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The saga of my valve stem seals


Peaklander

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Hi

I will admit that the 1,54 mm rise was taken from the "wise book" fregarding a 200 tdi as I didnt have the figures for a 300... But as far as I know, the 200's have never had egr and especially not in the defenders? (was a defender genuine manual regarding all the engines until the 200's)

Does the 300 book say 1,4 mm rise?

Mads

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From the 300TDI Defender manual....

Injection timing............................................................... 1,54 mm lift at T.D.C.

Injection timing with electronic EGR ............................ 1,40 mm lift at T.D.C.

I would go 1.54 as a MINIMUM for the engine with or without EGR. The more retarded timing is to help NOX emissions and is not optimal for performance. They purposely run the engine retarded from the peak power point as it reduces the NOX levels. Optimal performance will be more advanced than either of these figures.

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I have removed, cleaned and refitted the seals using that Bondloc where they go over the guides. I was again surprised that I could pull them off without using pliers.

just leave it 24hours for it to cure fully before starting it...

I'll wait until the morning, reset the tappets and then I'm back where I started.

I am so frustrated with the seals that I contacted Turners (as this engine came from them about 100K miles ago according to the bit of history I have). They were very helpful.

First off, valve stem oil seals are never a problem on a 300tdi and I shouldn't have changed them.

Secondly, when I explained that I had used both LR genuine and Britpart seals and both act the same (easy to pull-off) and both look identical, they said that a lot of "genuine" parts for older vehicles are now being sourced by JLR from non-ideal suppliers. It's quite possible that those seals are in fact the same ones (x10 difference in price though).

I pointed out that their seals are only available as part of a head kit (that's why I didn't buy from them).

I think I will check the timing / very slightly advance it - just to see what happens. Plenty of advice on here to suggest that it is worthwhile. I've got a wading plug pin and the FI pump pin coming on Friday in case I muck something up - but tomorrow I will just check underneath by eye and then move the pump by 1deg or so.

Also I'll read-up on the other method mentioned first by Mads earlier today.

I have been advised by Turner's to get a compression test - "the first thing to do if anything untoward is suspected". Perhaps look at that too.

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I know it is a petrol, but you try telling that to my Audi.

I fail to see how oil in the exhaust port will not cause blue smoke as it burns off? Hot exhaust gasses heating oil = blue smoke whatever fuel it is....?

It will, but the amount of oil that can leak past a seal on these engines is so small that it could not produce enough smoke to see. With some V engines, the valve stems are low and get a lot of oil pooling around them. In these engines, there is no direct flow of oil near the seal and any that is there easily drains off.

Smoke on start-up makes no sense from this source. How is it possible for a bunch of oil to run down a valve stem with the engine off, even if there was no seal.

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It will, but the amount of oil that can leak past a seal on these engines is so small that it could not produce enough smoke to see. With some V engines, the valve stems are low and get a lot of oil pooling around them. In these engines, there is no direct flow of oil near the seal and any that is there easily drains off.

Smoke on start-up makes no sense from this source. How is it possible for a bunch of oil to run down a valve stem with the engine off, even if there was no seal.

Pretty much exactly what Richard Turner told me this afternoon. It wouldn't have mattered that I changed them though if the replacement seals were better tolerance - after all the actual job was very straightforward.

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Does this mean I got a new greener profile now? :-s must go out and turn the fueling down again then :-(

:-)

The method is to use a micrometer through the hole covered by a 12mm headed bilt between the injection pipes on the pump with an apropriate holder (ebay :-) ) this way you can measure the rise of the pump very precisely.

Mads

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I'd only worry about blue smoke if it continued after warm up. I did the valve stem seals on my 200 at only 90k because it was smoking heavily on the overrun. When I cracked it open, only the exhaust valves were letting oil in.... I'd have left it but my laning companion started moaning about following me...

I thought about doing the stems in situ but it was too good an opportunity to replace the head gasket, core plugs and other stuff, as well as re-lap the valves... In the end I had it gas flowed as well

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I've left it a few days and now I think I can close this topic...

The stem seals stayed on the guide with the bondloc, so an easy job, made more difficult by poor tolerance seals, has been completed after several days. Phew. I acknowledge those on here and Turner Engineering, who said that very little oil gets onto the stems on a 300tdi and it can't get into the bores due to the combination of turbo and exhaust pressures.

The blue smoke has gone though and there definitely was some.

