smoke problem

Hi, i appreciate all the help i've recieved on this forum before, but was just wondering if i could get some additional advice if possible! Heres my story: I'm driving a 2001 90 TD5, with 150k miles. Just failed my second DOE test, on my emissions. Reading of 9.99 (of the scale) when it should be no more than 3 units. Engine starts cleanly even on cold mornings, smells a bit and is a bit smokey when you first rev it but soon burns off. Usual smoke when you hit turbo but when the guy in the test centre floored the throttle they had to open up the workshop doors the smoke was so bad. Used some bardahl engine cleaner (120ml in a 60l tank) , made no difference despite driving it hard till tank was empty. So heres my question, is this likely to be something electronic or something to do with fuel injection system or is it just a problem with carbon deposits etc. Local Land Rover dealer mechanic says 2 litres of petrol in a full tank will do the trick, but i'm reluctant to do so. Any thoughts or remedies?

Thank you in advance for any suggestions!

Two litres of petrol mixed in with nearly 60 litres of diesel will not cause a problem and is a relatively cheap way of cleaning the fuel system. Some people use white spirit or parafin instead of petrol but you could have issues with the revenue gestapo. You can get away with using a 10% mix of petrol to diesel with no ill effects and some people do this through the winter months (me included but for other reasons) to aid starting and to prevent thickening with the cold.
Sounds like you may have an injector gone down that is not atomising the fuel spray properly and just dumping fuel into a cylinder.

thanks for the response. sound advice. will try the petrol and hopefully will be enough, don't particularly want to do open heart surgery and remove the injectors. Is ther any safe way to check them without removal? I know on an older engine you can just slacken the union at the injector and listen for any changes but doubt its as simple in this case.

The only way to check the injector spray pattern on the TD5 is to take them to a specialist. They aint like most diesel injectors. The fuel feed is internal via a drilling in the cylinder head and the injection pressure is generated by an extra lobe on the camshaft as there is no injection pump.

If you take out the glowplugs you may see an oiled up one which would point to a cylinder specific problem. But dont forget that cyl5 (rear of engine) does not have a glowplug.

could my egr cause any of these problems?

Its possible. If the valve is stuck open you will get ****e combustion until things warm up. The EGR valve should only operate once the engine is up to temp.
You can temporarily blank the EGR valve off using a piece of tin. If it improves things then dump the EGR completely and replace the tin with a nice thick plate. The tin will burn through in very short order.
Quick and dirty solution is to clean up the EGR valve and make sure it is closed then disconnect the wiring to the EGR solenoid so that it cant open.

Shifty1962 said:

Quick and dirty solution is to clean up the EGR valve and make sure it is closed then disconnect the wiring to the EGR solenoid so that it cant open.

Click to expand...

Or even easyer: disconnect and clog (with a screw or something) the vacuum pipe from the valve.

What could be easier than unplugging a two wire connector?

Hey thanks for the help, gave it 2 doses of petrol over the last month or so and the sooty smoke has visibly cleaned up somewhat. Gonna blank the egr and try the test again! Fingers crossed. Thanks again.