Coughing noise, no power and stalling on 2001 Disco 2 ES TD5

Dear All,

This may be a known issue already but I couldn't find anything on the forums.

Yesterday after driving about 1.5 miles (part motorway) I suffered an incident with my 2001 Discovery TD5 ES (100k Miles, ACE with Air-con) that sounded like a one-off single misfire although the engine seemed to be running fine.

All of a sudden, I got the oil and battery warning lights displayed and immediately the car felt like it was struggling and had no power so I pulled over as soon as I could.

After allowing the engine to cool down at the side of the motorway I checked the oil level and everything seemed okay and there nothing in the engine bay seemed abnormally hot and no funny/oily smells.... The battery is only around six months old with plenty of amps.

I fired the engine up again at the side of the road and there was what I can only describe as a repetitive "coughing" sound coming from around the turbo area although there's no sign of any oil leak, no con-rods sticking out of the side of the block and no tell-tale signs of smoke from the exhaust so I shut the engine off.

My breakdown service recovered the car to my home and I left the car for a couple of hours. I started the car again to take a proper look and the coughing sound changed to more like a slipping pulley or belt noise and then the engine stalled.

I've checked for fault codes via the ODB connector but can't find anything. This is the first diesel I've had and it's run fine up to yesterday with no previous loss of power or weird noises but I don't want to run the engine again in case something seizes irreparably!

I know I can't rule out the turbo or the oil cooler/centrifuge but I wondered if anyone had any prior knowledge or experience of this kind of fault. In short if someone could point me in the right direction regards what to look and in what sequence I may be able to fix the problem(s) myself without hefty labour charges!

Any advice would be very much appreciated....

Yours, Andy.

really need to intro yourself first mate , like where you are etc , will av more response :welcome2:

Also unless you have a hawkeye ect you will not be able to get any faults off the odb

Hi Darren,

Seems really ironic now but I ordered a Autel MaxiDiag Elite MD802 from the US just over a week ago as it's a great piece of kit and talks to all the modules.
My current Gendan unit is really only for Jaguars so only picks up a couple of the TD5 sensors but alas... I'm still waiting on it arriving (sod's law!)

...Just wish I'd ordered the MD802 a few weeks earlier!:doh:

If you get stick I'm only 20 miles away and have hawkeye

Is the oil light still on? If so you may have the dreaded oil pump bolt problem (wasn't fitted with loctite on assembly and drops out). If so, you may be in for an expensive time.....

BTW most generic diagnostic kit won't read the TD5 although I know nothing about Autel.

before you even think of starting the engine again turn it over by hand wiv a spanner wiv the ignition off to make sure that the engine turns freely and nots sized or jammed cos if it is it could be expensive

Dear All,

Apologies for the delay for getting back in touch - things have been a bit hectic! Many thanks for all your replies and especially to DarrenM for your offer of help - much appreciated...

I've since taken delivery of the Autel MD802 diagnostic kit and it works a treat (very cheap from the US due to the exchange rate!) I have to say I was amazed at the faults it picked up within a few minutes!

All five injectors and the EGR valve were showing open circuit faults so I decided to look at the wiring loom to the ECU and found it sitting in a nice oily bath....

I've already ordered an oil pump bolt, sump gasket and both oil filters. Today I have today ordered an injector loom, cam cover gasket and a job lot of electrical cleaner.

As per Toxic's comment above, I'll try turning the block over by hand on Saturday and if it moves okay I'll drop the sump and look at the oil pump as I don't want to take any chances (it may already be too late!) but if there are no lumps of engine or excess swarf sitting in the sump then I'll tackle the injector loom.

I also need a near-side ABS sensor according to the Autel kit which explains the TC, ABS and HDC lights that came on recently but I'll hang fire ordering the ABS sensor till I know how much of an engine I have left to work with

I'm hoping I've dodged a major catastrophe and I'll update you all after Saturday's tinkering.

Yours, Andy.

miss fire is more than likely from the oil in the injector loom, most of the td5 oil pump bolts that never got loctited will have already of worked there way out by now, bearing in mind the newest one will be 7 year old, so unlikely to be that, are your intercooler pipes attached firmly

Hi Johnlad,
Many thanks for the update..... I'm going to keep my fingers crossed regarding the new loom and ECU cleanup doing the trick. Before I fire the engine up this weekend I'll turn over the engine by hand just to make sure nothing has seized - could really do with this being a cheap fix rather than an engine rebuild!
Yours, Andy.

PS, I'll also check the intercooler pipes.....

Hi there Foxey, when you take the sump off make sure that upon re-install you adopt the correct tightening sequence and torque values.

25n/m for most, but 28 for the ones at the back-end.

Also get yourself a new ready-loctited bolt from LR to fit, then you can forget this "little" issue.

I find brake and clutch cleaner very effective and much cheaper for cleaning the ECU plugs and sockets and it evaporates away to nothing, quickly.

