a synergy box to play with, but i'd personally take it off until you get the car running as it should. Get the factory kit in good shape before asking more of it and all that

Hope that gets you on the path anyway matey!

Hey!! Thanks for the warm welcome and reply to my immediate issues Ive had a scout around the forum and a Google of the symptoms, and come to the same thread you kindly linked - symptoms have also manifested into shockingly poor fuel economy (15 to the gallon) judging by todays run to work and back. Annoyingly Im not going to get the chance to get my hands dirty until the weekend - so my gut instinct is to order a new solenoid unit and swap that out. It seems as though Im getting no boost and excessive fueling (though no smoke), so the solenoid may be goosed and wide open - for the half hour it'll take I think I'll swap this out and diagnose further if that fails and look at cleaning up the VNT ring if thats the sticky culprit.

Just a minor issue...

Aye if you have a problem, someone else has already had it, spoken a lot of french over it and put it on the internet! best part about having an old car haha.

If the vanes were stuck shut (no vacuum / seized) then I suppose having to push the exhaust gas through the smaller aperture might reduce economy, so that might be it indeed, poor fuel economy also probably rules out the fuel supply to the CR as the fault at any rate.

If it's a cheap part (the solenoid) that's probably the best bet, plus you can work out if the vanes are stuck while changing it by seeing how free the actuator rod is (should be able to lift it at least 2-5mm just with fingertips, with a steadily building resistance). Last thought RE vacuum / vane actuation is the diaphragm in the actuator can might be split or not sealing properly, especially if there is fairly moderate corrosion on the outer case, but that's less likely.

Fingers crossed

Goc3k said:

it's a cheap part (the solenoid) that's probably the best bet, plus you can work out if the vanes are stuck while changing it by seeing how free the actuator rod is (should be able to lift it at least 2-5mm just with fingertips, with a steadily building resistance). Last thought RE vacuum / vane actuation is the diaphragm in the actuator can might be split or not sealing properly, especially if there is fairly moderate corrosion on the outer case, but that's less likely.

Fingers crossed

Click to expand...

Bingo. New solenoid. Can now see the actuator/VNT linkage moving slowly when giving the engine a bit of throttle - not by much, but maybe 10mm of travel, slowly. Not sure how much travel I'm supposed to be seeing, or how quickly its supposed to move, but at least it's enough to show the VNT ring isnt completely seized

Glad the shotgun repair worked well! 10mm is grand for no load, sounds like its back to working right. Managing 70mph and a few more smiles on the wallet now?

Goc3k said:

Glad the shotgun repair worked well! 10mm is grand for no load, sounds like its back to working right. Managing 70mph and a few more smiles on the wallet now?

Click to expand...

So much better! Performance has gotten better since too - don't think the actuator linkage had moved in quite a while so the VNT ring had seized a bit - put another 300 miles through it this week which has freed it off, cruising happily at 75mph now, even had a brief stint at 85mph!! Getting between 35 and 40 to the gallon now too, which is a vast improvement on the 15mpg last week!!

Got a few knocks and bangs coming from underneath to investigate, now I know there's life in the old dog yet - will get it jacked this weekend and inspect the components and bushes. I've quite missed this spannering lark - could just do with a little sun now!!