TD5 Fuelling Woes

This site contains affiliate links for which LandyZone may be compensated if you make a purchase.
Disco-Skipper

Disco-Skipper

Active Member
Posts
87
Location
Wales
In one of those 'bloody thing' moods currently

A couple of months ago the disco conked out and ended up taking an AA lorry to my local LR specialist

Turned out the whole fuel system was gunked up with god knows what and so to sort it its had:

Fuel Tank Clean Out
New Pump (VDO)
New Pump to Filter Head Lines
New Fuel Filter
New Fuel Pressure Regulator (OEM)
Injector Clean
New Injector Seals & Washers (OEM)
New Injector Harness

(I sourced & supplied all the parts)

I've gone to drive it home today and noticed it didnt feel quite as quick as it did before, it was also quite tappety sounding which I though could be iffy injector clearances potentially?

An hours or so after I'd got it home, I went to start it up again and it took a couple of turns to go which is odd since it usually starts up immediately.

When I then went to drive it, it was very choppy under acceleration and every now and then would have absolutely no power at all - at 2.5k revs or so with 100% throttle it wouldn't accelerate at all or would even slow down

Once I'd nursed it back home I'd assumed there was air in the system so I let it go through its bleeding cycle a good 5 - 10 times, then when I went to start it again it took ages with a fair bit of throttle and when it did catch it make some horrible metallic noises and chucked out a tonne of white smoke

I've done the usual basic checks like the wastegate actuator length (13 threads) and oil in the ECU but can't see anything obvious to explain the running problems

Anyone got any ideas? Starting to get sick of how much time its had off the road recently!
 
Last edited:
I had the same symptoms 12 months after I bought my 200TDi a couple of years ago, I took it to
a friends workshop (diesel specialist) and he found a white soft substance in the fuel system, he
cleaned everything and told me to keep an eye on it and drain the drain off filter regularly, which
I did for a couple of weeks and it went fine.
He had never seen it before and didn't know what caused it.
 
I ended up swapping the injectors out for a different set of used green tops and it ran a treat so the post clean out running issues must have been injector related

I've just got back from a 3k mile trip to Europe and the disco never missed a beat so I'm pretty happy that whatever it was shouldn't rear its head again anytime soon

Wondering if it might have got some iffy red put in it or something in its past that could have had some nasties in it which collected over time, a mystery!
 
Disco-Skipper happy to hear your trip went well, problem sounds like it has cleared up.

But for me I have never stopped thinking what it could have been, the iffy red sounds
possible but mine happened 12 months after I had it and that didn't have a sniff of red.
So I can rule that out on my disco.
I agree it is a mystery, don't we have any chemists on here that could suggest what could
cause a white milky substance to form in a diesel fuel line, I have had diesel engined
vehicles since the 60's (starting with a Ford Thames minibus) and never experienced
anything like it. (by the way the Ford engine was easier to work on than my TD5).
 
By the sounds of it, what was in mine was organic looking and I don't think he mentioned it being white so could be different things - or just at different stages of formation.

In order to have caused the running problems it must have made it was through the filter too which might tell us something about particle size etc

The filter was absolutely ruined after less than 1000 miles too
 
Yes, I would say the substance was organic it was similar to sour milk when it goes lumpy.
the running symptoms were similar no acceleration, no power and as I was on the road I
took it straight to my friends workshop (I didn't want to stop on the narrow road to investigate).
He started with the drain off filter where he found the culprit, he emptied it and changed the
fuel oil filter and it went fantastic after that.
I agree with your observation it could be in the state flux in the way of changing colour.
 
Where do you tend to fill up? I usually go Texaco, might be one of the additives they put in reacting with something?

I doubt there's any weird / different liner to the tank or something so I don't see why it'd be any different to any other car
 
We have a local Sainsbury's garage (caught me on the hop, not sure what brand of fuel it is) which is
about 4 hundred yards from home.
One thing I have just thought of, because I had bought a D1 which I wasn't sure what kind of owners
it had before (thinking of the red fuel thing already discussed) because it came from farming land I
would guess, I started putting in fuel additives pretty often. Don't know if that has anything to do with it.
 
It is an interesting one - the only way of really knowing for sure would be to try out some of our suspicions and replicate it and I'm sure as hell not putting my wallet through that again!
 
Sounds like what we in the kit car world call "gorilla snot".
Caused by peeps trying to seal their fuel tanks with silicone sealant which then gets semi dissolved in the fuel and leads to exactly what you have described.
So best of luck with it!
 
That does add up with mine - the previous owner had gotten an absolute cowboy to do the fuel pump a couple of years ago, they hacked the carpet to bits and fitted one of those suspiciously cheap ebay specials claiming it was OEM.

So it really wouldn't surprise me if they threw some silicone on there instead of the proper gasket. I got the garage to replace my pump so I didn't see the dodgy old one come out
 
Out of curiosity did they remove and clean (or replace) the small strainer filter that lives behind the fuel pressure regulator? Part number is MAE100010
 
I must confess I didn't even know it existed when I was buying parts but luckily the garage had a few lying around so it got replaced with a new one at the same time as the new FPR went on
 
In my case nothing was renewed, my friend just cleaned out the glass water trap filter,
when I went back to pick my disco up he showed me the white gunge he had removed.
As I have said it never came over the 8 years I had it.
 
Anybody had problems with a FPR replacment relief valve not fitting? ordered a repair kit from JGS 4x4 and the new one was a slightly different size and didnt fit when i tried to press in with a vice.

TIA
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

RP72
Fuelling issue......??
Replies
10
Views
623
RP72
RP72
tweedandbriar
Flat Spot at low revs...
Replies
4
Views
292
tweedandbriar
tweedandbriar
D
Non-starting 1997 Freelander L-series
Replies
5
Views
340
Freddie17
Freddie17
J
engine cuts out at high revs, eml on td5
Replies
2
Views
309
Tim4x4
Tim4x4
T
TD5 crank no start after overheating
Replies
1
Views
413
tom1979
tom1979
Back
Top