As for the grey / white smoke that seems to have developed over time and also poured out for the first 200-300m, in summary I had the injectors checked, I replaced two glow plugs and went to mattsavage4x4 where they did a quick cylinder compression test - reaching 380psi on each one.

The final work was that I very slightly advanced the timing. With the flywheel at TDC mark, seen through the wading plug hole, I couldn't get a 9.5mm drill into the pump hole until I rotated the 22mm nut a very slight amount clockwise. Finally I used a 9mm drill so I could advance a little more and locked it against that. According to the little pair of marks I made before moving, I turned it just about a degree or so - its hardly visible.

The result has been that the grey smoke has completely gone and I think that performance has improved although round here there are no >50mph speed limits. The turbo whine sounds louder by the way.

All in all I'm satisfied that it was a little bit of oil and a lot to do with injection timing. Thanks to everyone on here.

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His videos are very well made and have given me a huge amount of help since I got my 110. I like the effort he's gone to to over dub the audio (or whatever the term is) so that the explanation is perfectly aligned with the video - as well as lots of video editing of course to make it flow.

I hadn't seen this one though ...and now I understand this method of pump adjustment. Thanks for sharing.

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Congratulations! :-)

I am still a bit curious about where the "peak power" point is (1,4 mm?), as red90 described it. Can you enlighten me?

Mads

AFAIK, nobody on the LR community has ever taken the time to properly test things. It is not a very scientific group...

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Yes we know what LR tell us the setting is supposed to be; but I haven't seen any proper data on whether that is 'best' . Anecdotally, I know a little more advance seems to be better for power and lower EGR and worse for response and emissions, but I haven't seen it quantified against the lift settings. I don't know whether the EGR and non EGR settings are comparable, ie is one the same as the other pump in effect but more retarded or are the pump internal components different so the settings aren't comparable, though I do notice 200tdi and 300tdi non EGR are the same at 1.54 ( I got the numbers. A about T in an earlier post) Presumably one could find a 'good' setting and then measure the lift so that it could be repeated, but it is a royal pain to do on the vehicle.

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Congratulations! :-)

I am still a bit curious about where the "peak power" point is (1,4 mm?), as red90 described it. Can you enlighten me?

Mads

Keep in mind that a larger lift number is more advanced. 1.54 mm is more advanced than 1.40.

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  • 5 years later...

I know an old Thread but some useful information - I was dreading doing valve stem seals on my 200tdi (after reading this thread), but turned out it was a doddle. It had Elring seals on - they need a pretty hard pull to come off with some mole grips, and replacement Elring seals sources from Turner Engineering - nice tight fit I used a 13mm socket to gentle tap them into place. They felt properly firm and seated. - took only a few minutes in the end really.

I took the valve springs off with one of these: " Universal Overhead Valve Spring Compressor Engine Removal Jaw Tool" worked a treat very little faff.

Image 1 - Universal Overhead Valve Spring Compressor Engine Removal Jaw Tool

b40ced27-bcdc-45d7-9c1a-13dc2c6af872.jpg

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If you think about it, they do a different job than in a naturally aspirated petrol engine. In that, they try to stop excess oil being drawn down the guides by vacuum in the engine. In a 300tdi there should be next to no vacuum, maybe some till the turbo gets going, IE at startup. Mostly, they will be trying to stop air under boost pressure going up the guides into the crankcase. So the fact they blow off is not so surprising.

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7 hours ago, cackshifter said:

If you think about it, they do a different job than in a naturally aspirated petrol engine. In that, they try to stop excess oil being drawn down the guides by vacuum in the engine. In a 300tdi there should be next to no vacuum, maybe some till the turbo gets going, IE at startup. Mostly, they will be trying to stop air under boost pressure going up the guides into the crankcase. So the fact they blow off is not so surprising.

Interesting comment - Richard at turners pointed this out and tbh I'd never really thought about it.

Tdi's are positive/equal pressure type system so unless there is something quite wrong, valve stem seals last a very long time, as they dont really have to work all that hard to stop oil going past them. Anywhoo as I changed the valves in my case it made sense to put new seals in too.

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13 hours ago, Peaklander said:

@maverick I hope that they stay on! Mine felt lovely and tight too, going on with a nice click. Why they insisted on popping back off I don't know. As you will have read, the Bondloc did the trick.

I did buy some adhesive just in case :) - I'll keep an eye on mine make sure they stay in place. - if they're going to pop off on any engine its mine - with the VNT turbo you run pretty high boost pressure 1.2bar +

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