Bizarre fault-Any diesel/transit experts.....

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Duncan.F

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I have a very odd fault on my van which is a 2.4 bog standard Transit diesel. It started last year at this time immediately after its annual service [!], the garage had no idea what caused it but it wasn't their fault!

What happens is in very cold weather the engine simply does not deliver any power. Going up inclines is teeth grindingly slow, you have to drop a gear or two just to get anywhere. Yet it starts all right but very smokey when revved, and the problem just disappears after 10mins or so!

I have spoken to experienced mechanics and drawn a blank, any experts out there?

Dunc
 
sounds like maybe faulty or dirty fuel injectors. have you tried adding fuel injector cleaner when fuelling up?
 
weird.
fuel filter clogging when diesels cold?
is there a temp controled "flap" in the airbox, like petrol engines?
restricting airflow till its warm.
they usualy pull air from near the ex manifold on petrol engines. maybe the hose has colapsed?
 
There is no warm air device on the duratorq 2.4, the fuel filter does have a temperature conscious valve within the fuel filter head which stops the return of diesel back to the fuel tank until the fuel is warm enough. It maybe that the fuel is being sent back to the tank during the warm up period due to a faulty head. Not a cheap thing to try though and not very common.

Does the glow plug light flash when the fault is apparent?

I would suggest getting your garage to rig up a separate feed and return pipe directly into the OEM pipes on the pump and driving it from cold on warm diesel to eliminate any issues with the pipe work.

When they did the service, did they replace the fuel filter element?
It's quite possible to fit the element from the TDCi vehicle to a TDDi vehicle. The filtration is much tighter on the TDCi and it could be causing a slight fuel restriction during warm up. Have a look at the yellow piston on the filter head, does it suck down when revved after it's been reset?
 
Try a Google for "Sticking EGR valve" and see if the symptoms are similar. Happens a lot on modern diesels (cars and trucks. especially those that do short runs).
 
Sounds like a underperforming fuel pump to me - my old diesel used to do something very similar, until I got a few parts replaced on the pump itself (you don't actually need a full new unit if you find the right person), and £60 later, plus down about 1Hp, it was running fine!!
 
Thanks for the replies guys! I asked last year when it started whether thehad replaced any of the filters and they said no. Dropped in at the garage today to book it in for its annual and he said it was freezing diesel.

Dunc
 
freezing diesel !! , where the hell are you , the arctic !! , you have only been using 'diesel' aint ya , not trying to accuse you of anything of course :eek: :lol:
 
cool , just seems weird that you are the only person in the country that i have heard of suffering from frozen diesel , i wonder if there is water in the system as well ? :)
 
Im afraid this is actually very simple but not in the way you might think.

1. If you actually want it fixed will will likely be paying a lot of money. ( I guess your out of warrenty)

2. The other option is live with it.

3. and the final option is sell it.


But I will indulge somewhat. First you need to find someone with genuine skill that actually wants to fix the problem. They need to have it in conditions when they can reproduce the fault. You may well find such a person on here but they can still only guess unless they are with the van at fault.

I could list a few things that are common to A that engine or B to that style of engine, but without even obvious date like the year of manufacture this would be quite a considerable list.
On top of that without the right test equipment most of it isn't really checkable.

I wish you the best of luck.
 
Duncan.F said:
Thanks for the replies guys! I asked last year when it started whether thehad replaced any of the filters and they said no. Dropped in at the garage today to book it in for its annual and he said it was freezing diesel.

Dunc
Click to expand...

ruskies put a drop of petrol in when its cold............
 
More common than you'd think, at work they run one of the 9's down the hole to the pump's on xmas day, it cut out and wouldn't re-start. Yesterday when the fitters went to bring it up they got it going but it cut out again and it was down to frozen diesel. Metal fuel tanks conduct the cold/heat more efficiently than a plastic tank..hence the dozer's problem.
In canada and plenty other countries vehicles come equipped witha mains plug, they plug them in at night and it uses a heating element (unsure how/where) to keep the fuel and engine oil from freezing up and 'glooping', in the case of the oil you would opt for the lowest W prefix..it stands for Winter not weight as is widely percieved!
 
Give fordtransit.org a try. I used to be a member there when I had a Transit a few years ago. The EGR fault seems a common one on the mk6 2.4.
 
Used to drive taxis 30 odd yrs ago and freezing deisel was a problem back then, especially if sat on a rank for a long time during the night. A little petrol added when filling up with deisel used to beat the freeze.
 
frank said:
Used to drive taxis 30 odd yrs ago and freezing deisel was a problem back then, especially if sat on a rank for a long time during the night. A little petrol added when filling up with deisel used to beat the freeze.
Click to expand...

Certainly not advised with the modern breed of diesel engines.:nono:
 
Went out the day before yesterday and no problem!! Its a 2000 model BTW but unless it is the diesel it seems an expensive or difficult fix. So I will live with it and hope for warmer weather.......:cool: Last night was very cold, I have to get out today so I will report later.
Many thanks for the suggestions and inputs!

Dunc
 
Friend of a friend suffered freezing diesel in his Discovery the other day, although his wouldn't even start! It's been on my mind ever since, especially with these temperatures.
 
Might be my imagination but ESSO diesel smells very chip shoppe of late, "IF" they're mixing fos and veg now then this may lead to glouping, but then our van's is running ok on it.
 
Uk legislation now allows a higher proportion of Bio content into diesel without any form of advertising :(

Biodiesel can be bad for modern fuel systems under certain conditions.

Waxing of diesel is common tbh, especially if the cold snap catches the fuel suppliers by surprise as they don't add the winter additive package to the mix in time to get it into the distribution chain.

On a 2k plated Transit I'm guessing you have to 90ps Duratorq (puma) engine and not the gutless 75ps version. If so the Bosch VP fuel pump is a tad more resilient to fuel than it's Delphi (TDci) cousin found on FWD and later 135ps versions of the V184/5 range.
 
The gel point of diesel is approx -9c to -11c so it ends up leaving wax deposits (usually around filter) - most diesels contain additives to prevent this but some of the supermarket chains tend to be a short on the additives in order to keep the price down (can not comment on Tesco). This is also a big problem with red diesel depending on when its bought as if bought in summer its unlikely to have any additives.

One solution is to use STP injection cleaner as it also has the effect of lowering the gel point of diesel - alternatively use a paraffin mix (1/45 to 60).
 
there seem to be a few transit experts on here, I have a 125 PS injector pump in the garage from a 2000 X reg transit, it came from a low mileage transit, I had the engine swapped but kept the old pump on , i'm told they can be decoded now so they'll work with any 125ps transit.

anybody know what it's worth and whether it'd need to be serviced before being used, it's been in the garage for 8 years
 
I wouldn't bother getting anything done with it tbh, they can be cleared by bosch diesel dealers but it's not worth the money unless you can ensure it's in good order.

Best bet is to stick it on ebay and say it needs coding, probably worth about 100 quid tbh as they are a weak point. Not so many 125ps around as they were pretty poor on fuel economy, there was also a change in about 2002 to the pump which means it won't be a direct swap for all 125ps 2.4 engines.
 
Ok thanks for the info, I remember being told they used to be around £1000 new so was thinking it might be worth more than that, still £100 isn't to be sniffed at :)
 
An exchange unit is sub £600 from a ford parts dealer at the moment, I've seen VP30 and VP44 pumps being sold by internet based dealers for less than 500 and they'll have a warranty with them.
 
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