TD5 Oil Light - Now won't work?

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Tmo

Active Member
Posts
157
Location
Hampshire
Hi Everyone,

So this weekend just gone on the Friday morning at 04.00am we boarded the eurotunnel to embark on the 1250 mile trip we had planned around northern europe. All serviced and issues fixed i thought the Disco was ready to go.

We then went through France, Belgium, Luxembourg & Germany and by last night we had done 1200 miles and were on the motorway back home. I was thinking to myself how great the Disco had been, i had been getting nearly 600 miles to a tank of fuel and it hadn't missed a beat.

And then of course in true land rover style...........8 miles before we were due to be home the oil light started to flicker on the dash, a couple of weird noises i couldn't really hear and then the oil light stayed on, so i pulled over and switched it off. Checked the oil, was about half way so topped it up and tried to restart.

It ran really lumpy and then cut out. Now after lots of reading online I'm guessing its the oil pump bolt and i now have an engine worthy of the scrap yard, I'm going to look under the sump later today to investigate. It was a brilliant engine 10P i think as the car was 1999 had 126000 miles and ran really well.

I just can't believe after running so well and doing 1200 miles in 4 days it just let go and happened so quick. Now do i scrap the car or put another td5 in? The car is great and everything else on it is sorted, but at the same time i don't wanna pour loads of money into a car that I'm not gonna get back?

What should i look for when investigating?
 
This does not sound good!! I'm sure you are right it will almost certainly be the oil pump bolt. Only one way to tell for sure and thats to rip the sump off and have a look. If it is the bolt you may well have done untold damage to the engine and the only way of telling is a complete strip down which is fun.!!! As for money, well how long is a bit of string? will you be doing the work yourself? either way if it is bolt failure this is going to cost! The only person that knows if the motor is worth doing is you. You could go down the second hand engine route (anything from £500 to £1500) or you could rebuild yours, all depends on what damage has been done.
Hope you get her sorted but you won't know anything until you get that sump off.

Good luck
keep us posted

Kevin
 
I have decied to have my oil pump bolt checked / changed gonna get the spanner man to do it. Any idea of how long it should take to do it ? it's labour only as far as can see.thanks malc :confused:
 
I have decied to have my oil pump bolt checked / changed gonna get the spanner man to do it. Any idea of how long it should take to do it ? it's labour only as far as can see.thanks malc :confused:

It's well less than 1 hour if he's a proper spanner man, you might want to think about a new sump gasket as well.

Kevin
 
Ok so managed to get some time today to do some investigating.

Took the sump off to find that the bolt to the oil pump was there but was just loose not hand tight but not tight either. The sprocket had play to rock it side to side but everything was better than i expected.

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Had a good look through the sump and no metal at all, i sifted all the oil and all i found was some broken up plastic, can anyone explain what the hell this is?

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Gave the sump a good clean and checked for any damage caused by flying metal objects and nothing

.
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I then started to remove the oil pump bolt which was most of the way in, but noticed some damaged thread on the bolt, no signs of threadlock so i guess it was never done during its life. When i then looked up at the pump i noticed the spindle end was damaged so removed it for a closer look, what would have caused this to happen? as this once tight means there is lots of play on the sprocket from the chain?

.
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SOOOO i have left it all apart and want to know what to do to check to see if my engine is buggered or not?

What is the plastic thing and what do i do, do i buy a new oil pump put it back together and see what happens? I also thought id check the turbo and see if it had failed and broken up, when i removed it all seemed fine, the turbine spins nicely the pipes were full of oil but on closer inspection the nut in the centre was finger tight and there was about 1 - 2mm of movement if i rocked the nut side to side?? Any ideas? DO i send the turbo off for refurb?

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i dunno about the turbo but i'm afraid you'll have to remove the engine front cover too to check the timing chain guide/tensioners cos these are made from that kind of plastic, don't ask me how i know:(... though i'm not mechanically minded enough to know if that could end up in the sump or not.
 
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That is definatly a piece of the timing chain guide that you found in the sump, good job you took the sump off and found it as that could block the feed up to the rota filter. It looks to me as you are going to need to make further investigations in to engine, as has been said front cover off, look at the sprockets and chains I suspect the are stretched and that is why the chain guide has broken. Sprokets and chain sets, well origial ones anyway, are not cheap!! Have a look at the rotar filter and see if thats been starved of oil. You should then be in a better position to make a decision as to what to do.

GOOD LUCK

Kevin
 
Hey Tmo , by courtesy of a member from thed2boysclub who was smarter than me and took pics of it see the attachment and IMO you'll realise where those plastic bits are coming from;) ... and that was actually under the front cover
 

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id have a look at the bottom bearing shell on mains and top of conrods,you may be lucky but ive often found issues arise after the pumps sorted
 
Seems to be happening a lot. any way of checking chain without front cover removal.

Not really, to properly check it you have to remove it completely - you then hold it so that it's sideways (so that the chain face is pointing to ground), and if it sags it's goosed.

New gen timing chain is about £180 + VAT

Oil pump sprocket can't be bought separately, it's a complete pump replacement - not cheap for new, but used they can be had for not a lot.

Oil pump chain is ~ £120+VAT for genuine, or 40 ish aftermarket.

Chain guide ~ £20 + VAT

Tensioner Guide ~ £45 +VAT

I'd buy used everything except the chains.

But to be honest given that it may have been oil starved I'd be pulling the engine out for a full inspection. It all starts to add up - I rebuilt my engine top to bottom earlier this year and the cost is scary, but the peace of mind of knowing exactly what is what to me outstrips the uncertainty of dropping a used replacement in.
 
Bennehboy talks a lot of sense when he says that you don't know if the engine has been starved of oil, You could be spending a few hundred quid replacing the chains, sprokets, oil pump etc etc and still not know if the engine is any good. Your first post states that the motor is all sorted so it may be time to think about droping another lump in to it, you already have all the ancillaries, injectors, turbo, starter etc. May be worth thinking about.

Cheers

Kevin
 
Not really, to properly check it you have to remove it completely - you then hold it so that it's sideways (so that the chain face is pointing to ground), and if it sags it's goosed.

New gen timing chain is about £180 + VAT

Oil pump sprocket can't be bought separately, it's a complete pump replacement - not cheap for new, but used they can be had for not a lot.

Oil pump chain is ~ £120+VAT for genuine, or 40 ish aftermarket.

Chain guide ~ £20 + VAT

Tensioner Guide ~ £45 +VAT

I'd buy used everything except the chains.

But to be honest given that it may have been oil starved I'd be pulling the engine out for a full inspection. It all starts to add up - I rebuilt my engine top to bottom earlier this year and the cost is scary, but the peace of mind of knowing exactly what is what to me outstrips the uncertainty of dropping a used replacement in.
Is it head off to do the chain.
 
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