Sorry, yet another TD5 Starting Thread

[jamesmartin]

Thanks for the continued support everyone.
The crank position sensor is a new Lucas one (about £25), so should not be the culprit.
Today, between rain showers I swapped out the injector washers and O rings as I am not convinced there is not air in the fuel. None of the washers or O rings were blown so they were not the culprit, but a useful job to have done anyway. No 1 injector came out easily with a 5mm allen key held in some locking pliers. No 2 was not moving at all and I did not want to use too much force and damage it, so I bit the bullet and bought the slide hammer tool. Life suddenly became much easier.
One of the most difficult aspects was cleaning out the injector seat in the head. After some experimentation with towelling and cotton buds, I found the best way to do it was to take a sheet of blue roll, roll it into a tight tube, then leaving 2 cm free on each end, spiral wrap cellotape around it so that it holds its shape and is fairly robust. A squirt of carb cleaner down the hole and on the end and it is ideal for getting into the hole and clearing out any oil and grit. Use the other end for the next injector.
Tomorrow my son and I plan to fit a new Denso starter motor. After reading about the infamous top bolt I would hate to sweat blood taking it out, repair the solenoid, get it back in and find that the problem was down to the windings rather than the contacts and have to do it all again.
If that does not cure it then air in the fuel is about the only remaining diagnosis and it does not explain why the engine does not start when the system is fully bled. With all the system bleeding I have been doing there are signs of small amounts of fuel weeping down the tank from the pump. My assumption has been that this is a tiny amount of fuel expelled during system bleeding. Is this a valid assumption or could the top of the pump be leaking and allowing air into the system?

its a top nut which is 15mm
you need to fix the leak before much else if not much but to just to rule it out

 

[Si Click]

So we pulled the starter this afternoon which turned out to be far less of a pain than we thought. We had a bit of a faff with the 15mm top bolt....mainly because ours turned out to be a non-standard 17mm. Taking the solenoid apart revealed some serious pitting and evidence of arcing. I was planning on buying a Denso replacement, but with such obvious damage and with removal much easier than expected, we decided to experiment. We cleaned and levelled the contacts and plunger with a dremel and put it back on.
Success! Started second turn and first turn thereafter. The air has cleared from the fuel system and not returned and the Bearmach cleared the Crank Sync Error with no recurrence. Therefore, in our case at least the electrical interference was coming from arcing across the solenoid contacts, not from the motor windings. This means it can be cured with a cheap solenoid repair kit. I've ordered one and will fit it when it arrives in a few days.
Thanks everyone. Now we just need to fix the leaking hub seal....

 

[v8landyman]

So we pulled the starter this afternoon which turned out to be far less of a pain than we thought. We had a bit of a faff with the 15mm top bolt....mainly because ours turned out to be a non-standard 17mm. Taking the solenoid apart revealed some serious pitting and evidence of arcing. I was planning on buying a Denso replacement, but with such obvious damage and with removal much easier than expected, we decided to experiment. We cleaned and levelled the contacts and plunger with a dremel and put it back on.
Success! Started second turn and first turn thereafter. The air has cleared from the fuel system and not returned and the Bearmach cleared the Crank Sync Error with no recurrence. Therefore, in our case at least the electrical interference was coming from arcing across the solenoid contacts, not from the motor windings. This means it can be cured with a cheap solenoid repair kit. I've ordered one and will fit it when it arrives in a few days.
Thanks everyone. Now we just need to fix the leaking hub seal....

Excellent result and well worked through in an intelligent and logical manner.

 

[Brown]

Sounds like you can call that a success then.

Where the fuel pump goes into the tank is prone to leaking. The pump is held in with a metal ring that looks a bit like a large jam jar lid with threads pressed into it. The seal is provided by a rubber ring. This is well below the level of the fuel when the tank is full on a defender, so it could be that. When I bought mine, the metal ring had been cross threaded and as a result wasn't holding the pump body against the rubbery ring tightly enough, so would leak when the tank was full. Even with the retaining ring and the seal properly seated it may not be fuel tight so sometimes I've resorted to a smear of gasket sealant.

The pipes go on to the fuel pump with (supposedly) self-sealing clip on connectors. They can leak, but it may well be that it's the pump seal. I don't think there's any way that fuel will be expelled here when you're purging in the normal course of events. Unless something's leaking of course.

 

[Si Click]

Thanks for that. We will clean the inboard side of the tan and look for any further weeping. Given the pump access difficulties with a Defender, as long as air is not getting into the fuel we will probably accept a very slight seep until we need to drop the tank for another reason.