1.6 TD is starting to get a bit smokey/bad starting...

[ORCoaster]

From the sounds of it on the vid I think you have something sticking in there.  Intermittent misses and the smoke.  Run it for a bit now that you have the additive in there and see what transpires. 

[8v-of-fury]

As you said.. it can only go pop.

[Bugsy_malone 666]

Forgive me, I know I've read bits of this thread but I can't recall all the finer details.

What injector-related troubleshooting have you done so far?  The random marbles I hear sound like a bad or leaky injector to me.  That would also cause smoke, rough idle... Basically all the symptoms you have.  Just quickly scanning, I see you have had them out but have they been serviced at all?

I also hear a possible bad bearing on a waterpump/alternator but that's unrelated to the smoke / rougher running.  If I had to pick one I would guess alternator.

Ok so it was running like this with its original injectors(155k miles on the engine and assumed original injectors), I have then changed the injectors for some lower milage ones from another good condition N/A engine I have knocking about(which we dont think has more than about 25k on it since it had a full rebuild and it was a clean runner), new heat shield seals for the injectors.

I have adjusted the fuel pump timing - advanced about 2 degrees and running much better.

I have put in a hydraulic valve lifter oil additive.

The engine was serviced(oil and filters) around october just gone and has only covered about 5-600 miles tops (as then I started getting a problem or 2 with hard starting which is when this thread began)

The slight squeal you can hear is actually the alternator belt, the waterpump itself was brand new less than 5000 miles ago when I did the cambelt and put the engine in.

Now I have managed to upload it, heres the video that was taken 3 hours after that last one: http://youtu.be/BvBFs7HCau0 you can see it is similar/the same running as the first video I posted, where when cold it wont idle without the cold start at all.

[8v-of-fury]

Being that this carried over with two sets of injectors.. Have you checked the internal pressure of the injection pump recently?

2 degrees of actual pump movement? Like literally a pencil line width or two? Probably needs substantially more, its worth a shot.. you can't go too far and hurt anything. Give it a good bump, like 5-6mm of physical pump twist and see what that does.

[wolf_walker]

That start-up sounds like the last one I had with the input shaft on the pump sucking a bunch of air.

The intermittent ticking sounds like a completely collapsed lifter(or bad cam lobe), it's about half crank speed.
I'd replace em asap, if so you have a valve that is barely opening and it'll never run or start right.  It sounds like it's trying
to function on three cylinders part of the time.  

A compression/leakdown test would be a good idea just to rule it out after the lifter replacement.


And are you parked at a crime scene?  That's police tape on the ground isn't it?

edit: after watching the first vid I see why you haven't popped lifters in there yet, ouch, no room.
Any access from above through floor?

[Bugsy_malone 666]

That start-up sounds like the last one I had with the input shaft on the pump sucking a bunch of air.

The intermittent ticking sounds like a completely collapsed lifter(or bad cam lobe), it's about half crank speed.
I'd replace em asap, if so you have a valve that is barely opening and it'll never run or start right.  It sounds like it's trying
to function on three cylinders part of the time.  

A compression/leakdown test would be a good idea just to rule it out after the lifter replacement.


And are you parked at a crime scene?  That's police tape on the ground isn't it?

edit: after watching the first vid I see why you haven't popped lifters in there yet, ouch, no room.
Any access from above through floor?

Lol, the police tape was a used prop from some filming where my dad works, admittedly it is a bit of a crime to put a diesel in a baywindow bus

Anyway lets see what else I found today.

I thought while its light and sunny afterwork I'd take it for about a 2.5 miles blast, locally we have some really steep hills so I thought it will either kill it or do nothing to it.

Started up and it was still running like a bag, drove up the road and the manifold blow off valve opened up alot sooner than it normally does (eg it never normally does!) and I wondered if this could have been as a result of moving the timing a few degrees?

Anyway driving along I forgot how my vans like driving a bag of jelly (bad local roads lol) but it seemed to drive ok, a little smokey as it was still warming up but nothing to cause me much concern, still sounded a bit rattly. Anyway I went down hill to the bottom of this big hill, clear spot in the traffic so I nailed it and holy crap what alot of smoke!

in first and second gear there was a fair amount of dark grey/blue smoke and the inlet manifold pressure blow off was pretty much staying open! Changed into 3rd and it was still bellowing a little smoke but the blow off shut up.

It was still sounding really rattly after that too but it drove ok, so I got home and aside from lots of mechanical noise it was running ok. Its clear the hydraulic lifter additive hasnt really done a whole lot after around an hour of running, I would have expected at least some improvement.

So I then shot this video:

http://youtu.be/SaLnMnTYxEg

which you can clearly see alot of smoke in the engine bay, some of which was coming out the back of the van as I was driving (making it look like it was on fire lol) but I cant really work out where its coming from, its either because of spilt diesel on the engine block bur4ning off or its coming from the airfilter where the engines breathing heavily.

Still you can hear the mechanical noise.

I ordered new hydraulic lifters online tonight, hoping they will be here by friday!

I'd say potentially I have noticed more diesel clatter now, just not over the mechanical noise at the moment.

[wolf_walker]

I wonder what effect if any having it laid over so far has?  I would think
oil would pool in the top back side of the valve cover, I can't remember where the
drains are on the head.  I know people put em in Vanagons and stuff all the time
so I guess it works.

Mind your air filter, is loose and spinning.

Fix that clacking, look real close at the cam lobes when it's out, make sure the new lifters
spin freely in the lifter bores, and make sure the valve stem head under them
isn't beat up or mushroomed.  Pre-lube those new lifters too, and install with assembly lube.

