Bloody hate diesel engines!!

[Defender110]

So perhaps you should now change the name of this thread 'To I love diesel engines' ' they're great when you get it right'

[citronut]

I also took the starter out (and the bloody clutch arm so I could get to one of the bolts!)

i never remove the starter or the clutch actuating are either,

if you have a long enough length of kunifer you can bend it to shape, so you can feed it up behind the starter and aim it straight into the peg hole from below


regards malcolm

[Kitch]

I could change it to "I hate working on diesel engines"

[Kitch]

I also took the starter out (and the bloody clutch arm so I could get to one of the bolts!)

i never remove the starter or the clutch actuating are either,

if you have a long enough length of kunifer you can bend it to shape, so you can feed it up behind the starter and aim it straight into the peg hole from below


regards malcolm

That's what I did first time (actually saw one of your posts suggesting 3/16 pipe) but it's pretty tricky to get it aligned and the pipe sits in the hole like a prick in a shirt sleeve! Took two minutes to get the starter and arm off really, so then I could put the M8 bolt in and it was locked solid; with the pipe it still had some float.

[citsncycles]

Yep - I ended taking the clutch arm off too!

[Defender110]

Junior hacksaw frame is perfect when leaving the starter on.

[Oilyspanner]

I have used the junior hacksaw frame too, before I made the threaded bar tool, I try not to crank the engine over with any of the pins in place actually I turn the engine over with a socket on the crank bolt and double check by re-inserting the pins before going near the key.
BX turbos are easy enough, Xantias are worse due to the redesign of the covers to make the job harder and the plastic tray over the starter bolts , non turbo XUDs are almost a pleasure with the old style covers.

[Defender110]

Yes, all engines should be manually cranked twice then timing marks rechecked before going near the key.

[mat_fenwick]

Something which may be relevant: I was asked to do a head gasket change on a neighbour's XUD. He's bought it cheap as it needed the HG, but he later found out it had been done twice before. I took it to the machine shop for pressure checking, and they skimmed it too (I wonder if they do that anyway even if it's flat, to earn an extra bit of cash...)

Anyway, came to put the belt back on and the cam pulley timing hole was about half a hole out if you know what I mean. I can only think that if so much material has been taken off the head, it's actually enough to take the timing marks out of alignment! Despite a new radiator and good coolant circulation, that engine lasted about a week before oil and water mixing. Obviously something more fundamentally wrong, especially when I found out about the previous head work. I just put another engine in, which I wish I'd done to start with!

[Oilyspanner]

I once repaired a BX diesel where someone had cut down some M8 bolts and carefully put them in all of the timing holes, thus making it impossible to time it properly.
I was doing a clutch and timing belt on that car so I took the engine out, when I returned it to its owner he phoned me and asked what I had done to it ? apparently it had never gone so well in the 50,000 miles he had owned it, they walk among us

[Kitch]

I once repaired a BX diesel where someone had cut down some M8 bolts and carefully put them in all of the timing holes, thus making it impossible to time it properly.
I was doing a clutch and timing belt on that car so I took the engine out, when I returned it to its owner he phoned me and asked what I had done to it ? apparently it had never gone so well in the 50,000 miles he had owned it, they walk among us

I'm missing something here....i used m8 bolts!

[Defender110]

'Filled the holes permanently with cut down m8 bolts making it impossible to fit longer bolts in to time the engine' ?

[Kitch]

'Filled the holes permanently with cut down m8 bolts making it impossible to fit longer bolts in to time the engine' ?

Oh cut down and filled? As in wound bolts into the timing holes and cut the heads off? !

[citronut]

[quote="mat_fenwick" that engine lasted about a week before oil and water mixing. [/quote]

maybe the oil cooler leaking into the coolant, simple job to do

regards malcolm

[Oilyspanner]

[quote="mat_fenwick" that engine lasted about a week before oil and water mixing.

maybe the oil cooler leaking into the coolant, simple job to do

regards malcolm[/quote]


I have seen a few do that, most of the head gaskets that I have done on XUDs have not mixed oil and water, just pressurised the cooling system.
Stewart