2004 Vectra 2 litre diesel cold start

Who is "injector dwell" when he is at home?

Would either or both of these be more likely to occur when very cold? Possibly the spill pipe material is less flexible when cold, so more likely to leak air in?

How many months do they usually last? Is an annual change reasonable?

As to the reason for the excess fuel; I cannot see without removing the plastic cover, but if the injectors have an electrical control which opens them independently of any timing from the fuel pump, then to avoid undue load on the pump fuel could be returned to the input side of the pump when the injector is closed.

The number of degrees of crankshaft rotation that the injector is open.

Chris

While replacing the spill pipes the inward side of the pump will be open to the air for as long as the job takes. I imagine this means that all the fuel in the supply pipe from the tank to the pump will flow back to the tank. So when I come to start the engine it will have to pull fuel from the tank, which will run the pump without lubrication; at consequent risk of damage.

How can I guard against this?

Ir should I borrow the necessary electric pump and follow the fuel system bleeding procedure shown in the Haynes manual?

How long should that take? A minute, an hour, or a week?

Thanks ...

just a short run. I point it out just in case you didn't realise that a diesel fuel system MUST be fuel and air tight and MUST be free of air inside, in order that it works properly, so immediately after changing the pipes it will still cough and cackle until the pipes are free of any air content.

in practical terms the system will still have plenty of fuel in it, I would not worry about it, it will be no worse than it has been suffering up to now. IIRC they have an electric pump in the tank which will quickly blast some fuel through,

Thanks - also for the other post about not needing to bleed the fuel system if I replace the spill pipes.

This morning I examined all the plug connectors. About 10mm below the top there's an area you can squeeze to release them so with the right pair of pliers they come off easily.

All the plugs measure about 0.7 ohm.

Power is available on all the leads for about 34 seconds after ignition-on.

None of the fuses in the fuse box supply the glow plugs. F31 (60A) if removed disables the dashboard and ignition.

There is a small black box at the offside rear of the battery housing which appears to contain two 80A fusible links, bolted in place. It looks like one above the other, so I can only see the top one.

Adjacent to the offside of the battery cover there is a finned metal block about 30 x 100 x 40 mm which I suspect is the glow plug controller. There is a bundle of cables entering its uderside, one of which is about 6mm diameter and looks like the one running from the upper 80A fuse.

With all the glow plug connectors disconnected I tried to start the engine. Air temperature was +7 degrees. Engine cranked and coughed for three separate 5-second bursts, then ran smoothly. Lots of blue/grey smoke from exhaust.

So it would seem that having the glow plugs energised really does make a difference even at moderate temperatures. Normally at +7 degrees the engine would start first time, after allowing 10 seconds for the glow plugs to heat; and there's not more than a tiny puff of blue smoke from the exhaust.

At about 0 degrees last winter's experience shows it will cough and die perhaps 3 times before running. Always there was blue smoke, which suggests there is fuel, just that it is not being ignited.

At about -6 degrees I have to try about 5 times. If I don't repeat the glow plug heating I might have to crank it for a minute before anything happens.

Maybe this engine is designed to need all the help it can get to start. Certainly other people say their diesels always start first try even when well below freezing.

The most recent diesels certainly use glow plugs as part of their running/emission strategy, and the glow plugs are constantly energised at a low level and checked every few minutes, and if there is a problem with the glow plugs/circuit they flag up a fault (such as the Ford Fusion for 100 percent certain) In the past there have been plenty of diesels with no glow plugs at all (transit diesel for example) they start instantly, scarcely even a turn before they run.

Interesting - this car - usually - about 30 seconds after starting the "Car needs service" light will come on and stay on for about a minute.

On two occasions about a month ago that light came on when driving and went off about 10 minutes later. It went for some unrelated work at my regular garage two days later, so I asked them to investigate. They found nothing which could have caused it, and no stored fault codes, but they are an independent so maybe don't have the correct kit.

They actually did a service even though the previous service was only about 5000 miles ago - they were a bit disorganised that week and admitted it was their fault - but happily they didn't bill me for it.

I have found that the cheaper code readers do vary in what they report, it is not till you get up to the several thousand pound mark that you can be reasonably sure of getting all the info. even then a unit dedicated to the brand or model may surpass the universal tester.

Yes. When cold it implies it's been stood a longer time. That means it's ha d more time to allow more air in. When still hot it's recently been purged by running.

Common rail electronic injectors don't have spill pipes. If you have spill pipes the injector is the old type. Due to need for very free motion of the valve push rod to get the fast opening speed they can't fit a high drag se al on the valve push rod. So they let it leak and lubricate the push rod. T he leakage rate is very precise as it's defined by the clearance of the pus h rod to the body and length of push rod. The spill pipes release the leake d fuel. They can't just cap the top end of the push rod. It would have inje ction pressure on the end of the push rod which would hold the valve on the seat as it is seated up to the nozzle hole so would have less force = pr essure x (push rod area - nozzle area) than the shut end = pressure x pus h rod area.

Citroen did the same with their pump up suspension. Couldn't contain the pr essure with 1950's seals. So they had a high pressure piston ring and low p ressure oil seal. The HP ring leaked and passed the leakage that arrived in the space between the ring and seal back to the tank though an octopus lik e mess of hoses. It also lubed the strut rod in the body as the "gap" was f ormed by the piston ring on the strut rod and the oil seal on the body. The y had a vent line from the tank as well to let air in if the leak wasn't ba d enough to fill the space. Shame they didn't lube the sphere piston as wel l.

Sorry If this turns up three times but TB claimed the server timed out and it hasn't shown up on google groups so I assume Highwinds is suffering from the aforesaid (maybe hell and high water).

Well that appears to be utterly borked. Now using google groups.

As Mr Cheerful says - change the spill pipes for the correct pipe material. Get some new "T" pieces as well. If the garage has cut off the old pipes they WILL have damaged the old "T" pieces. Dont spend any other time or cash until the pipes/T pieces have been done. Start to worry if that does not fix it. Could be that the inspector seals need replacing PROPERLY.

Dave

Please, what are "inspector seals"

a misspelling of injector

They're a bit like injector seals, but with the "help" of auto-correct.

Correct. Ruddy spellchucker.....

Something Clouseau does on a Sunday.