In brief, bought my motorhome 1997 Auto Roller !.9TD 18 months ago and one year ago the engine seized (60k miles on clock). Too much liquid in the sump - oil contaminated with diesel. Difficult to find a 230A3000 replacement engine, had to import a brand new bare engine from Italy. All ancillaries transferred from old engine. Oil changed at 500 miles as per engine warranty. At 1250 miles on dipping the oil it was 1cm further up the stick. Problem from old engine has been transferred to the new engine. Injectors sent off for testing and found 'border line okay (?) and unlikely to cause diesel to get in the engine oil. Had them refurbished anyway, new nozzles etc. However, if I am back to where I started and only left with the injector pump as the culprit. My garage says diesel cannot access the block from the pump. Advice from a third party suggests the pump is 'blobbing' - sending irregular pressures to the injectors, some too little some too much. As she runs sweetly that would seem unlikely (or would it?).No electronics on a 1997 model so cannot easily check the pump pressures. Can't afford another £4200 for another engine even if I could find one. Garage suggests I take the vehicle and monitor the oil level. Urrgh. Does anyone have any experience of something similar or any advice? - grateful if you have.
Technical Ducato 1929cc injector pump problem
- Thread starter Andrewski
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Technical Ducato 1929cc injector pump problem
Many thanks for the advice. I'll put it to the garage and see what they say. The injectors came back from the reconditioners but on fitting, one of them leaked. They have been removed and sent back to the company for further testing. Perhaps one of these injectors is in fact faulty - that's my current hope. Perhaps forlorn but I've got to try to be positive.
There is no way whatsoever that diesel can find its way from the injector pump into the sump of the 1929 TD engine. I have a Ducato 10 and checked it all over. Some cars have a connexion from a little valve screwed into the side of the pump via a pipe to the air intake after the turbocharger, but the TD10 isn't one of them, it has the Bosch pump not the Rotomaster or CAV, and even then it could only leak into the combustion chambers to be burned, and not into the oil sump. If the shaft end seal was leaking it would contaminate the timing belt but could not enter the oil sump. You need to look elsewhere. Are you sure the oil was thinned down with diesel oil? If it had not been changed for years it may get quite thin. Maybe the oil was thinned with your coolant via a blown head gasket? A siezure is only likely if there is some coolant shortage causing overheating. I think you need to review your problem because if you fit a new pump without really knowing the cause of your siezeup, you may get a nasty surprise and another siezeup!
Thank you Roland. That's the first piece of definitive info I've received re the pump. My garage is also certain it's not the pump - though the suggestion that it may be 'blobbing' remains a possibility?. The oil in the old engine was relatively new, maybe 1000 miles/6months old following a full service when I bought the vehicle. No one thought it was water contamination in the oil so unlikely to have been a head gasket - all felt certain it was diesel. I'm still waiting on the return of the injectors from the specialists and remain hopeful that they may have discovered the source of the problem. Grateful thanks for your advice.
I think you are clutching at straws thinking it could be injector trouble. Sure they do get worn and varnished up but not to cause serious mechanical breakdown. dripping or leaking injectors are a thing of the past really, on ancient concrete mixers and old tractors. They will often last the useful life of the vehicle these days. My Escort TD has had them professionally cleaned once in 350,000 km and it was largely unnecessary the shop told me.
All you can do is refit the engine, make sure the thermostat opens and shuts in a pan of boiling water, check your expansion tank cap is clean and the valve works, check your cooling system for leaks and flush the radiator, make sure the two fans work when hot by allowing it to idle up to 90f or so, the engine will slow perceptibly when they cut in, and check that the coolant is circulating by loosening the return hose to the top of the radiator before the pressure and temperature build up.
If you want to spend money then have your injector pump checked over, shouldn't cost the earth in a professional diesel shop. If you do that have them check the fuel on-off valve, if it has a rubber foot they decompose and you can't stop the engine, and eventually it blocks the fine fuel ways inside.
Sorry to be so negative but I just can't see dilution with diesel, unless somebody put some in there thinking it was engine oil. People have done dafter things, like putting oil in the water and water in the oil.
