Hi all.

I was investigating a non running issue on the Wife's 115JTD ELX and decided to take the crank sensor out to clean it up. It snapped and broke to bits and I can't get it out. I took it to a garage and they said the same thing.

We need a car on the road so it looks like it may be getting scrapped and replaced, all for the sake of a poxy crank sensor!:bang:

Humm... can the sensor be pushed out from the inside after removing the sump?

Hi mate if you scrap your car is the any chance I could buy some parts of it before you do mines a endless money pit at the moment cheers

I had to remove the crank sensor and replace it a while back and it was a pig to get at so this might not be possible due to lack of space. It also depends how the sensor has broken up. I would try taking off the starter motor to make some room and see if I could drill a tap hole into the bit of sensor that's left. If there is no space for a proper drill then maybe a drill bit in mole grips would work with a lot of patience. Then use a coach screw ( like a very large self tapping screw) through a large washer and a suitable socket to tighten down into the hole in the sensor. Once the coachscrew tightens against the washer and socket it just might pull the remains out. If it breaks up then it may be worth the sump off route- I have had a look on eper and my manual but can't find any good diagrams that might help. I will have another look in the morning. Good luck with whatever you try.

Cheers for the advice! Worse case scenario is engine removal I guess.

Ontheroad, what parts do you need? I broke a Multipla for parts a few months ago.

Hi I need a turbo,intercooler,erg and I'm after some alloys mate cheers

I have all of those. the alloys have snow tyres on and one is punctured. Make an offer.

Lankytim you have a pm mate

Is any of the sensor left sticking out form the hole? Scrapping the car for the sake of this would be a real shame

Nope, nothing sticking out!

I towed it to a friendly garage today who have a pretty positive attitude, fingers crossed it can be sorted out!

UPDATE!!

The garage have just rang, they have removed the sump and pushed the crank sensor out and fitted the new one. Hurrah!!

Unfortunately it still won't start, apparently the high pressure fuel pump is only knocking out about 9psi instead of 400 odd. Is it the immobiliser doing this? apparently one of the stored faults is the ECU isn't recognising the key. I'm going to drop off a spare key tonight.

I do have a spare high pressure pump that can go on. I'm not convinced it's the pump itself at fault though.

What were the symptoms of the 'non running' before you tried to pull the crank sensor out?

It would occasionally not start, but would go usually on the second attempt. It once just cut out for no reason, but restarted after 10 minutes, never a big problem tbh- but the most recent issue was it not starting after being left overnight when I replaced the injectors for some used ones. It would go on easy start but if left for any amount of time it wouldn't restart. After a couple of days it wouldn't even go with the easy start! When it was running, it ran A1.

I tried to pull the crank sensor just to give it a wipe over.. but I broke it.

When you replaced the injectors, did you get them married up to the pump and ECU? I'm not sure what's involved exactly, but I do know that fitting new injectors isn't just plug 'n' play. Give your local Bosch Injection service agent a call. Have you still got the old ones to refit temporarily?

No I didn't get them married up to the ECU! I thought it was just plug and play. I replaced 2 of them and it ran fine but still had a slight misfire, I tracked down the misfiring cylinder, swapped that injector and thats when it wouldn't start in the morning. The garage has now coded them in to the ECU but it still won't start. No fuel pressure!

After hitting Google I found a thread on the fiat forum where a Multipla had exactly the same symptoms, turns out one of the injectors was leaking diesel back to the tank, if the fuel pressure in the rail is too low then the solenoids on the injectors won't fire, and the leaking injector prevents the high pressure pump building the required pressure up. Easy start spins the engine over quickly enough for the HP pump to pressureise the rail enough for the engine to run. I think this is what's happened when I swapped the last injector. Unfortunately. the injectors have been in and out several times since and have been mixed up so I don't know which one it is.

The garage are convinced the HP pump has failed, but I just think it;s too much of a coincidence that it stopped starting when I swapped the last injector.

The garage have stopped work on it for the time being to allow to to remove the injectors and take them to a local specialist for testing, £15 per injector.

Fingers and toes crossed this will sort it.

Also, the replacement injectors were from an 02 and they are now fitted to an 04 model...

I don't think that anything you've done would do damage to the HP pump; that would be a good question to ask of the place that's testing the injectors.

I remember reading somewhere that the injectors are marked with serial numbers. That may be a way of sorting them into their two original sets. They are usually matched as sets on a flow rig (to quite fine tolerances) which is why replacing a single injector seems a dodgy practice to me.

Ah, that makes sense. It's a pity the car is still at the garage, if it was on the driveway I could get stuck in!

I've spotted a set of reconditioned injectors for the correct year pretty cheap so I may just get those rather than putting the old injectors in. The original injectors were pretty knackered (well, 2 of them were). It should work out more straightforward to stick the new ones in and get the ECU coded in again.

edit.

Bugger, got outbid!! I'll sort out the original injectors, get them cleaned up and stick em back in.

Ive read that pre 2003 injectors are not compatible with post 2003 injection systems, so it deffo wont run with them in.

Just thinking out loud, can the coded electronic part (presumably the solenoid on top) be swapped from a worn injector onto good one to retain the coding with the new injector?

I think the flow rig calibration is intended to measure and match injectors according to the amount of fuel they deliver at the injector end (though I'll happily bow to anyone's superior knowledge about this). Because the pressures involved are so high and the holes in the injector tip so small, even tiny variations in the bores and solenoid valve timings can make a significant difference to the amount of fuel each injector will deliver. If the set of injectors aren't matched, that can mean that some cylinders receive more fuel than others (and at different timing relative to TDC), so the engine won't run very smoothly. Presumably the ECU has some kind of feedback monitoring for this and if it goes out of range, it won't allow the engine to run. That's my guess, anyway.

If you have a look at the relevant page on the forum ePER, the injectors are shown as having the following successive part numbers:

73500295 - Replaced 11/2001
46787376 - Replaced 05/2004
73501139 - Replaced 05/2004
55192948 - From 05/2004

The last one is what's listed as the correct part for my 2004 roundnose JTD 115. As it's also listed as the correct part to supersede one from 11/2001 (when the JTD110 would have been on sale), that would suggest that old and new injectors are interchangeable. Where did you read that they aren't? It would be worth figuring this out, as it could be of use to others in future.

Just found this on the web:

Could possibly even be for the correct injector as he says it's a Bosch, CF3 spec. Interesting viewing; just wish he'd explain things a bit more clearly at the 7-8 minute mark! The same guy also has a video (in 2 parts) showing the strip down and rebuild of a complete injector.

The information I read actually came from an article about similar Vauxhall engines that use the the same injector part number, prior to 2003ish has one type of software, after that it's different. Not that I'm sure the author knew what he was on about though!

Not that all that makes any difference. I removed the injectors, compared them to the old ones and they all have identical part numbers! That's that theory flushed down the U bend.

Anyway, one of the injectors I removed was soaking wet at the tip, so maybe it's leaking all the pressure out through the nozzle overnight. Maybe.

I've dropped them off with a specialist to test, they have the original 4 injectors to use as spares if any parts need replacing (good of them to offer that, I thought)

Hopefully they will tell me that 3 are OK but one is leaking fuel pressure out to the max somewhere and preventing the fuel rail from pressurising.