power loss 300 tdi 110 40mph max speed!!!

Hi All,

I've found a few threads on here about various power loss issues, but none described quite like mine, so I thought I'd put up a new post about it - apologise if I've missed an old answer.

anyway, 1995 110 300 tdi - EGR was removed wayyyy before I bought it.

Drove it the 250 miles down to plymouth last friday - was fine all the way down, even hit 80mph at some points! soon slowed down to 50mph trying to get up some of those hills on the A38 though.

Anyway, it was fine nipping around plymouth all weekend, then I filled up at a morrisons just before I left plymouth. Tokk £75 to fill her up (at 114ppl) so she wasn't quite empty.

The journey started perfectly well, but I noticed that up hills I couldn't really do more than 50mph, and down hills I couldn't quite reach 70mph.

It carried on like this for a few miles, then I started to notice distinct power loss. It seemed to come in waves - the engine would give power for 6-10 seconds, then it would be flat for 6-10 seconds. This meant that along the somerset levels I could just about reach 55mph for a while, and uphills was restricted to about 35mph.

Anyway, long story short, this got worse and worse as I travelled. My top speed on the final leg, on flat ground was about 40mph. top speed up hills was 20mph. As you can imagine, this was NOT fun on a motorway!

I pulled over into services a couple of times to drain the fuel filter - no difference.

The power loss seems to happen in all gears, at the higher revs. so 3rd gear will allow me 20mph, 4th gear will allow me 30mph, and 5th gear will allow me 40mph.

The lack of revs is also evident if you push the clutch in, and rev the engine out of gear. It's very very flat (is that the right term?) for a number of seconds, then it revs up again with puffs of white and black smoke. The smoke only happens when you've got your foot pretty near the floor though.

So, any ideas?

Thanks

FS

have you checked your turbo hoses

robint said:

have you checked your turbo hoses

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Everything was a bit too hot last night - but I'll check round all the hoses this morning. I assume I'm looking for holes/splits? Sorry, bit of a noob!

Sounds like fuel starvation that I have had. If you run the fuel level in the tank very low you pick up all the crud in the bottom.
I would replace the fuel filter under the bonnet and try and clean out the fuel hoses. I use a large oil syringe to suck the fuel through from the tank to the filter.

farmershort said:

Everything was a bit too hot last night - but I'll check round all the hoses this morning. I assume I'm looking for holes/splits? Sorry, bit of a noob!

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some times you wont find any holes or splits , the hoses just loose there rigidity so when revving hard they will suck in wards thus restricting the flow its worth checking them first , if you find thats the problem it might be worth doing a intercooler flush aswell , mind im assumming its the hoses im guessing

empty and clean out your sediment bowl (located behind the left rear wheel on 110)aswell as renewing the fuel filter, if problem is still there its the lift pump at fault

ok, hoses, and crud check. I'll drain the fuel into a jam jar in a sec and see if it looks dodgy - I'll run a bit through without the filter on too.

OK,

progress so far:

I've drain the fuel out of the filter into a jam jar - no water present at all.

Next I removed the filter and ran the engine for a short while, with a fresh jam jar in pleace of the filter. no water present. Just one or 2 fine specs of something in the jar - but this would be taken out by the filter I guess.

next I check the hoses around the turbo - no holes or splits as far as I could tell. I then splashed soapy water all over the turbo area to see if any of the hoses were blowing out gas - this would blow bubbles in the soapy water.

this is what I found:





I take it that gas shouldn't be escaping from the egr blanking plate, and those other 2 sections of pipe? Could this cause my problem, or is it just a coincidence?

Thanks

FS

bmp42 said:

empty and clean out your sediment bowl (located behind the left rear wheel on 110)aswell as renewing the fuel filter, if problem is still there its the lift pump at fault

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Erm.... This is a bit odd, but here's a photo of my left hand rear wheel arch area:



Am I looking in the wrong place?

correct place but yours has been removed - check those fuel lines are not leaking, the bubbles you have are from the exhaust manifold will not cause any running issues

mine went the same down south wales, had to get towed by the aa fromsouth wale to dudley. when i got back i removed the fuel pump blew it out with an air line. then blew the pipes back into the tank, then removed the tank and cleaned it out. put it all back together and it's runs perfect for months now. hope this helps

I had the same in my 300tdi 90, i replaced the fuel filter and all was good.
chances are you let it run a little bit too low on fuel and sludge got taken through the filter limiting the intake of fuel.
2 second job and all was well !

replace fuel pipe between out put of lift pump and input of injection pump with clear tube using original fittings to check for air bubbles ,i leave clear tube in place as long as fitted well ,you can test ijectors by removing them and refitting to a pipe with injector pointing away from you as fuel is under 280n bar (4000psi) you should get a nice fine mist and all the same pattern.