Starting and gear change problems

Series IIA LWB 2.25 diesel

Hi Guys,

I went to the landy the other morning and I noticed that the clutch pedal seemed to suddenly have an excessive amount of play in it (about half of its total travel arc) and became very difficult to get in and out of gear without the revs being perfect.

I was running late this morning and lo and behold for the first time ever she wouldnt start (was running great last night) turns over fine but doesn't actually fire up, i ve been running biodiesel for a few months now and haven't changed the filter (i know i know).

So my question is could the issues be linked? and are there any solutions? I don't even have a mental checklist to go through for starting problems so any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. I m still very much an amateur in terms of mechanics but mad keen to learn

check linkage into bell housing from the slave cylinder ,and fluid level in reservoir

hi James,

The fluid reservoir is full, (the only one i could find under the bonnett) and i m not really sure how to check the linkage, is it easy to access from underneath the vehicle

possible if someone works the pedal ,there is a tube with 2 pins that goes into bellhousing ,pins wear tube splits meaning it twists before acting on the release fork

Thanks I ll get the mrs to have a pump and have a look, mind you i guess if i cant get it started then it dosnt really matter a great deal

open the bleed nipple and see if it squirts clean fuel out when turning engine over or pumping lift pump

is the bleed nipple on the fuel filter? (maybe i ve not quite advanced enough to be alled amateur yet?

Any more suggestions guys?

First suspect if a diesel wont start is air in the system followed by lack of heat from glo plugs. remember glow plugs are wired in series unless previous owner upgraded to parallel wired ones. Series wired is like old Christmas tree lights when one fails they all go out. A silly one have you pushed the stop cable back in fully?

divie said:

First suspect if a diesel wont start is air in the system followed by lack of heat from glo plugs. remember glow plugs are wired in series unless previous owner upgraded to parallel wired ones. Series wired is like old Christmas tree lights when one fails they all go out. A silly one have you pushed the stop cable back in fully?

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Had a look and one of the heater plugs had a broken coil, I d also managed to burn another one out by testing it on the battery I ve bought a new set off fleabay but now I regret not buying the kit to wire them in parallel, does anybody know how to do it that could explain it to me without buying a 'conversion' kit?

Mine had same symptoms in the end it was the release bearing, it had compacted and was not giving enough travel, dont force the gear change as mine nackered the 3 and 4 th syncro.There was nothing wrong with the slave or fluid system after bleeding many times.

peter5761 said:

Mine had same symptoms in the end it was the release bearing, it had compacted and was not giving enough travel, dont force the gear change as mine nackered the 3 and 4 th syncro.There was nothing wrong with the slave or fluid system after bleeding many times.

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would i be right in guessing you have a Series 3 gearbox in yours ??

if i am it's a completely different clutch release mechanism that is known for compacting (bearing dries out and seizes and then spins on the plastic carrier melting it), the Series2/2a release is the superior mechanism that doesn't suffer from that problem as far as i know

i think the old series wired ones need about 2-8ish volts where the parallel ones are 12v so need to test them with a bulb in series with the old one rather than straight across the battery, there has been previous threads on here how to wire the parallel ones , which is a better upgrade hopefully once plugs started itlll start ok