All you can do is refit the engine, make sure the thermostat opens and shuts in a pan of boiling water, check your expansion tank cap is clean and the valve works, check your cooling system for leaks and flush the radiator, make sure the two fans work when hot by allowing it to idle up to 90f or so, the engine will slow perceptibly when they cut in, and check that the coolant is circulating by loosening the return hose to the top of the radiator before the pressure and temperature build up.
If you want to spend money then have your injector pump checked over, shouldn't cost the earth in a professional diesel shop. If you do that have them check the fuel on-off valve, if it has a rubber foot they decompose and you can't stop the engine, and eventually it blocks the fine fuel ways inside.
Sorry to be so negative but I just can't see dilution with diesel, unless somebody put some in there thinking it was engine oil. People have done dafter things, like putting oil in the water and water in the oil.
Thank you again Roland. When the first engine seized it wasn't showing above normal running temperature. The new engine also doesn't ever record a temperature above 80 degrees even up hill in the early running-in trips. The radiator was freshly filled when the new engine went in with new antifreeze/water so I struggle to see that coolant/temperature is significant or could result in there being more fluid in the sump than there was when the oil was changed at 500 miles (750 miles ago). Somehow or another the oil is being diluted with diesel and it surely isn't me pouring it in the rocker cover! I'm at a loss - if it isn't the injectors and the pump seems less and less likely I simply don't know where to go. Andrew
Faulty delivery valve on the pump can cause a good injector to dribble, worn nozzles can do a lovely job of spray coating the bore with diesel rather than atomising it to say these problems are a thing of the past is rubbish. All it takes to ruin an injector and pump is a little petrol or water or the wrong fuel additives such as alcohol.
Hi, many thanks for the input - well that opens the game back up! It may or may not be significant but from collecting the van in August with its new engine until just recently it kept developing leaks from the overspill bung (3 replaced) and once from an overspill pipe. Being only a amateur, my thoughts have led me to thinking the pressure from the pump is maybe too great which may have additionally led to excess diesel through the/an injector(s) down into the sump. Probably completely wrong but given the very few options it just seemed to fit.
Well as I'm known to be talking rubbish maybe you had better measure my words carefully, but I doubt enough diesel could get past the injector spray valve and into the leak-off system to do much harm, and if it did it's got nowhere to go except back into the low pressure side of the fuel system, it still has no way of getting into your engine crankcase.
If an injector had been dripping, and that only means not snapping cleanly shut but allowing a slow wet close-off affecting fine atomisation of the fuel, you would have been well aware of it through prominent combustion noise on the offending cylinder, as if a bearing was knocking, and with poor starting through inadequate atomisation, and loss of power.
Regarding the leaky plug you refer to, I think you mean the one injector leak-off pipe at the far end that is blanked off with a rubber boot, well I have found that the leak-off system isn't very long lasting on the TD10 I have, and I replaced all my leak-off pipes with black 4mm nylon pipe and fitted a new boot when the originals were showing signs of decomposition with diesel oil.
Run your engine without these leak-off pipes in place and you will get an idea of how worn your injectors really are, new or serviced injectors will leak very little, high mileage ones will leak a bit more, but don't imagine any of that can get into your oil sump because there is no route for it to pass, it has to go back into the fuel system.
Also bear in mind that diesel oil is also a lubricant and most small injector pumps are lubricated entirely by it, your Bosch pump included. So any getting into the engine is not likely to cause a sieze-up although slightly heavier bore and piston wear may result over time. But you would know about the problem long before, through white or blue smoke that diesel produces when inadequately burned.
Your caravan is obviously quite old, but old caravans rarely do big mileages because they spend most of the year parked up, and when on the move people want to spend time sightseeing so high mileages such as one gets in some trucks for example, are unlikely.
I drove a Volvo F10 tractor unit with a 10-litre diesel engine pulling a concrete mixer, for 10 years before my retirement, covering well over 600,000 kms and never had to have an injector serviced nor the injector pump in fact I had no engine trouble of any kind at all. Before I took the unit over it had spent 15 years hauling refrigerators at 40 tons between Valencia and Northern Europe and must have done many kms more than those I put on it.
