P38A Is this the head gasket?

Hi all, long time no speak. I am looking for your opinion on a problem I have with my Diesel.

About a week and a half ago my Rangie suddenly became difficult to start. Lots of cranking until a cylinder or two start to catch then carry on until the revs pick up.

I have assumed that the glow plugs have failed and have a set on hand. I am going to fit glow plugs regardless.

Looking over the engine I noticed that it has drunk quite a bit of coolant with about a third of the header tank coolant gone. Looked at the oil filler and dipstick but no sign at all of emulsion.

I am now worried that the sudden difficulty starting is lack of compression rather than glow plugs.

Is this the end of of my big blue legend?

EntropyUK said:

Hi all, long time no speak. I am looking for your opinion on a problem I have with my Diesel.

About a week and a half ago my Rangie suddenly became difficult to start. Lots of cranking until a cylinder or two start to catch then carry on until the revs pick up.

I have assumed that the glow plugs have failed and have a set on hand. I am going to fit glow plugs regardless.

Looking over the engine I noticed that it has drunk quite a bit of coolant with about a third of the header tank coolant gone. Looked at the oil filler and dipstick but no sign at all of emulsion.

I am now worried that the sudden difficulty starting is lack of compression rather than glow plugs.

Is this the end of of my big blue legend?

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HGF is rare on the M51, coolant loss is much more likely to be a leak, is the underlay wet in the drivers footwell? Hard starting from cold is usually glow plugs, hope you have good quality replacements, the cheapo's don't work. If new glow plugs don't fix it, check the voltage at the glow plugs, if you still have a problem and have diagnostics, check the EDC temperature sensor. If that is OK do a compression test. If the compression is down on a cylinder, it's more likely to be a cracked head then HGF but I doubt that is the problem.

+1 ^^^ use Beru NGK or good quality. Don't use the cheap chinese imports

Also look for bubbles in the clear fuel pipe, that can cause slow starting.

I've had a few cold starting issues, the first couple were a persistent leak from number one injector spill pipe, check, when cold, that no air bubbles are present in the curly clear pipe to the fip whilst someone else cranks her over. Diesel in the injector well is a sure sign too but do check for bubbles. If there are bubbles then air is getting in and fuel is running back, spill lines are the usual culprit but rusty fuel tank connections can be another.
I've also had the coolent loss thing as well, if you stick your finger in the footwell vent from the heater...is it wet?

Thanks, it looks like it's the glow plugs as the back two are wet.

Keep the nuts off the glows, my bosch ones didn't come with new. Think they were M5? Thread.

Flossie said:

Keep the nuts off the glows, my bosch ones didn't come with new. Think they were M5? Thread.

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They always fall behind the fip....

Flossie said:

Keep the nuts off the glows, my bosch ones didn't come with new. Think they were M5? Thread.

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The same for the Beru ones I had on hand. Plus I lost one as it dropped into the engine somewhere. no amount of searching could find it.

EntropyUK said:

The same for the Beru ones I had on hand. Plus I lost one as it dropped into the engine somewhere. no amount of searching could find it.

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I've lost 2 heater plug nuts, an inlet manifold nut, a valve block collet and a 4mm hex key in the engine bay! Never found any of them, hex key was a surprise as it was so big but mirror on a stick and a torch couldn't locate it.
Oh, and a new airspring O ring somewhere down there a day ago too.

Flossie said:

I've lost 2 heater plug nuts, an inlet manifold nut, a valve block collet and a 4mm hex key in the engine bay! Never found any of them, hex key was a surprise as it was so big but mirror on a stick and a torch couldn't locate it.
Oh, and a new airspring O ring somewhere down there a day ago too.

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I dropped the screeenwash filler cap several years ago & can still see it stuck & inaccessible. I just bought a replacement. I might just be able to reach it if I had one of those but grabber thingies where you press a button at the top to use the fingers at the end.

nigelbb said:

I dropped the screeenwash filler cap several years ago & can still see it stuck & inaccessible. I just bought a replacement. I might just be able to reach it if I had one of those but grabber thingies where you press a button at the top to use the fingers at the end.

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Have a look on Amazon, they are full of stuff like that

I'd do a compression test. HGF rare but cracked head not.

I was loosing coolant recently and a new expansion cap (off a scrapper) seems to have fixed it.