Defender Td5 poor starting and the little orange chappy

Perhaps just one or two of you have had a Td5 that refuses to start when below 3/4 tank? Well I have and it drives you mad.
Experts all say its the injector seals........changed those for genuine L.R (avoid cheap Britparts crap intact avoid anything that is aftermarket...buy cheap fit twice I find)....made no difference whats ever.
Changed fuel pump...again genuine L.R not cheap crappy one ........made no difference again !!!!!!
Fuel lines....No nothing there

OK I thought last resort fuel filter gone porous as I had changed Non return valve and air eliminator, parts as per L>R service sheets I may add.

By chance I decided to look in the filter housing and the little orange "bladder valve" fell out ! A bladder valve is what modern toilet cisterns have and is a simple but clever bit of kitb allowing one way flow. The new one was nice, not mis shaped etc...so I decided to look at the old one and guess what it was deformed and would not close properly thus allowing fuel to leak past as its in the return side of the housing.

Cannot find this part anywhere, spoke to L.R Uk you cannot buy it as its part of the filter housing. Land Rover DO NOT STOCK IT AND DID NOT KNOW IT EXISTED AS ITS ON NO SERVICE SHEETS!!

So before you spend thousands and change everything just consider this little orange fellow that methanol or other **** in our diesel has made soft and deformed. You cannot buy him and he lives in the new fuel filter housing that will cost you £120+. Try it before you take your beast to bits for no reason and garages make thousands out of you telling you to change everything as I bet not many people / garages know this little chappy lives in a filter near you do they? I did'nt!!

Never had this issue but good to know! Only odd thing mine does is it doesnt lile to start after its been stalled.

Umm your wrong, found it in 2 minutes,

ESR4724 and retails at £35+ vat,

Your local Parts dealers are clearly not very good

(ps i do work at a dealer)

Jonnyb1990 said:

Umm your wrong, found it in 2 minutes,

ESR4724 and retails at £35+ vat,

Your local Parts dealers are clearly not very good

(ps i do work at a dealer)

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This is just the brass fitting, I understood the OP was on about the orange part. What am I missing?

Cheers

neilly said:

This is just the brass fitting, I understood the OP was on about the orange part. What am I missing?

Cheers

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Wrong part (my fault)

After a little more than 5 minutes of looking,



Yes OP is correct, however you can get the housing itself (cant think who from at this stage)

This is VUB503950, which calls itself the check valve, if that is the case not sure what the orange part does? or was it superceded by this part?

Cheers

The valve is a serviceable part, you are correct,

The orange insert is not,

From speaking to a independant garge who i get on well with, it can be found at B&Q but also at auto parts stores online

That is very interesting, I bought the non return valve and reciver the black plastic bit in your picture, I could not see how this would prevent back flow and thought there most be a small Teflon ball or something similar which I was missing, so the plastic fitting is still in my garage.
Seems the air in the fuel system is quite common and my heart goes out to the people who go out and buy a new pump then change it only to find things don't improve.
Would be great if someone could source the little orange tube I would get one.
https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/td5-fuel-pressure-problem.161412/page-3#post-3637754

So what does the orange part do? if the black part is a non return valve / check valve then I do not see a need for the orange part, unless it is when fuel is lacking a vacuum is formed? in which case a mechanical shut off may not work effectively.

Interesting to see where this orange part can be found.

Cheers

raywin said:

That is very interesting, I bought the non return valve and reciver the black plastic bit in your picture, I could not see how this would prevent back flow and thought there most be a small Teflon ball or something similar which I was missing, so the plastic fitting is still in my garage.
Seems the air in the fuel system is quite common and my heart goes out to the people who go out and buy a new pump then change it only to find things don't improve.
Would be great if someone could source the little orange tube I would get one.
https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/td5-fuel-pressure-problem.161412/page-3#post-3637754

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Not having one to hand, I would have thought the was a small ball inside the check valve ( black part) to only allow flow one way, when you blow into it does it not stop flow of air in one direction?

Cheers

neilly said:

Not having one to hand, I would have thought the was a small ball inside the check valve ( black part) to only allow flow one way, when you blow into it does it not stop flow of air in one direction?

Cheers

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The thing is just like what I would describe as a hose tail fitting threads on one end and barbs on the other to grip a soft pipe. Inside the fitting has nothing just a smooth bore, no ball or anything, I looked at it and decided there was something missing, put it in the garage to follow up another day. Now I see the orange bit it is obvious how this will allow flow one way only.
By the way i did quite a few things to mine and it's better now (see the post in the link I added) but a couple of times it has started an run for about 1 second then stopped, I have to run the auto purge a couple of times and crank it over several times before it will start again seems to help when I blip the throttle.

raywin said:

The thing is just like what I would describe as a hose tail fitting threads on one end and barbs on the other to grip a soft pipe. Inside the fitting has nothing just a smooth bore, no ball or anything, I looked at it and decided there was something missing, put it in the garage to follow up another day. Now I see the orange bit it is obvious how this will allow flow one way only.
By the way i did quite a few things to mine and it's better now (see the post in the link I added) but a couple of times it has started an run for about 1 second then stopped, I have to run the auto purge a couple of times and crank it over several times before it will start again seems to help when I blip the throttle.