So look elsewhere, your injectors are not likely to be faulty. If in doubt, ask the diesel shop to test them. If you hand them over in your hand the cost should be trifling as they have a hand-operated pressure pump that will give you an answer in a few minutes. Try to get a compression test done which will show up weak cylinders but with diesel engines low compression becomes self-evident especially at cold starting, it either doesn't start or starts with cylinders missing. If it starts up quickly with the injector pump cold-start knob in the advanced position then pump trouble can be discounted, and in any case the only connexion between pump and sump is via the high pressure system and is very tenuous, past the pistons.
But bear in mind I'm talking rubbish with only 50+ years experience of buying running driving and repairing diesel engines.
If an injector had been dripping, and that only means not snapping cleanly shut but allowing a slow wet close-off affecting fine atomisation of the fuel, you would have been well aware of it through prominent combustion noise on the offending cylinder, as if a bearing was knocking, and with poor starting through inadequate atomisation, and loss of power.
Regarding the leaky plug you refer to, I think you mean the one injector leak-off pipe at the far end that is blanked off with a rubber boot, well I have found that the leak-off system isn't very long lasting on the TD10 I have, and I replaced all my leak-off pipes with black 4mm nylon pipe and fitted a new boot when the originals were showing signs of decomposition with diesel oil.
Run your engine without these leak-off pipes in place and you will get an idea of how worn your injectors really are, new or serviced injectors will leak very little, high mileage ones will leak a bit more, but don't imagine any of that can get into your oil sump because there is no route for it to pass, it has to go back into the fuel system.
Also bear in mind that diesel oil is also a lubricant and most small injector pumps are lubricated entirely by it, your Bosch pump included. So any getting into the engine is not likely to cause a sieze-up although slightly heavier bore and piston wear may result over time. But you would know about the problem long before, through white or blue smoke that diesel produces when inadequately burned.
Your caravan is obviously quite old, but old caravans rarely do big mileages because they spend most of the year parked up, and when on the move people want to spend time sightseeing so high mileages such as one gets in some trucks for example, are unlikely.
I drove a Volvo F10 tractor unit with a 10-litre diesel engine pulling a concrete mixer, for 10 years before my retirement, covering well over 600,000 kms and never had to have an injector serviced nor the injector pump in fact I had no engine trouble of any kind at all. Before I took the unit over it had spent 15 years hauling refrigerators at 40 tons between Valencia and Northern Europe and must have done many kms more than those I put on it.
So look elsewhere, your injectors are not likely to be faulty. If in doubt, ask the diesel shop to test them. If you hand them over in your hand the cost should be trifling as they have a hand-operated pressure pump that will give you an answer in a few minutes. Try to get a compression test done which will show up weak cylinders but with diesel engines low compression becomes self-evident especially at cold starting, it either doesn't start or starts with cylinders missing. If it starts up quickly with the injector pump cold-start knob in the advanced position then pump trouble can be discounted, and in any case the only connexion between pump and sump is via the high pressure system and is very tenuous, past the pistons.
But bear in mind I'm talking rubbish with only 50+ years experience of buying running driving and repairing diesel engines.
Hi Roland, many thanks for your advice. Please don't allow my engine problem to disrupt your equilibrium - in the grand scheme of things it's a piddling issue and will doubtless be solved sooner or later (hopefully before I blow up another engine). I feel I my have come up with another answer. My dipstick may have acquired the ability to become erectile thus pushing itself further into the sump and giving the appearance of a higher oil level! If I take it out periodically and give it a damn good cold shower that may dampen its ardour. Grateful thanks again to all contributors.
During the week I'll take a few snaps of what's under my bonnet including the dipstick, and post them,. This possibility of a dud dipstick is the kind of discovery I was expecting to be there and which would explain many things.
your dipstick ought to be like mine
, ruler is marked off in inches. Good luck with it.
, ruler is marked off in inches. Good luck with it.