Poor starting

[Hangman3]

I bought a 2011 1.6 taxi the other day with the knowledge that it had an injector problem. When I test drove the car it was running quite rough and noisy on idle and white smoking a lot. As it warmed up during the drive, the smoke issue disappeared but it was still a bit lumpy on idle and noisy on pull away or under load.

It drove a treat down the motorway and gave me no problems. The seeker said that the ford man had said that it would not remember the injector codes so needed a new injector. After having got it home and run a few checks I saw that the battery was foobar only 60/ So I ordered a new one thinking that this could be a good reason for that. I re-coded the injectors and they seem to hold, (bit confused about what end is cylinder 1 though and whether they get coded to the cylinder number or the firing order as there seems to be different opinions).

Regardless of which, from cold it a total swine to start. If I turn the ignition it fires but stops. In order to get it to run I have to play with the throttle until it settles and let it warm up. Even then it will billow out white smoke until its up to temp.

Please please please help. I could also do with pointing in the direction of a decent manual as I bought a Haynes hahaha.

[Hangman3]

I have noticed that there is no light on the dash for glow plug heating so I checked the plugs and am getting a reading of 0.02ohms on all of them. I have tried to see if there is a supply to the plugs but that one I am finding a bit confusing. I set the metre to 20V and it starts with a reading of 0.32 and flicks to 0.34 sometimes when the ignition is turned on.

Where is the relay ang fuse for the pre heat system?

[TomsFocus]

There won't be a glow plug light on a CR diesel currently...it's 30c outside lol! 

The plugs do still run at start up, but only for emissions reduction, shouldn't see any starting issues even leaving them unplugged in this weather.  

Are there any fault codes stored on the PCM? 

[Hangman3]

The light should still come on regardless of whether the glow plugs are needed or not unless the motor is already hot (it always does in my landrover). The only code my Snapon scanner gives in the engine section is U0418-00 invalid data received from brake system control module. Which is even weirder as it has nothing to do with brakes.

[TomsFocus]

This isn't a Land Rover.  The light is purely timed on these by the ambient temp, it has no relation to plug operation.  So at 5c it comes on for 0.5 seconds for example.  In 30c heat it doesn't come on at all.  

Can you see live data with that scanner?  You can watch the plugs cycle on and off every few seconds during warm up if so, the light won't be on though. 

 

[Hangman3]

In this shot u can see that the plugs are turning on and off when I rev the engine from cold.

[TomsFocus]

Yeah, it looks like they are working fine tbh.

 

[Tdci-Peter]

On 8/4/2018 at 4:10 PM, Hangman3 said:

from cold it a total swine to start. If I turn the ignition it fires but stops. In order to get it to run I have to play with the throttle until it settles and let it warm up. Even then it will billow out white smoke until its up to temp.

In colder weather, that sounds like a classic glowplug problem. But like Tom says, common rail, high fuel pressure diesels really do not need glowplugs at all above about 15C. The very fine fuel spray will ignite much more easily and quickly than with older diesels.

So that suggests to me there is a problem either with one injector, or with the fuel pump. If the fuel rail pressure was too low, that would give poor starting, poor economy and reduced power, but would probably also give an error code (DTC). So an injector problem is more likely.

A leak off test is the cheapest way to detect most bad injector problems.

On all PSA engines, including the 1.6TDCI, cylinder 1 is at the flywheel end.

[Hangman3]

OK thanks for the reply's.

Do these data graphs that were taken from just after cold start, to up to temp with a drive around town. Does this shed any light on what has just been stated?

Here are the data readings

 

[Tdci-Peter]

6 hours ago, Hangman3 said:

these data graphs that were taken from just after cold start, to up to temp with a drive around town. Does this shed any light on what has just been stated?

For me, the mystery deepens, sadly.

The fuel rail pressure looks ok, at least it is following the desired values as far as I can see from the screen resolution. On my car it more or less tracks the accelerator.

The fuel rail temp looks a little odd. I guess it is a thermistor, so voltage drops with rising temp, but on my car it is much more dynamic, going up and down quite quickly with rail pressure. My system measures the return fuel flow, maybe this is the incoming flow, in which case a gradual rise over the journey would be sensible.

I do not really believe the cylinder balance figures, they just look too good. Again, on my 1.8 I always get exactly the same figure for all 4. I think it is just a filler, put in for compatibility with an arbitrary value, not a real reading.

How does the car behave when trundling along in 2nd or even 3rd gear (on a flat road) at idle with no throttle? That is quite a good test of cylinder balance, as any mismatch will cause roughness, unless the ECU can compensate.

A Forscan run I did a couple of years ago:

 

Also a log of a cold start I did:

(These were taken for reference, not because of any known faults at the time)

[iantt]

injector fault still. as there was  some confusion about cyl 1 , did you in the end figure it out and code them correctly? 

i had to code all 4 injectors last week on a 1.5 tdci and the codes i had were too long by 1 digit on the sticker on timing cover . took a while to work out which digit  to ignore. even the injectors had 1 digit to many and different to the sticker. all because a software update failed alf way through and temp bricked the module. 

 

[Hangman3]

So yesterday I put a new injector into pot 3. the reason being is that the guy I bought it off said that his Ford dealer said that injector 2 was a problem. so the reason I picked 3 was because he had the codes written down from 1-4 but they were numbered 1 from the timing end (strange!!). However,  after having done this, it started first time. A bit lumpy but first time & quickly settled into a smooth idle. after having coded & re-learned them, I took it for a spin (it was smoking a lot). I gave it some welly after it was warm (even more smoke than usual) & I got a yellow engine light, a warning stating engine problem service immediately & it went into limp mode. I pulled over, recycled the ignition then the light was gone & it drove home normally. when there I scanned & got these codes: 10-8-18.pdf 

I cleared the codes & then left it alone. This morning it wont start as per usual.

It seems it is now worse off since the injector change.

[Hangman3]

Turns out it was 4 faulty injectors. Not sure how 4 injectors have died after only 55000 miles but maybe it had something to do with this.

Found this sand like stuff in the bottom of the Fuel filter container when I changed the filter.

How the hell does something like this get there??

[TomsFocus]

The injectors on these are known to be crap unfortunately, some have needed 4 in half that mileage!

The sand is just aluminium corrosion from the filter holder, it's not actually in the fuel system.