Freelander 1 TD4 injector removal & replacement advice sought

Hello all

Im looking to remove and reseat 4 x injectors in an auto 03 plate freelander td4. It's the last resort really before having to replace a couple of them.

Having carried out some maintenance recently, it has snowballed into an injector issue.
Diagnosis was 'cylinder balance control'. Having had a mechanic look at it and do a leak back check, all seemed ok.

Diesel appearing at the top of each injector at the same time, when cranked over.

On inspection the retaining bolts for each injector was not tight. How they had come undone is a mystery.

Its been advised to reseat each injector with a new copper washer and retighten up to see if the symptoms go away.

Can anyone tell me do I need to use any 'red hematite sealant' on the copper washer?

Is it best to 'ultrasonically clean' each injector first before reinserting or is there an other way to clean off any soot carbon?

Should I use thread locking compound to stop the injector retaining bolts working free again?

I have purchased some liqui moly diesel purge to add to the preventative measures.

No need for sealant around the injector seat
Make sure everything is clean down the injector hole (vacuum it out)
if there is a lot of crud around the tip of the injector it wouldnt hurt to remove it with a rag but dont attack it with anything brutal.
You could get the injectors checked for spray pattern etc before replacing - dont know the price but a check should be around 25 quid each i guess.

The leak off test is a bit more than what you describe - should be checked with engine running and return pipe disconnected (careful they can be fragile). You are looking for a massive return rate or big differences between injectors.
Be careful reinstalling the clamps - torque is quite low and the clamps can easily break if not seated properly

the torque is about 13Nm if i remember its ridiculously low

just checked they are 10Nm

Check all the return pipes and T joint as they can sometime become brittle, I change mine for brass connectors as here below,

The leak off test was done by a land rover specialist, actually did it in front of me. So I wouldn't know any better, the company is a well know reputable land rover garage, so I presume they know what they're doing. They've been spot on in the past when I've been for parts and repairs.

I had no reason to doubt the results and advice given, I wouldn't take my TD4 anywhere else!

The digital Autologic diagnosis (cylinder balance control ) results verify the injector problem. Again the same garage did this in front of me , showed me the results and made no charge for diagnosing.

I presume that once the retaining bracket around the injector is off, that the injector will just pull straight out of its housing?

I will probably use some thread locking compound when tightening up the retaining plate bolts.

Arctic2: Where do you get the brass connectors and hose from?

Chazter said:

I presume that once the retaining bracket around the injector is off, that the injector will just pull straight out of its housing?

Click to expand...

No always as they can be quite hard to remove sometimes, you may need a puller, another way to help release them is to undo the clamp bolts a little, remove the cam sensor and crank the car over it will not start but should make the injector pop up a little to help remove it, also best to remove them when the engine is hot, once out clean as stated above add new copper washers and re-fit the injectors, did they say the injectors were in balance ?

Arctic2 see picture I uploaded on my previous post.

That was the initial reading. On inspection, bolts found loose on retaining plates. Nipped them up and results had changed slighlty lower on each cylinder, next time round on diagnosis machine. (see picture)

Advised to try and reseat injectors with new washers.

If that doesnt work, time for new injectors.

TD4 has 87k on the clock. 1 careful very mature owner previous to me, had it garaged 90% of the time, barely drove it over the 10 years he'd had it.

From the pic it looks to be injector one these were my reading back in August, hopefully when you reseat the injectors they may change but you may have to replace one at least, maybe someone will jump on board and say what your reading actually are was the reading taken on a testbook T4 I did mine on an Hawkeye.

Diagnostic device : AUTO LOGIC used at the land rover specialist I go to.

Problem started last week. TD4 running smooth. Engine management light kept flickering intermittently when I put my foot to the pedal. Thought nothing of it. Grabbed a butty from shop, then car wouldnt start. Waited 10 ~ 20 mins, it cranked and started. Drove it, parked up same happened again.

Managed to get to the land rover garage, plugged in the AUTO LOGIC device, ONLY fault shown : LP low pressure plausability.

The readings for the low and high pressures were way off, pump ready to croak it, hence why it wouldnt start and engine management light coming on!

I changed the LP pump and filter under the O/S/R wheel arch.

TD4 now started idling lumpy, rev needle erratic. TD4 vibrating, shaking, didnt sound or feel right etc.

Took back to land rover garage, plugged in the AUTO LOGIC device, 2 faults now : LP low pressure plausability and cylinder control balance

Cleared faults from ECU.