When you re-fill the engine with oil, I would suggest a 5-30w reasonable quality oil. Bear in mind that there are two oil filters in the TD5 - 1 is the normal looking sort and the other in a rotor filter. See here for picture and description:

DA6004P | Filter Kit - TD5 - Premium Brands

Dave

Dear All,

I think it may be the end of the road for my TD5 engine.... I took the cam-cover off yesterday with the idea of removing the injector harness and the cam lobes look pretty bad as they have heavy scoring.

In general when I looked around the cylinder head with all the plastic covers removed the front of the block and along the front left of the top is caked in oilly tar-like crud and the round plastic core-plug type cover at the front of the block where the wiring loom runs is loose and looks like it's been letting oil out!

I dropped the oil with the idea of taking the sump off and I can only describe the oil as jet black sludge that smelled awful so I suspect the engine hadn't been serviced for a long time before I bought the car

I was wondering if anyone knows of a good LR reconditioned engine supplier - I do need to be realistic about costs and don't think I could afford a Turner Engineering price bracket engine!

Yours, Andy

lareynard2001 said:

Dear All,

I think it may be the end of the road for my TD5 engine.... I took the cam-cover off yesterday with the idea of removing the injector harness and the cam lobes look pretty bad as they have heavy scoring.

In general when I looked around the cylinder head with all the plastic covers removed the front of the block and along the front left of the top is caked in oilly tar-like crud and the round plastic core-plug type cover at the front of the block where the wiring loom runs is loose and looks like it's been letting oil out!

I dropped the oil with the idea of taking the sump off and I can only describe the oil as jet black sludge that smelled awful so I suspect the engine hadn't been serviced for a long time before I bought the car

I was wondering if anyone knows of a good LR reconditioned engine supplier - I do need to be realistic about costs and don't think I could afford a Turner Engineering price bracket engine!

Yours, Andy

Click to expand...

Hi Andy, before you spend big money might I make a suggestion?

I would try an engine wash-out, using cheap 10-40 oil 2 or three times,then refill with quality oil.

Obviously you will need to change both filters as well, but don't do that until just before the quality oil refill.

Incidently, the 2" black plastic oil seal in the front of the head is a normal issue and easily replaced.

Good luck

Dave

thebiglad said:

Hi Andy, before you spend big money might I make a suggestion?

I would try an engine wash-out, using cheap 10-40 oil 2 or three times,then refill with quality oil.

Obviously you will need to change both filters as well, but don't do that until just before the quality oil refill.

Incidently, the 2" black plastic oil seal in the front of the head is a normal issue and easily replaced.

Good luck

Dave

Click to expand...

agree with what dave says but rather than use oil as a washing agent, you have nothing to loose by using an engine flush, I would recomend the forte range myself

johnlad said:

agree with what dave says but rather than use oil as a washing agent, you have nothing to loose by using an engine flush, I would recomend the forte range myself

Click to expand...

The only reason for saying 'cheap oil' is that I would refill the engine and left it tick-over for perhaps 30mins, then empty and refill - do the same. Then do it again and re-fill; to wash and wash and wash again, before refilling with good oil.

After the good oil refill, run the vehicle for perhaps 200-500mls, then do another oil-change. After that if the engine is in serviceable condition, you should be ok.

Hi,

I was wondering what the best type of engine flush would be so many thanks for the advice, the only problem I now have is that whilst the engine doesn't appear to be totally seized it won't run for more than a moment or two before coughing and stalling - I'm just concious that I may completely trash whats left of the engine!

I may ask my very good local mechanic if he can tow the Discovery and take a proper look. I don't have access to a garage or car port which would allow me to properly tinker with the insides of the engine if I needed to remove parts of it....

I'll keep you posted!

Yours, Andy.

It sounds more and more like the oil pump bolt. I don't see anywhere that you've had the sump off?

Dear All,

I've managed to get time to look at the EGR valve and the turbo. The EGR was completely stuck and covered in black "gloop" which I've managed to clean with carb cleaner. I took the intercooler pipe off to examine the turbo and it's completely shot - the spindle moves in three directions!

The good news is that the engine turns over and fires up - I tried to move the car onto my driveway but as soon as you select a gear there's no power and the engine stalls.

There's no mechanical clattering/strange noises from the engine and there are no fault codes showing but the oil lamp is still on. I've decided to leave the car where it is as I just wanted to know if the engine was still viable....

My cunning plan is to ask my local mechanic to take the sump off (I don't have time to do it myself at the moment) and replace the oil pump bolt (even if it's not at fault) and to replace the sump gasket as it's been weeping for some time.

If my mechanic can confirm there's no damage to the internals whilst the sump is off then I'll order a replacement turbo and an EGR blanking kit!

Yours,

Andy.

Hi Andy, have you checked to see if the in-tank fuel pump is working correctly?

Dave