Technical JTD - glowplugs, egr valves and no oil leaks

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Technical JTD - glowplugs, egr valves and no oil leaks

Argonought

It's about GO! not SHOW!
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jtdengine.jpg

Had another pre-heater plug fail so whipped off the engine cover to check which glow-plug had failed. Would you believe it's #4 which is the same one as a year ago. So I've got 3 plugs coming up to 5 years old and one duff plug which has barely managed a year :eek: Something odd there I think :confused:

The actual engine looks in cracking condition. Not a hint of an oil leak anywhere. Two years now running Castrol Edge 0W-30, plenty of blasts to 5000rpm, top speeds I don't want to even mention and it still looks in better condition than when I bought the car.

Notice the EGR valve (top right in front of the heater plug relay box). I'm thinking my low mpg figures of recent might be due to that valve being a bit gunged up :chin:
 
Do me a favour Argo, can you put a ring around the EGR valve. Just want to know where it is located for future reference.
 
off topic, but bloody hell argo :eek: do you clean that or what? surely it cant be that clean without any input from you
Honest, last time I took the cover off was a year ago (for the same reason as posted). My experience of cars in general is that when you do that you nearly always get an unpleasant surprise - a bit like when I took my undertray off to discover some idiot hadn't screwed the oil filter on properly and it was starting to leak badly :mad:

When I removed the cover, like you, I thought "bloody hell, that's clean - I'm taking a photo". The rest of the engine is pretty much the same all over although I must confess I did clean it underneath, and also the turbo ducting which tends to get rather oily, after discovering the loose filter.

Last month, I had a mishap with the 3 ltr. washer reservoir (bottom left in the photo). I filled up with a fairly strong washer solution and all the gunge that had collected over the years promptly dropped into the solution and blocked all the jets :eek: Stripped it down and gave it a good clean so that looks a lot better too (y)

LoBsTeR, fairly sure that's the EGR valve based on what it does. Maybe one of the proper Fiat techs can confirm (I'll look a prat if it isn't :D )
 
OK, had the heater plug replaced again and this time only cost £30.56 (last year = £35.26). This is the sort of cost you should be looking at to supply and change a heater plug and you certainly DON'T need anything reset with Examiner to do it (y)

Now here's the odd thing. The "heater fault" error has now gone but when they finished the job I was handed a working heater plug which they'd replaced :confused: The only possibility I can think of is that this plug really is faulty (as in intermittent or something) OR someone never connected the supply lead to the top of the original plug properly in the first place. Still for £30 it's not worth worrying about.

Asked about the EGR valve affecting fuel economy (when blocked etc) and the general view seemed to be that it doesn't :confused:

....and for coincidences how about this. Did anybody watch University Challenge on 8th Oct. Jeremy Paxman asked a series of questions on fuel economy features of modern engines. He proceeded to describe the EGR system and asked what EGR stood for? (neither side had a clue as it so happens :D )

Interesting huh?
 
Did anybody watch University Challenge on 8th Oct. Jeremy Paxman asked a series of questions on fuel economy features of modern engines. He proceeded to describe the EGR system and asked what EGR stood for? (neither side had a clue as it so happens :D )

Interesting huh?

That's one point I'll score over my wife when we watch the recording tonight!
:D
She'll still beat me though..:mad:
 
LoBsTeR, fairly sure that's the EGR valve based on what it does. Maybe one of the proper Fiat techs can confirm (I'll look a prat if it isn't :D )

Thanks for that. The location of it seems logical I guess, but with all those pipes I got tunnel vision. I bet thats an expensive part to replace.

I get a little pinking under load at about 2k rpm for a split second. I was wondering if it was the EGR is all.
 
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