Following some reading on an online forum I decided (mistakenly is seems) to open the drain cock under the fuel filter on my 1979 Series 3 2.25 Diesel, this allowed out a small amount of what seemed to be dirty water/diesel mix.
Then when attempting to start the car it fired straight away as usual but then died after a few seconds and refused to start although was turning over well. A little more reading on forums lead me to look into the possibility that the system would need to be primed as opening the drain cock may necessitate this.
Using the fuel lift pump I manually primed the system to the point that fuel was rising through the fuel pump (top nut). Another attempt was made to start but still nothing firing. As I was away on holiday and lacking in garage facilities I called on the AA to come and have a look. A very friendly ex-land rover owning AA patrol arrived and went through with me what I had done, he repeated the priming exercise and checked the supply all the way through the system. He found that whilst there was fuel passing through the filter and into the top of the injector distributor, very little if any was reaching the injectors (a dribble he said). The AA patrol did undo the top input nut on the injector distributor and from what I have been able to ascertain online this is the correct place to disconnect to manually prime and rid the system of any air.
The AA patrol advised the in his opinion the fault lay with the distributor pump and whilst he was surprised as these did not often fail, he was unable to think that it could be anywhere else.
Whilst the distributor may have failed I do wonder if there are any other parts of the fuel system that should have been opened during priming to clear air from the system. Does anyone have a view on this?
Also the CAV distributor pumps do not seem as readily available as other parts for the Series 3, is there a reason for this or are they generally just rebuilt?
(less on learnt dont attempt maintenance that you are not used to when miles out in the countryside on a campsite!)
