Running on 3 cylinders

Dear friends

Im currently travelling and I need your immidate help.

Im running a Land Rover 90 2,5 disel turobo 1988 with the 19J engine.

The diesel pipe for the fourth cylinder broke down early in my vacation but since I needed to catch a ferry I continued driving after putting a bolt on the leak. However the cylinder did not get any fuel so I ran on only 3 out of 4.

I ordered a spare part but now the engine seems to be even worse propably not running on all cylinders even now. Before the diesel pipe fix I had a lot of black smoke but now it is a lot of white smoke.

Im stuck in Denmark on my travelling but a local garage is taking a look at the engine. Im fearing that the piston rings or valves have been damaged and that im in for a major repair.

Could you please advice me on what I should be looking for?

And please dont tell me to change an engine because it is not an option at the moment. I need this one fixed ASAP.

I welcome your feedback and appreciate your support.

Best regards,
Sveinn

did you remove the injector or glo plug to reduce the load in that cylinder?

white smoke is normally un-burned fuel, and black smoke is normally running rich, so i would say you are looking at a fuel pump problem at a guess, but diagnosis via the internet is rather hard,

I did not remove the glow plug nor the injector on that cylinder since it was not getting any fuel anyway. I stopped the diesel leak at the pump level so I was fearing that I did put to much load on the pump and/or puming to much fuel into the other cylinders. So the guess of the fuel pump is likley but the guys at the local garage thought that would not result in misfiring cylinders.

Any other thoughts?

Im basically stuck hear until I get the vechile running again

What do you mean you put a bolt on the leak?

If you blocked the pump then that would not be great - how the pump works is there is ONE plunger/metering valve assembly, as the pump spins through 360 degrees it puts a wheel into alingment with a port for each of the injector pipes every 90 degrees. So in reality the pump will always do the same thing to every injector, so your garage is right in saying it should not cause a mis.

That said blocking it was not a good idea, the plunger is forced in, it has to move somewhere, the diesel had to go somewhere, probably just got forced back into the pump body but not a great plan.

If you take the unions off all the injectors and spin the engine on the starter do you get a slug of diesel to each injector in order?

Get them to do a compression test.

wish i could get my bugga to start on 3

The news are in. They did a compressor test and and cylinder 4 is completly dead and 3 has very little pressure. They have doomed it caput. Im originally from Iceland but travelling in Denmark and I need a new engine because Im not going to scrap the car. Should I go for a 200tdi or 300tdi?

Thanks for your help,
Sveinn

Now im told by experts that I only need a new headgasket. The guys at the garage have yet to take the head of to see if that is the case. Lets hope so. Then I will have enough power to drive to England to get a new engine there

sveinnb said:

The news are in. They did a compressor test and and cylinder 4 is completly dead and 3 has very little pressure. They have doomed it caput. Im originally from Iceland but travelling in Denmark and I need a new engine because Im not going to scrap the car. Should I go for a 200tdi or 300tdi?

Thanks for your help,
Sveinn

Click to expand...

tdi 200 without a doubt