3.9 V8 Non Starter !!

Evening chaps,

I have a 1994 Discovery 3.9 V9 auto, last week it was involved in an accident and has made a slight mess of the front end, it ran fine after the accident and i continued to use it until tuesday when it ran out of fuel.....

Ive put 15 litres of unleaded in tried to start it but it wouldnt fire. Used the valve on the fuel rail to bleed air out.... still nothing, occasionally it sounds like its catching on 1 cylinder but still nothing.

Today i took the spark plugs out and they are wet..... but not with fuel as it doesnt evaporate or burn easily when put on a flame, put the plugs back in and it started but ran extremely rough it held the revs about 2k rpm and slowly it died off and cut out, tried to start it... nothing, plugs out again, very wet...... I have a feeling there is water in the fuel system, i drained some fuel from the fuel supply line and whilst it looks like petrol, there was a white looking substance in the bottom?

After each time i took the plugs out and cleaned them, it started and ran really rough then slowly died off and cut out....

Ideas?

I'm not an expert, they'll be along shortly, but when I took my plenum off to give her a clean and change the rocker gaskets I also replaced a gasket on the water jacket (ERR1262)

So in the hope its not expensive, firstly id whip the plenum off and see if water ingress is visible and check for water in the air box, water jacket gasket. Worst case might be the liners.

Aydena said:

After each time i took the plugs out and cleaned them, it started and ran really rough then slowly died off and cut out....

Ideas?

Click to expand...

This sounds like the classic symptoms of an air leak. As suggested, remove plenum and give it a good clean then re-assemble and make sure all joints and connections are good with no leaks. Check the big pipe from the air flow meter for small splits or tears and also check all the vac lines for signs of perishing.

Can't make any suggestions about water in fuel other than drain tank and flush lines out.

BTW have you tried getting it to fire up by advancing the ignition timing - I know I keep saying this but it really does work. The V8 is easy to flood and can be a pig to start; the other option my be to try cranking it over with the throttle wide open.

I tried adjusting the timing, it coughed a couple of times but nothing.

What has confused me the most that up until it ran out of fuel it was running almost fine!! it would always start first time.... then it runs out of fuel and BAM nothing :lol:

I dunno, gonna have one more day on it then im giving up!

Cheers for the suggestions chaps !