Newbie stuff - smoky series 3

It sounds like the valve guide seals may have gone a bit hard - nothing to panic about, but it could also be tied in with.....

It might be an idea to take your injectors along to your local diesel specialist and have them tested - fitting new nozzels and/or re-calibrating them shouldn't be expensive. On a "new" motor it might be a good idea to satisfy yourself that things are ok, so you know where you are starting from, if you see what I mean!

It's very "mormal" for a 2.25 Diesel. If you do the injectors first, then you can see what happens.........probaly everthing is just showing its age, and if so it's all down to "can I live with this" (or perhaps, can my MOTer live with this!)

No problem. Welcome to "club".

oh dear - Landroveritis is setting in......... ;-)

Richard

The Haynes Manual for the Series III Diesel is one of the better ones, and is well worth getting. For some things to do with the bodywork there is useful into in their Restoration Manual.

First thing coming to mind is to ask whether you're using the heater plugs for long enough. The key-switch has four positions: off, on, heat, and start. Many people don't realise how long a heater plug needs to be on for, if it is needed at all, and your initial pulse of smoke could be just unburnt fuel from the cranking. Black smoke comes from excess fuel when the engine is running, or possibly injector faults.

The four heater plugs, one for each cylinder, are wired in series on the original design, each one connected to the next, and a fault in one will stop the whole lot from working. There is an alternative system which some people used which put the plugs in parallel.

The occasional stutter suggests that one of the injectors is not working well. These are the units connected to the pump by the pipework, with a common pipe connecting them and feeding back towards the fuel filter.

Each injector is held by two nuts, and an accumulation of stuff in the hole they go into. At the bottom are several washers.

Caution: over-tightening the nuts on the pipe ends to stop a leak risks shifting the olive on the pipe-end, and making the leak worse.

DANGER: wear eye-protection -- diesel squirting under pressure can blind you.

Slow leaks at the tops of the injectors may be caused by somebody re- using one of the copper washers. I've also seen a slight flaw on the surface of one of the banjos, which had sorted with a careful touch with a file.

It's worth getting a set of flare-nut spanners. These are like ring spanners with a slot to thread past the pipe, and let you move the spanner through a bigger angle than a conventional open-ended spanner.

Apart from the injector pump replacing the distributor, the rest of the engine is very like the petrol engine. I have dropped the sump and replaced a piston on a diesel. The head and valve-gear are much the same.

The starter motor is different. The solenoid is mounted on the top of the motor, and as well as acting as a relay it provides the mechanical movement that engages the drive. The battery is bigger, and it needs to be. It's a very widely-used size in agricultural stuff. Keep an eye on the cleanliness of your battery terminals.

Being new to Diesels, you do realise that Diesel engines have "Heater Plugs" also known as "Glow Plugs" in each cylinder head which you leave on, especially on the older diesels, for 30 seconds (that seems like ages) or so to warm things up a bit before you actually try to start the engine? If you are giving it long enough to warm things and still getting all the white smoke when you try to start then perhaps your glow plugs aren't working.

On or around Wed, 18 Feb 2004 15:21:19 GMT, "h" enlightened us thusly:

not unusual on older diesels. It should go away once it's got warm. as to one pot taking longer to chime in, that could be a dodgy glow plug. How much preheat are you giving it?

(if it starts without preheat, it's in good nick :-))

normal rules for series engines are that you want about 30 seconds preheat from cold on normal days, probably about 20 seconds on hot days (cold engine) and up to a minute when it's significantly below zero. I used to have an 1800 sherpa diesel (similar engine and preheat) and on really cold mornings that took 90 seconds of heat to start reliably.

can't quite remember how the keyswitch works on the SIII, but you should have a key position that puts an orange light on, which is the preheat position. You then either turn the key more to get the starter, or press a button.

Wow - thanks for all the advice, folks - am a bit embarassed I didn't know about the heater plugs. If I hold the ignition key between the 'Acc on' and the 'Start me up dammit' positions there's a really dim orange light on the dash that comes on and slowly gets brighter... never noticed it during the daylight.

Tried holding the key there for about 30 seconds this morning (icy day, very cold), and the engine fired up straight away, very little smoke. Woohoo!

Thanks people - I've printed off all your words and am keeping them safe for future reference. I'm loving the Landie to bits... managed to fix the squirtie wash-wipe thing and have traced the lack of a heater fan to a missing inline fuse on a wire right behind the dash, nowhere near the fusebox at all, and Ive worked out where to bolt a car power amp so I can have tunes...

Once again, thanks for the comprehensive help :)