Hi All,
I’ve been lurking on the forum for a long time and have learnt a great deal - thanks . I’ve had my 1994 Defender 300 Tdi for 3 months now with no problems (other than those caused by my own stupidity). However this morning it wouldn’t start. I eventually determined that there was no fuel being pumped through to the fuel bleed screw on the filter and tried the manual priming lever on the lift pump (which didn’t seem to have much resistance) to no avail. I removed the fuel unions and there didn’t seem to be any pumping or suction happening when I moved the lever so I thought the lift pump is probably faulty and decided to remove it.
This is where it gets weird / worrying . When I removed the pump there was no actuating lever ! There was no sign of it in the engine through the hole that it operates through and believe me both I and a friend searched every part of the outside of the engine including inside the engine mounts, in case it had fallen out as I removed the pump. As the parts manual I have didn’t show the actuating lever in the diagram I bought a new pump from mm-4x4 and this is quite a serious bit of metal I’m missing!
I assume the engine would not have ever worked without the lift pump, so presumably the actuating arm is somewhere inside the engine. Does anyone have any suggestions on the best approach to retrieving the lever (and is it likely to be in a number of bits?). I’ve had a look underneath to see if the sump can be removed and it looks as though I could at least drop it a fair bit or possibly remove it if I take off the rear tie bar (is that the correct name for it?) – is this the case?
However, is the lever likely to have made its way to the sump? I’ve never seen the inside of a 300Tdi so are there obstructions which are likely to trap the missing lever before it reached the sump? The lift pump seems to be fairly high up the block.
Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions offered , it really is appreciated.