After that's fixed revisit the injection system.

You said the pop off valve was opening on the intake, what PSI are you boosting to?
Lot of folks remove that thing all together.  Others can comment better on that.

[Bugsy_malone 666]

I wonder what effect if any having it laid over so far has?  I would think
oil would pool in the top back side of the valve cover, I can't remember where the
drains are on the head.  I know people put em in Vanagons and stuff all the time
so I guess it works.

Mind your air filter, is loose and spinning.

Fix that clacking, look real close at the cam lobes when it's out, make sure the new lifters
spin freely in the lifter bores, and make sure the valve stem head under them
isn't beat up or mushroomed.  Pre-lube those new lifters too, and install with assembly lube.

After that's fixed revisit the injection system.

You said the pop off valve was opening on the intake, what PSI are you boosting to?
Lot of folks remove that thing all together.  Others can comment better on that.

Ignore the way that airfilter is spinning lol. its just the way its made and vibration, eg the rubber pipe that holds to the bottom of the airfilter isnt supertight so with all that vibration it rotates, its amusing but not going anywhere! (has quite large rubber flanges each side of the metal)

see now this is the thing, Vanagons came solid lifters as far as I know, although many have fitted these TD's and quite a few have started putting in the 1.9TD/TDi from the mk3 golf in(which are all hyd). Strangely I am sure the the oil drain back to the block is actually at the front of the head, not the back (its in the centre between cyl 2 and 3) although looking at my book there may be drain aways also on the back corners of the head.

Its unfortunately that I currently dont know what my EGT's are or my Boost is, I dont have any gauges in the bus other than fuel and water temp. I have got an oil temp too but havent hooked that up yet.

I have seen about others removing the blow off valve as I think it opens at 10-15psi?

I mean realistically I havent done any tuning to this van although I'd like to I kind left it alone to keep it reliable. Yeah didnt happen did it! The thing I dont want to do is get into tuning the fuel pump unless we find thats also a problem. I like the idea of tuning diesels adn stuff as they are super simple, I guess its just really difficult to troubleshoot a 155k mile engine in the back of a bus thats leaning at an angle!

My mk3 golf is currently petrol and the spare 1.6D I was planning to turbo/rebuild and tune that so I know its good and reliable and good mpg!

[wolf_walker]

One step at a time, for sure.  Get rid of the mechanical fault, then see to the fuel issues.

[Bugsy_malone 666]

Right aside from a bit of an oil leak now I think its fixed!

So basically I changed my injectors which had made no difference, changed the timing which made things 'better' but not really that great, but had a mechanical noise which I was sure was top end, so I ordered new hydraulic tappets.

Changing the hydraulic tappets caused a bit of a headache/arguements with my dad over the cam pulley that doesnt have a woodruff key. Anyway I got them changed, put the cam in and realised I needed to totally retime the engine, cam to crank and fuel pump too, so I set the crank/cam timing, then seperately timed the fuel pump out to find it was massively advanced and I didnt think I'd moved it that far (I set it to about 0.9 on my gauge). I went to start it up and not a sausage of power!

Due to a design fault in the manufacture of my heater plug relay it got warm, the base warped a bit and the contacts lost any clearance they had causing it to be permanently on! this totally killed the battery! So anyway I had a spare relay which was presumed duff, no such thing it was fine and after much mucking about I managed to charge the battery enough and bleed the fuel lines through.

Let the glow plugs warm up, span it over with foot on throttle and it fired up pretty quickly for an almost dry fuel system. Ran a little lumpy but 4c here at the minute and no cold start!

Then it started leaking oil out the rocker cover *rolls eyes*, whats annoying about this is I used a more expensive all rubber later mk3 golf gasket I had for my other golf GT thinking the rubber one would seal better, seems not! so I have to investigate before I can take it for a drive.

I tried it also again today and its well 3-4c again with the glow plug light out span over a few times and fired straight up bit lumpy but then no cold start and cold temps, running pretty clean/as I'd expect!

So I think a combination of the tappets on cyl 3 failing (the exhaust one seemed a bit iffy) and timing out.

now for the next problem!

[TylerDurden]

Sounds good.

Did you replace the studs for the valve cover?  (The rubber gasket with metal sleeves is incompatible with shouldered studs.)

[Bugsy_malone 666]

Sounds good.

Did you replace the studs for the valve cover?  (The rubber gasket with metal sleeves is incompatible with shouldered studs.)

AH! no I didnt replace the studs, so basically I should be able to put normal bolts/studs in places of the existing ones, although I am not sure I have got m6 studs.

[TylerDurden]

The rubber valve gaskets I purchased here came with replacement studs (no-shoulders), since there are metal sleeves vulcanized into the holes.

Example pic (not the source i used):

[wolf_walker]

I think I've actually bought those studs locally at hardware joints, I also think I've used metric bolts with a nice wide head. 
On bolts, beware they aren't too deep.

[Bugsy_malone 666]

Well I took the studs out and ground the shoulders down so they were almost level with the threads, checked they went through the holes in the rubber gasket and put them back in, still dripped a tiny bit so took it off again, put shed loads of sealer round it and put it back together, it now drips occasionally but I wonder if this actually might be oil thats still around the engine and dripping off as it gets warm (havent taken it for a good blast up the road yet)

It starts and runs as I'd expect from one of these engines with alot lower miles on the clock! very little smoke and runs fine.

if this doesnt burn its oil off I#'ll get a new cork gasket for it and be done.