Started car, 1 fault appears : cylinder control balance.

Hence the 2 pictures Ive uploaded. And the slight improvement in 2nd reading after tightening up the retaining plate bolts.

Been advised try reseating all four injectors.

If that doesnt work, then replace number 1 injector.

Was advised that all 4 cylinder readings, should hover around the '0' area whilst the engine is running.

I dont know if the cylinders 2, 3 & 4 were showing high minus value readings to compensate for the high posotive cylinder 1 value reading ?

Arctic2:
When you took your 'cylinder' readings on that hawkeye device, did you have the engine running or not?

Bought myself an 'icarsoft cr plus' diy diagnostic tool and have tried it out on the TD4 engine data stream page that covers many areas, including engine roughness and fuel control and the results on this icarsoft shows all cylinders on '0' even when the Auto Logic diagnostic tool shows a cylinder control balance error.

Tried reading both with engine running and engine off / just ignition on.

Do your readings fluctuate as the car engine is idling or not?

If anyone else is reading this and has an icarsoft device, can they confirm if the device reads the cylinders correctly?

Cheers

the engine needs to run to see the fuel correction data and it would be very unlikely that all 4 cylinders say zero !
this observation is based on using BMW DIS - on a bmw

digby, thanks for confirming.
The Auto logic diagnostic device at the landy garage read the last known cylinder values stored in the td4's ecu memory. And was viewable on screen when searching for error codes.
The hawkeye Arctic2 has shows the cylinder readings as they should be.
I presumed the icarsoft cr plus would work the same way but it doesnt.
As you say the icarsoft cr plus shouldnt show '0' for each cylinder with the engine running or just ignition turned on.
Looks like I will be sending the device back!

I have been playing with the correction data protocol on the tool that we sell. It is working well on my wife's TD4.
It does show all zeros with the ignition on and the engine not running, however there is no way that it should show all zeros with the engine running. Our tool certainly doesn't.
I am hoping to push an update out this week to give Freelander 1 TD4 fuel correction data in real time to our customers.

I am pleased to hear about another problem with the icarsoft tool

Pscan.eu, what tool are you selling?

With the engine off, ignition only on, the diagnostic device should show the 'cylinder readings' prior to engine shut down. i.e stored in the TD4 ecu memory

The icarsoft doesnt even do that, its '0' after you've driven the vehicle and engine off, ignition only on. Its proving to be a doubtful device.

At this moment im inclined to say stick to the bearmach hawkeye!

I am selling a tool that my company designed. The website is www.pscan.eu
It works well on most Rovers and MGs and now we are working on the Freelander 1. It already covers the L Series, TD4, K series including the non OBD compliant ones, the V6 and the Jatco automatic gearbox.
We also have the Discovery 2 / Defender TD5 protocol working which does not work on the icarsoft
Concerning the TD4 injector balance we can read these numbers in real time, so they are zero when the engine isn't running, and non zero numbers when the engine is running, just the same as a Landrover T4 tool. If they are stored in the ECU after shutdown, I haven't figured that one out yet. Are your sure that this is in injector balance and not engine roughness readings?
We have not yet done the SRS or ABS modules but now that we have a Freelander 1 to work on I am hopeful that it won't take too long.

T4 (the official LR diagnostics) doesn't display the previous readings with the engine off and ignition on - to my knowledge the ECU doesn't store these values on power down

It does display the engine roughness (rpm per cylinder) and can do it for crank and engine running as well as injector compensation with engine running. With ignition on, engine off the readings are 0

I will put some screenshots up later on if people like so that they can see exactly what our tool does and does not do. There are some on the website already but I have been doing some work on the TD4 over the last few days so there is a bit more available now.

My earlier posts on this thread, I provided pictures of the cylinder readings when an Auto Logic diagnostic device was connected to the td4.
So they must be stored in the TD4 ecu memory, otherwise how would the Auto Logic device show them?

The td4 went to the landy garage to check that the new LP pump I fitted had cleared the low LP plausability error codes it initially it came up with. It then showed an additional cylinder balance control error. The mechanic went to the next page on the Auto Logic device to see what the cylinder readings were. To find out out by how much they were out of balance.

The problem with the td4 hasnt been rectified yet.

So when I plugged in the icarsoft cr plus in, it didnt show any cylinder error codes when on the data stream page or any other page yet the Auto Logic device does !

Id like to know if anyone else with an icarsoft device can verify they can obtain cylinder readings