sluggish 300tdi

Hi all,
I bought myself a land rover the other week, 1998 defender 300tdi 110 high capacity. I love it apart from one major issue. Driving along with no load is fine, quite slow but i expected that, but when i pull a trailer it really is sluggish, infact not coping well with it at all. Id say dangerously slow acselaration. All that is on the trailer is a commercial ride on lawnmower, cant see it weighing much more than 1ton, and the trailer is ifor williams twin axle style. Before the land rover i used a iveco 3.5 tipper and that pulled it easy. Any ideas what can be wrong, as im sure it should have more guts than that. It does have fair beefy tyres on though, being bf goodrich mud 265.75.16, would they make much diffrence?

Actually another thing is a fair bit of white smoke when i start her up in the morning for about 30seconds, and seems a bit more than it should be black smoke when i put foot down a bit.

Any feedback would be much apreciated.
Thanks, Dan

i have the same tyre size & style & yes it makes a massive difference on my disco.
Not saying thats the reason for your sluggishness but I used to have road tread Goodyear eagles when I bought mine, now Ive prepped it for overland with the tyres & the equipment on it the difference in engine pull & fuel consumption is quite scarily bad...

...not sure about the smoke...

Well it definitely shouldn't be sluggish, the 300TDi is a good solid engine with plenty of power, even with a heavy load. The best thing to do is start with a good service. Replace the air filter, fuel filter and oil filter and thoroughly clean the intercooler. The best way to clean it is by blocking one end off, pouring a mug or two of petrol in, seal the other end and then shake it. I just steam cleaned mine and blasted it with a pressure washer (internals only) and leave it in a warm aerated place to dry off thoroughly.

Also check that none of your turbo pipes are split or damaged. Start checking between the intercooler and the turbo. If one of them is shot, it'll massively reduce your performance.

-Pos