Bizzare behaviour regarding injectors [continues from "Stuck Injector on Series III"]

Ok, first of all many thanks for the suggestions regarding getting the stuck injector out of my £80 D) landy, since then there've been some developments.

Once the injector was out we cleaned them up a bit under a microscope with a scapel and dumping them in a spare ultra-sonic bath we had lying around. My father and I then proceeded to check the sprays from the injectors so I hooked up the fuel lines but just stuck the screws for the overflow back in with some plastic spacers to keep the fuel from spraying absolutely everywhere .

I was turning over the engine while my father watched (I was trying to see through the s*** all over the windscreen). The first injector was not spraying as it should be (according to the Haynes book) so we fiddled around a bit with it but not much happened.

I then swapped the two injectors over (we had two out so I thought we might as well compare the two) and the one which was spraying correctly now looked like the worse of the pair (without fiddling with it ).

After my dad had been fiddling with the injectors they looked about the same so we decided to put them back in.

Once back in the engine still sounded rough but when the fuel lines were slackened all produced a noticable change in the engine roughness. (All were as near as damn it makes them identical too).

Now something which we noticed before and which we did again and got the same results is that when the air pipe is blocked off (couldn't be bothered to fit the filter ) the engine runs perfectly, in fact it's pretty near running smoother than our Shogun's diesel engine .

Any ideas?

BTW, there's still a hell of a lot of smoke which seems to be unburnt diesel (we took a blow-torch to the exhaust and it sounded as if (difficult to tell) there were some small explosions from the unburnt diesel).

I tried to find out a bit more about the background of the Landy when I dropped my sister mad:) off to babysit for some friends just up the road. (I bought the Landy off him).

The stuff I do know about it is as follows:

• Original owner bought it new for towing trailers to mart and that's all it was ever used for.
• Bought off them by neighbour with the idea of having it as a toy to play around the fields in, never used it and it sat in his garage the whole time gathering cob-webs.
• Dan bought it off him as a cheap alternative to a quad for rounding up cows (never went on the road (well legally ) with him).
• I bought it off him

I suspect that it has not been serviced in the last 3-5 years but it has only been in use the last year or so when Dan apparently had a very quick service done on it and gave it some new tyres and a battery.

BTW it's also running on Red Diesel at the moment (just thought it'd be useful to tell you although I don't think that that will affect it in the slightest).

red diesel or deisel as they like to call it here is the same as road diesel except it has a dye in it so the fuel police can check it. second off you say it runs ok with the air pipe blocked, do you mean the air intake?? if so they you arre pulling air in somewhere! .......manifold gasket?? and stop stuffing yer torch up yer pipe you could blow yer box apart!

At least the police like to think that they can check it. Dan, the chap that I bought the Landy of once put red in his Landcruiser (some emergency at the hospital or something) and when it went for a service ~2 weeks later he told the garage what he'd done, they checked it out briefly but could find no traces.

Mind you the Landcruiser had probably been through an entire tanker of fuel by then so it'd have been flooded out. He says that he can't even drive 50miles on £25 of fuel! We embarrased him by saying that one of our other cars (a Suzuki Swift) could get to London (essentially driving the width of South GB) on £20.

I suspect that the Landy was drawing air from the Air Intake (I seem to remember that the big pipey rolleyes: ) thing had a few little cuts on it).

How naiive you are Slob about blowing up the Landy, firstly the exhaust is blowing the diesel away from the engine, secondly there isn't a constant stream of diesel so there's not enough to create a big explosion and thirdly my family, especially me and my father are experts at blowing things up, and are what are generally referred to as pyromaniacs, so we know when something will blow up ).

BTW if you want a nice (safe) explosion try adding some sodium bi-carbonate (bi-carbonate of soda, from the kitchen) to some vinegar inside a film-canister (you know the little tube they sent back the negatives in from the developer). Put the vinegar in first, chuck in as much bi-carb as you can (quickly) and then put the lid on the canister, then get out of the way!

Tip: Do this outside if you don't want your better-half screaming about how on earth you managed to get bicarbonate of soda and vinegar on the ceiling.

suit yer self numbnuts but i'll have you know i've blown a few things up in my time using some stuff that comes from the cheque republic!. bicarb and vinegar hah!
and you keep messing about with torches up yer pipe and its you that will be on the ceiling. but what do i care? its your exhaust. i feel sure your dad could knock up a new one in five minutes using tin foil and sticky back plastic

He probably could, as well as make his own TNT - which he did in a school Chem lesson, wish I'd had that type of Chem lesson instead of the sh** taught nowadays.

Where's the cheque republic? Googled it, and couldn't find a store or even country of that name it, you been on something strange again?

what do you mean again???? i'm always on something. if jamaician bob hasn't got a sale on then he'll be trying some new mix.. at the moment he's mixing up something for easter.. my dad built his own saturn 5 rocket when he was at play group

Ok, I submit, your the "Senior " Member (BTW is that based on age or number of posts etc?).

Have you with all your profound wisdom do you have an answer to the injector prob? I.e. originally No1 was spraying incorrectly then when No2 took it's place it wasn't spraying as well as before?