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Interesting, then i do not see how the vub503950 can be sold as a check valve if there is nothing inside it, unless there is an updated one that includes an internal check ball. Very strange.

All useful to know.

Cheers

this makes for an interesting read.

http://gershon.ucoz.com/landrover/TD5/TOPIx-LD310-001-Defender_Td5_Poor_Starting_Noisy_F.pdf

the repair kit is a signicant change. WJN500110

Cheers

Just a thought - might the correct valve as shown on that service sheet have been replaced at some time in the op's fuel line, with a bog bladder valve from B&Q, thus causing his problems?? or am I missing something?

Not all td5's have the one way check valve. I bought a new one when I had problems, when I opened it up I didn't have one in the 1st place and when I questioned my local indie garage they said not all have them.
Mine was caused by a leak on the fpr. Since replaced the missfire etc has gone.

gazman said:

Not all td5's have the one way check valve. I bought a new one when I had problems, when I opened it up I didn't have one in the 1st place and when I questioned my local indie garage they said not all have them.
Mine was caused by a leak on the fpr. Since replaced the missfire etc has gone.

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Guys your all missing the point of what I wrote.

The orange bit is a bladder valve. bladder valves are used to control flow and prevent back leakage. They are common in huge marine engines and large propulsion engines. Being a Chief Marine Engineer thats how I know what it is. There are no ball valves, non returns etc in a land rover Td5 fuel system. Our little orange friend is not available from anywhere that deals in Land Rover. Before I wrote the article I checked with Land Rover UK, so not making an arse of myself, and they confirm its part of a bigger item (fuel filter housing).

The black bit has superceded nothing its simply an adapter for the bladder valve. In early 2000 Land Rover sent a service bulletin saying that the rubber o seal on the part VUB503450 (black bit) had a faulty o seal and issued a replacement. That is all you will find on this anywhere.

Yes the brass bits, plastic bit and air eliminator can be purchased along with a complete new filter housing at £120+ so I thank our dealer friend for that information but he is wasting his time trying to find the bladder valve bit..

What our enemy here people is ETHANOL in our fuel. It attacks rubber making it expand and changes its chemical composition. Any of you that build and run classic cars and bikes are aware of what it can do to and Amal carb, same thing to our little orange friend I am afraid. Just remember its there if you too get starting snags especially before your dealer tells you new injector seals, fuel pump etc and takes you for £800+ when you can fix it for £120 in about 5 minutes.

neilly said:

WJN500110

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WJN500110 is an air eliminator fitted in the fuel supply to the filter from pump in tank, the bladder valve (orange bit) is on the inlet to the filter on the fuel return side. DO NOT SWAP THEM OR IT WILL NEVER EVER START

Jhonny b 1990 your exactly what L.R owners should avoid...dealers that think they are engineers that have never worked on a big job !

The difference is that we engineers radically think things through and investigate before we comment, so called experts jump in with both feet and end up making an arse of themselves.

The internet has everything you will ever need in life as far as information goes, on here you can access Land Rovers own schedules etc ( if you know how to access the data base), I did and not anywhere will you find an orange type bladder valve even mentioned but good luck searching!

bankz5152 said:

Never had this issue but good to know! Only odd thing mine does is it doesnt lile to start after its been stalled.

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If you turn on the ignition the fuel pump runs for around 30 secs, if you then pump the accelerator 6 times it starts the pump again for 30 seconds or so thus fully purging the fuel system....may help after the old lady stalls

hobroydharry said:

If you turn on the ignition the fuel pump runs for around 30 secs, if you then pump the accelerator 6 times it starts the pump again for 30 seconds or so thus fully purging the fuel system....may help after the old lady stalls

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Yes that's true, but you are fixing the symptom not the disease, this air ingress in the TD 5 system is a pain and if you spend half an hour searching you will see so many people suffer it, and frankly all the stuff I have seen seems to say no one has the definitive answer, (including me) look how many people buy new pumps only to say well that didn't work.
The filter housing seems interesting I have seen where people say they crack or become porous this non return valve interests me and soon as I can I will check mine, although I am sure I have also seen somewhere that not all TD5s have them fitted. Keep sharing the information and let's see where we can get to.