Maverik

Well after a good long run including some motorway work and I can confirm all smoke has gone, pretty chuffed I've solved that issue as it was bothering me quite a bit. Pretty miffed it's taken me so long to figure it out and a seemingly rebuilt set of injectors are duff. Hey ho put that down to a learning experience. Bloomin expensive one mind...

No, injectors where done in a place near Southampton, pump was from South Yorkshire. I'll drop the apparently dodgy injectors to them too see if they can find anything wrong with them. The nozzles:

So last year prior to the paper towel incident I noticed the engine was really starting to smoke, after I rebuilt the head and as I had the injectors out I bought some new bosch nozzles from ebay and rebuilt the injectors myself with the new nozzles. On putting the head back on and sorting out the damage from the paper towel I put the rebuilt injectors in, it ran rough and really smokey, so I re-pulled the injectors and took them to a Bosch specialist who "set" them and painted them black. I Put them back in and the smoke was less but still bad. As it was still smoking and breathing pretty badly I assumed I'd damaged some piston rings with the paper towel incident. Sooo I rebuilt the engine... same head and injectors...

A bit of progress of sorts. After much deliberation I decided to swap the injectors out for a spare set I had, they looked remarkably good so I don't know why they weren't in an engine but hey ho. Injectors replaced as well as the spill rail as I snapped one of those stupid barb off. And quite surprisingly she runs like a wee rocket once again! after a drive about I didnt see much smoke but its difficult to tell as its pretty windy just now, but first impressions are she pulls much better and idles seemingly smoother. I've never been convinced those injectors where right, and after I replaced the nozzles with some of ebay I'm pretty convinced they're not correct - even though they went to a Bosch specialist too. So I'm smiling again as at least I'm getting some of the performance I expect from the thing after all this rebuild work. Something else new is that she idles about 100rpm higher than she did with the previous injectors, was going to ring the diesel job up whom I got the injection pump from to see if they could shed any light on it. Still doing the boost thing on start-up. - next I'll be disconnecting the exhaust boxes. I'm taking this as a win.

You could contact Turner Engineering, they refurb engines and if anyone will know about it they will. Land Rover Engine Parts & Stripped Engines | Turner Engineering

Some early 200tdi engines had an S prefix in the engine number when the engine was supplied from Land Rover as an upgrade. Not seen or heard of it on a 300tdi though - considering your location, it could be to do with local country specification?

So here's a wee update. Slightly embarrassing but I might have overreacted in my last post. Now I've had some time to drive the truck I've got a few more reflections. The "general" smokyness has actually improved quite a lot, the smoke cloud is much less with general acceleration, now I only get slight grey smoke when pushing her. Something I didn’t initial post was that the timing was a good bit out when I went to remove the old injector pump, I had to go a good bit past TDC to find the Fuel pump pulley locking hole - which indicates retarded, this probably wasn't helping the situation - she was running really rough at higher revs. So with the new pump in, timed up spot on. - I ran with the factory set boost pin settings and it was pretty gutless and still pretty rough approaching 3000rpm, so I re set the boost pin and off boost setting to match what I had before - this improved the 0-50 type performance, but was still rough on the motorway at 60mph. I then re-installed the boost ring really interesting to see the change in "performance" - really surprised and impressed with how its made the thing run much smother and a fair but more power in 5th and much smoother in the higher rev range (which is what the thing promises ironically). As for the odd booth behaviour this is still here, and is still baffling me. I can drive off in 1st and the engine note is slightly different, I'll move to 2nd hold the boost at 1 bar then after say a 20 seconds the engine notes changes (maybe sounds slightly smoother) and the vehicle starts to accelerate a little and steady's off. After this has happened its got really good accelerator response. So the search continues. The only items out with lumps of passive metal components that are still the same as when the problem first started are as follows. Cylinder head (which has had new valves and stem seals) - can't think of anything here that would cause this type of problem. Turbocharger (which has been cleaned and new actuator installed) - I want to rule the turbo and actuator out as I've tested this using a pump and there is no sticking effect on the actuator or mechanism. Injectors Intercooler - I had a good look in the end tanks and didn’t see any blockages. Exhaust. Boost pin - (I ran the overhauled injector pump with its new boost pin and this behavior was not changed) So a few questions I've been thinking about. Injectors - can a "stuck"/faulty injector cause this odd temporary running behavior? - something I think I've seen is when accelerating hard you don’t get a solid stream of smoke, it looks like its more "puffing" or pulsing all be it very fast. Although the problem started before I had the nozzles changed and got them serviced. Exhaust - would a strange blockage in the exhaust cause a pressure spike like I'm seeing? - should be able to test this by disconnecting the box sections from the exhaust and going for a noisy drive.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Irwin-5pc-Bolt-Grip-Expansion-Base-Set-/184905025450?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0 These are quite possibly one of the most useful tools in the world!... You get the one closed to the rounded head and tap it on quite hard with a hammer, then work it with a ratchet then hammer on a bit harder and it will get them out no bother. Used many times in rounded caliper bolts.

