Restricted Power

Advice / suggestions needed please
300 TDi M reg Early 300 with no engine management system ,Cable throttle ,EGR blanked off when bought .
The problem is that It has a very restricted power output.Drive is 30 degrees and when running fails to reverse out of drive ,REVs stay about 2500 but rev counter broke.
Almost faols to pull away at road junctions
Dave Ashcroft says to lokk at engine power as the 2500 revs is the Torque converter STALL speed .
Have checked
Injectors by loosening pipe joint at injector ,All cause a change in the revs
pressure pipe to the injector blown throughand is clear
injector/crankshaft timing by inserting locking pins at injector and flywheel,Both insert and remove by hand .
Turbine looks good and can be heard when running .
It can do 70 mph given a good run up.
Problem still occurs when TURBO inlet pipe removed and engine run.
Sedimenter drained and nothing untoward found.
changed oil/air and diesel filtre (For Britpart ones,Have heard these can cause issues)
Priming diesel filtre using lift pump work OK but failed to achieve any noticably pressure on lever .
Took diesel tank filler off to fill up and found it sucking / blowing ,Fuel return pipe ? Not checked .
Rear injector has 2 pipes for the fuel return but only one has a pipe to previous injector ,could this cause air to enter system ?
Gear box was overhauled by Ashcrofts last year.
its done about 190,000 miles

Help anyone ?

Might be worth trying a new lift pump, also cleaning the intercooler out.

Ok a few years ago I had an early 300tdi which died going up hills, would not tow my caravan very well and from cold start was very very sluggish. I did all the checks as you did but to no avail, was advised by a specialist that my turbo was on it's way out, bought a new one and still no change apart from £400.
Decided to check tappets and noticed the plastic fuel return pipe ( which is meant to come off number 4 injector) was sandwitched in the rocker cover and was cracked. Repaired the pipe and fitted it back onto the rear outlet of number 4 injector and no more problems, engine pulled great after that.

Have a look around the back of the engine for this pipe, it's about 3\16 dia with a tight hook bend at the end as other tdis I have had have also had this pipe misplaced and I have found the end lurking by the wiring loom on the bulkhead judt above the gearbox tunnel behind the turbo.

Saying this my 95 300 tdi had this pipe dislodged and it made little difference but I fixed it anyway and it is now easier to start after lying a week so your fuel system may be drawing air in as you say.

Good luck

Thanks for the advice Sprintmaker.
Will put a clear plastic pipe on to see if fuel does actually flow back to the tank
cheers

if you have a bosch pump try turning the torx in 2 turns.....

Landy
Thanks for the reply
What is the TORX ,If it is the BOSH boost pressure adjustment under the seal i have tried this to no avail .If its not please describe further
cheers

Done it .Changed all Turbo discharge pipes from turbo to intercooler and from intercooler into plenum chamber.Initially heard turbo whine and big inprovement but today I put new jublee clips on pipes and there was an even bigger improvement .
To recap on what i've tried
cleaned sedimenter ,
adjusted the TORQ on injector pump in 2 turns
£20 worths of injector cleaner directly into fuel filtre
changed / removed air filtre
loosened injectors to make sure they were working
re done engine static timing several times
replaced boost pipe from turbo outlet onto injector pump
adjusted tappets twice
Checked turbo by taking it off and made sure there was no play on the shaft
taken inlet and exhaust manifold off and replaced gaskets
blown through the fuel delivery and return pipes
replaced the injector fuel re-circ pipes and worried about there being no return pipe from the No 4 injector
Next time I'll do what the forum advice says and not just use my own judgement when checking the TURBO discharge pipes.

Thanks to all who have helped

what do the turbo discharge pipes look like?

There the ones from the turbo to the intercooler and intercooler to inlet manifold

Next one to tackle is there is still very little torque at 0 mph.Engine stalls at 2500 rpm when in reverse.As engine has power normally in forward gears could this be a KICK down cable problem restricting the accelerator movement / injector throttle ?
Will dissconnect it later to see if it does .
Does anyone know of any adjustments that might need checking/altering ?

cheers