Maverik

I'm having a welcome break from it to be honest. Work is busy and I've been helping out a mate do some work on my old Black td5 90. I have however had a little time to ponder and recently reading about a 300tdi with a crank timing pulley seal problem, I was struggling to move the crank timing pulley without a puller, I'll get some new seals ready for the timing chest.

Top is non genuine Middle is genuine LR Bottom is non genuine (britpart I suspect)

I've got a box of old 300tdi sprockets I can go measure, let me go have my breakfast and I'll go do it.

Worth speaking to Nige (Hybrid from Hell), I know he provides a gear polishing service at part of his diff rebuild service?

I've got a 1/8npt fitting tapped into the manifold just before the turbo, works ok.

Indeed, can't say it's at the top of my list of culprits...

Well done, I've been running my Webasto without fuel filter for the best part of 8 years I think, the last year it was very unreliable starting. - finally got around to servicing it earlier this year and the burner was full of what looked like petals of carbon/combustion dirt, I can only assume it had burt up additional crud and just kinda blocked the air passages, cleaned - serviced with gaskets and like yours after 1 false start it then started behaving. Been spot on since. I remeber I did try and fit it with a fuel filter at the very begining, but I could never get it bled properly with the filter and it just kept airlocking in the filter.

I think that will be a non return valve, I doubt you'll manage to get air through it, as the principle of how the pump works means it wont free flow.

I've still got the original S suffix block, as I had a spare disco unit that's the one that got sent to Turner's, they kept it and sent me an off the shelf unit. If I'm rebuilding another block I might as well just dismantle the one I've got till I find the problem, most cost/time effective solution just now. Swapping a block is not exactly difficult but it's time intensive.

I had some feedback from Richard Turner this morning, he mentioned dry crank seals, he said you wouldnt hear worn thrust bearings like that - you just get a lot of end float. I'll be borrwoing a dial guage to check the end float. Next plan will be to remove the timing chest fully, see if there's anything obvious, then I'll drop the sump see if there's anything amiss in there. Deep sigh, this isnt going to happen quickly now, I've pretty much run out of steam, luckily managed to get a car from work which has taken the pressure off. How nice would it be to re-power with a super efficient quiet petrol engine...

The pipework is indeed very narrow, it wont take much to block it - i'd pull the pipe section apart and make sure each seciton is clear - also worth checking the pump too, have you tried just pulling of the fuel connection as it goes into the burner and to see if its actually pumping fuel through? - the Webasto/Ebaspacher are pretty intelligent units, and they do lock themselves somtimes, you might have to do a hard reset by pulling one of the power fuses out etc and leaving for a period of time - there's loads of instruction manuals for these units online.

I wonder what I can see if I drop the sump, stupid ladder frame in the way. I've actually had an off the wall idea, I might just rip the stupid thing out and put in a 300.

Didn't sound like that area, I rebuilt the pump I had with new gears in November. Can't see how it would link to the clutch influencing the sound.

If only this chap closed this out... Huh, wrong end he's talking about his clutch release bearing by the nd if it.

Yes 100%, not ancillary. Yes, there is little to no end float on the crank, you can't see it move with the clutch pedal depressed, but you can manually shift it holding onto the damper and push pulling it. Yes noise does sound the same. With engine hot after driving it was really noisy at idle, turn engine off, restart no noise initially but then you hear it develop, if you very lightly engage the clutch e.g. so the release bearing is just touching the clutch plate (so not fully engaged) you hear the tone of the noise change. No stethoscope. I was under it yesterday when it was noisy and the sound is coming from the front sump area, you hear the oil pump ticking and its to the front of that. I think the noise is there all the time but when revved the engine noise covers the squeal.

50 miles test drive and the noise is back. This time I can see that the timing belt hasn't moved from the position I set it yesterday, so I can finally rule that out as being the issue. I'm starting to get a dreaded feeling it's a engine thrust bearing or main bearing issue I'm hearing...

Sooo, a tedious morning ensued. Timing chest cover on, crank damper on and torqued tight, start engine and it starts screaming. - not expected. So I take the cover back off, reinstall and torque up the damper again and run the engine... silent... Que the head scratching moment... Inspected the cover crank dust seal, looks like new - corteco lip seal, so I popped it out and put in a carp britpart thing that came with the gasket kit I had. Put it all back together and it's silent once again... I can't seem to post up the video of the noise but I can't get my head around how how a simple lip seal can make so much noise, and for no apparent reason. I can't say I'm all that confident this has solved the problem... time will tell.

Could it be TE108061L - scrub that - I think thats the FIP mounting studs - how about TE110051L - looks a bit more like what you need?

Just shy of 200 squid to get a genuine from LR. - I was lucky enough to find the FIP pulley on ebay for 50.

Pulleys arrived, one on the left is genuine, the one on the right is turners supply country of origin- China. It's as rough and your granny's chin, the oil seal land is rough, pretty unimpressed same pish as the crank pulleys. If turners are building these into engines it's pretty shocking. I won't be putting this in my truck.

Its shown on this picture - not quite sure whats its for is it not part of the tensioner assembly...

I don't think so. Richard Turner had some choice words for those kits, I've not seen one in the flesh but apparently they weren't up to the job they were created for.

Its not ragged but is has started to wear the body where it was rubbing the lip on the tensioner. see crude cross section drawing, the dashed part has started to wear away.

So having had a interesting chat with my Dad and talking throughsome things, he's mentioned something not considered yet, that the timing/crank pulleys themselves could be adversely worn... I'd not really considered it but after looking at the FIP pulley (attached), I can see that could be part of the problem... I've seen a lot worse but i've already demonstrated it seems to take precious f-all to influance the running of the belt. So ordered new FIP/cam pulleys... if I can get away without bodging with a shim then I'll try it.

Think it was just a dirt mark.