Been thinking about this a little more, I think I've got 2 issues, one is the smoke all the time the other is the "sticky" behaviour. Thinking back, the bad smoking started after I rebuilt the head after the timing belt incident - I installed new injector nozzles... these along with the turbo are the only major components taken from the old engine... as the injectors had been rebuilt and tested I'd kinda ruled those out... now I'm not so sure. So before I whip the turbo off I'm going to install some alternative injectors...

Sticky turbo shaft wouldn't allow boost which is kinda of opposite to what I'm getting, oil pressure is pretty solid throughout the process.

It makes sense something in the mechanism is sticking, but I've cleaned the turbo, installed a new actuator and tested all individually and I can't see any issues...

Yeah they are, I noticed a couple of gearbox places down there.

Pretty gutted, pump installed it's dark so not seen it properly but it looked like no change what so ever. Engine seems a little smoother maybe, but looked to be smoking like a train and the strange boost behaviour was exactly the same. Next I'll be taking the VNT turbo off and reverting back to standard. Sick to the teeth of throwing cash down the sink. If I didn't have some god awful attachment to this truck then it would be gone.

Fingers crossed.

I went down your route - bought a 2nd hand drive, although mine was much earlier longer cased version, I never did get it running correctly, failed bearings, ultimately I couldn't get rid of the odd gear noise when it was engaged. A superbly designed bit of kit and having dealt with Ray too, a great guy and super helpful. Alas if I ever venture that way again I think I'll be just installing a 1.3 transfer case instead, less to go wrong.

I've checked the parts catalogue and can't find anything like that - its either experimental or a DIY at some point.

Has it got any part numbers printed on it... I know some early defender doors had drains but not come across anything that late. I would suspect it isn't a land rover part. Pop the card off the other door and see what's in it.

Well I tried using the logic route... and kinda hit a brick wall, so plan B - throw more money at it... 🤢 At least defenders are "appreciating" - I keep telling myself its an investment... Its all part of the master plan... when the Mk2 Grenadier comes out, sell all my landys and buy one of them!

So.. I've been driving her for some time and the sticking is happening after each re-start. - other stuff I've noticed, is that she smokes badly, I put this down to a worn engine before then dodgy injectors and now this un fathomable issue, the only thing I've not touched on this vehicle is the injector pump. The more I think about it the more items are pointing to its misbehavior. When I first installed this turbo back in 2020, I drove her all over the south of England and never once noticed smoking pretty much under every condition when you've got your foot on the accelerator... I hate being the stereotypical Smokey old land rover on the road. And with this latest strange fuel/boost issue I figure I've not got much to loose at this point. Will be picking up a refurb pump from Sheaf Diesel Services this afternoon.

quite simply - hehehe 😂

If the bolts are all relatively new/free then it wont take long, I remember swapping mine and it was remarkably uneventful and pretty quick.

Even with the later sills without the P section, my doors still stick out a bit at the bottom with the door mounted seals. - I live with it as I think they work pretty well.

I report stuff on ebay regularly, and interestingly I got a call from ebay once after I reported a number of false vehicle sales from the one owner. Ebay where extremely appreciative of the reporting and the ads where removed within hours. A bizarre experience.

I put an ATB in the back of axle on the 90 with some HD halfshafts for good measure, it improved the on road handling of the vehicle - not really off-road tested it, other than I've never got stuck anywhere while its been installed...

If this is any help to anyone. service shedule repro1.pdf