priming a lucas diesel pump

sarahjaneking · Post by **sarahjaneking** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 10:21 am

Hi everyone,

I have tried searcing but couldn't find quite what I needed,long story short my tzd experienced a dramatic loss of power and cut out on the m60 yesterday, totally unable to restart, sounded as though no fuel was getting through. After 2 hours a recovery truck brought us home and I was able to have a quick look.

Now one of my rubber fuel lines was split, fattish one that goes in at the top near the fuel cut off lever. On squashing my squeezy primer thing it gurgled a lot, as there was plenty of pipe i unclipped, cut off the split and reattached, i then repeatedly squeezed my squeezy thing but I still don't appear to be getting any fuel through, does it normally take ages to prime?? should it go totally firm? it is definitely firmer than it was but still fairly easy to squish,

any advice much appreciated

sarah x

rmattila · Post by **rmattila** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 11:12 am

If the primer is old and the rubber is not as elastic as it once was, it may be that it's unable to pump pure air. In such cases I usually just put the end of the pipe to my mouth and suck until fuel comes through the primer, then attach the hose and continue priming with the pump until it feels solid.

If you don't like the taste of fuel, I guess a large injection syringe or some other vacuum pump would do the trick.

But, listening to the symptoms, are you sure the solenoid valve at the injector pump is getting 12 V?

sarahjaneking · Post by **sarahjaneking** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 11:27 am

would that be my stop solenoid?? either way no i'm not sure it's getting 12 volts. If it is the stop solenoid can i just take it out to see if it works then??

oh and which part of the pipe would i need to suck, where it joins the pump??

thanks
ever so much,

Sarah

rmattila · Post by **rmattila** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 11:40 am

sarahjaneking wrote:would that be my stop solenoid?? either way no i'm not sure it's getting 12 volts. If it is the stop solenoid can i just take it out to see if it works then??

Yes, the stop solenoid. The solenoid itself will most probably be OK, but I've had a few occurrences, where the wiring has either broken due to fatique, or for some other reason has been able to move in such a way that the copper has touched the car body and burned a fuse. Either way, it will kill the engine instantly, whereas air problems usually come gradually and won't totally prevent the engine from starting.

Don't know about the details on your engine, but for reference, in the old Bosch pump, the connection point is there, by the arrow tip. I'd just detach the wire, connect it to a voltmeter, turn on the ignition and see if it gets the 12 V.

oh and which part of the pipe would i need to suck, where it joins the pump??

That's what I'd do. You can also first check if the primer works by loosening the circlip a bit, pumping carefully and seeing if the fuel leaks from the loosened connection.

-Riku

sarahjaneking · Post by **sarahjaneking** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 12:15 pm

well i've got 11.72v to the stop solenoid, but i noticed it doesn't look like the one i replaced in my txd with identical pump, in fact it doesn't look very well made and has no mfr markings, of course I couldn't get the stupid thing out and i've now flattened my battery but I shall be looking at that when I get a jump start and trying the fuel sucky trick (it does leak a little fuel when loosened is that good or bad?).

I can see why you think it is the solenoid though, it really was as thoug i suddenly had no fuel and it certainly doesn't sound like any is getting through at all at the moment.

thanks again for all your help

sarah x

toddao · Post by **toddao** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 1:16 pm

There's probably no need to suck diesel unless you like the taste! Remove the outflow pipe from the filter and fill with diesel using a small funnel then re-attach. This provides enough fuel to get the suction going. It's never failed for me - on my Bosch setup - whereas the primer on the filter has never worked!

rmattila · Post by **rmattila** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 1:28 pm

If the primer will succesfully pump fuel to the injection pump (which is easy to confirm once you have loosened the pipe connection), the next step I'd do after checking the aforementioned stop solenoid voltage would be to get one injector pipe off the nozzle end (=the engine end) and have an assistant (i.e. my wife) to crank the engine and see if there's fuel coming from the injector pipe.

If there's no fuel coming, then I'd remove the solenoid valve, put the cap back on and see if the situation changes. If it does, then replace the solenoid. If still no fuel, then there's a mechanical failure in the pump (which is very rare) or the distribution belt has slipped (which you certainly would have noticed from the sound of camshaft cracking in three pieces).

If there's fuel coming from the injector pipe but the engine won't start, then it's either a slipped (but not fallen) distribution belt, or the fuel going to the engine is not diesel at all. I can't think of any mechanical failure that would kill all 4 cylinders simultaneously while still enabling the injection pump to do its job.

rmattila · Post by **rmattila** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 1:39 pm

toddao wrote:There's probably no need to suck diesel unless you like the taste!

Well, it does give a piquant aroma to enhance your appetite for certain types of gourmet food, such as my personal Bravur, the Turbo sausage.

But yeah, you're probably right.

citronut · Post by **citronut** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 1:46 pm

if the stop solenoid is working it will tick as the ignition is switched on,

regards malcolm

Post by **mat_fenwick** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 5:06 pm

rmattila wrote:there

Just a thought, but you may want to tighten your cambelt...

rmattila · Post by **rmattila** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 5:18 pm

mat_fenwick wrote:Just a thought, but you may want to tighten your cambelt...

It seems that the belt had actually been pretty tight, and even in relatively OK shape, but the water pump bearing had decided to give up. Put a new engine in (pics), will save the autopsy and possible rising from the dead of the old one for next winter, in case fitting the A/C and three MOT inspection rounds won't hog all spare time. Endoscope showed a camshaft in three pieces and some damage to its bearing supports, but the pistons looked all right (for an engine with 700 000 km on the clock).

scarecrow · Post by **scarecrow** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 10:36 pm

I like the name of your beer

sarahjaneking · Post by **sarahjaneking** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 3:35 pm

you are all just a tiny bit mad aren't you

must be why I like it here lol

Well all sorted, and I can confirm that diesel is unlikely to ever make my top 5 tipples of choice

Although the stop solenoid clicked and had 12v to it replacing it has definitely solved the problem replaced it with a decent one from gsf rather than a toytown one which is what gave me the problem, so hopefully i won't end up
here again lol

rmattila · Post by **rmattila** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 5:18 pm

It sure doesn't look like a good place to end up to, wrong side of the road and all..

Have you checked the removed solenoid? Would be interesting to learn the failure mode, if it clicked and still didn't let any fuel through.

sarahjaneking · Post by **sarahjaneking** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 5:26 pm

I have to admit i haven't, i still have it though and it could definitely be worth checking it to see exactly what is going on, failing open is one thing but suddenly closing is not fun

I'll post a pic as well as it really does look rubbish, the top where the wires attach is coming away from the main body, and according to the history of the car it was only fitted 2 years ago !!!!