Regarding the air pipey thing I didn't shut off the air completely because I was blocking it with my hand which isn't as big as your mechanics front-end so some air got past. So why does the Landy run better when air is restricted, too rich mixture, if so do you change that by correcting the timing or is there a simpler way?

a) in my case both
b)blocked pipe??
c)because it is getting too much air with the intake open. you could have a manifold leak.
d)what engine is it??

a) No help at all
b) Don't think so but I'll blast some air through it with the air-compressor
c) Will investigate (got to find the manifold first )
d) 2.25 Diesel

well if number 1 don't work so well and number 2 does ..then when you put no.2 onto no.1 pipe .it don't work so good . that would lead me to look between the injector and the pump.ie the pipe.. if the pipe proves to be ok then the next stop would be the pump.

what happen when you put no.1 injector on to no.2 pipe??

Right this is what happened (I'll try and remember it correctly):

Injectors no3 & no4 were left alone throughout whole operation

• After getting no1. & no2 injectors out they were cleaned a bit so that they'd not get stuck again
• Hooked up fuel lines to both & positioned them to spray their jets above the fan. The overflow pipe was not connected but instead plastic washers were used instead to stop the diesel spraying everywhere
• When the engine was turned over fuel began spraying everywhere injector no1 was not spraying it in a nice mist, more like two jets although they did "mistify" much later out.
• Tried adjusting the calibration (if that's what it's for) spring inside the injector but it only affected the spray at either extreme, it wasn't really noticeable.
• Swapped the injectors so no2 was on no1 fuel line, & no1 was on fuel line no2
• This is the bizarre bit... the injector (originally from cylinder 2) on line 1 was now not spraying properly & the one on line 2 (originally from cylinder 1) was spraying better.
• Dad was fiddling with the injectors (I'm not sure what he did exactly because he was blocking my view out of the cab) resulting in both injectors spraying quite nicely however one looked as if it was spraying less (i.e. the mist was thinner) than the other one (I can't remember which)
• I then put the injectors back in the engine block and started her up, she was still rough sounding.
• Dad blocked off the air intake pipe with his hand and the engine ran smoother than before, pretty near perfect but there was still a lot of smoke coming from the exhaust (this has been verified to be unburnt diesel and is certainly not oil).

If I get time tomorrow inbetween shooting I will blast some air down the fuel lines and see if theres any change. Failing that I will pull apart the fuel pump and see if there's any s*** inside there.

Thanks again for your help

i still think yer pulling air in somewhere as wellas yer fuel feed problem.. might be time to think about a proper rebuild of the head and fuel system, especially if its been sitting for a long time.
the smoke will probelly clear once its warmed up properly

Smoke gets worse the longer it runs, as well as on acceleration. I think first thing later today is to clean 1 & 2 fuel lines, see what happens then get injectors 3 & 4 out and inspect them as well since they havn't seen the light of day yet.

Failing that I'll do as you suggest and rebuild the fuel system, cleaning it between of course!

try to get the injectors cleaned and calibrated even the garages do not do them they send them to a specialist. this guys good http://www.dieselbob.co.uk/ and does a good job.

The springs in the injectors loose their responsiveness over time you proberley need new springs seating abd setting up.

You are using the right gear ultrasonic bath but put some degreaser in it or parrafin.

Also talk to bob he might put his finger on your problem his numbers on the website

ere i had a thought.. if your are still using yer oil bath air filter try sticking that back on as it does restrict the air somewhat. as for sending yer injectors away , i was under the impression you wanted to do it yourself ,to help you learn a bit more

just know that you need calibrated pumps for checking and high pressure test gear if he has that all well and good.
My father had the gear for testing coaches injectors it was a hand cranked pump you pump it up to presure and let it go checking the spray pattern behind a glaas screen bit like a fish tank with a hole in it.
But that was after replacing injector springs and cleaning all the internals in a workshop

on another thought a few of us with diesel isuzu engines have tried that 10K boost and its improved the combustion
just an idea heres a link to some

of course you could just ferk about with them and see what happens..it is a series landrover after all and if you can't fix it with a hammer and lump of wood it probelly shouldn't be there.
while its true that you need all this special stuff to ensure you have done a good job its not needed to get it running if you are prepared to spend the time doing so..

you can fix most thing on a series with a bit of grey matter and some common sense. that why they can be found in the most out of the way places, you don't need fancy equipement to get them going.

Ok thanks for all the info, I'll have a good look into it.

I'll see what I can do in the evenings (not my favourite time to work outdoors at this time of year especially as where the Landy is is mighty cold ).

Unfortunately (in view of the Landy, but not otherwise ) I'm second in command next weekend while we host a Welsh Qualifier clay shoot at the local gun club. So that's the weekend written off as we'll start setting up for this on Friday afternoon, main setup will occur on Saturday and the shoot is on Sunday.

So probably have the most time to work on the Landy after that, and all my exams will be finished . They're a bore anyway a combination of shooting and Landy stuff is much better

Thanks again, Ed

slob said:

of course you could just ferk about with them and see what happens..it is a series landrover after all and if you can't fix it with a hammer and lump of wood it probelly shouldn't be there.
while its true that you need all this special stuff to ensure you have done a good job its not needed to get it running if you are prepared to spend the time doing so..

you can fix most thing on a series with a bit of grey matter and some common sense. that why they can be found in the most out of the way places, you don't need fancy equipement to get them going.

Click to expand...

Of course the persauder (hammer) is a usefull tool for series they need it on some components with the addition of other tools. Piece of wood ( free of the starter), steam pipe (wheel nus hub nuts steering nuts gearbox mountings floor panels) but with injectors if it is smoking it needs proper calibration. Plus the cost of any derv or parrafin and cooking oil you need good injectors. So fancy equipment as you call it is needed but never thought a high pressure pump a micrometer and a depth gauge would be fancy equipment. Got a 1954 book on motors that has em listed