1HD-FTE 4.2TD smoking/stuttering at low rev's/poor running - any help appreciated.

[Dan_the_drifter]

Hi, bit of a long post, I apologise in advance

Amazon ownership has been going along lovely until the start of this week, went to start the truck up as normal to drive to work, felt a bit of a misfire when first started and thought it was nothing and at this point no smoke. Left my house and under light acceleration started to smoke a bit then cleared up and went away after about 20 seconds, shrugged it off and thought it must have been 'one of those things' and drove to work as normal. As the week has gone on it has started to smoke more heavily after each start especially from cold and the misfire under light throttle is quite bad to the point that I am driving it into work tomorrow and will then leave it there until it's fixed as not happy possibly causing any engine damage.

If you put your foot down it mostly clears other than some slight black diesel smoke expected when accelerating hard. For this reason I do not think it is a lack of fuel in terms of the supply to the pump as from my own experience it would be fine under idle/light throttle then starve under more load. Mine is the opposite of this.

Pulled the intake pipe to the turbo off and checked the turbo just to be sure even though I feel it's diesel not oil. No more play in the bearings then I would expect for a 220k mileage truck and no excessive oil loss on the dipstick so ticked that off the list. I have inspected the air filter, drained the fuel filter and all seem fine. I can visually see the swirl flaps moving when engine revved. The EGR has been blocked by a previous owner and the pipe to it capped off. Do not feel it is sludge build up in the intake etc as the fault has come on way too quickly in my opinion. Checked the MAF hot-wire and cleaned but again no difference.

I have fairly good history and it had been serviced well by the previous owner from what I can see so my gut feeling from being a mechanic is an injector or 2 sticking/injector nozzles blocked. I think it is likely I will have to take all 6 injectors out and send them away but I know especially with 'not so run of the mill' cars on the road other owners have much more experience so if any other 1hd-fte owners have had similar symptons and then been fixed I would like to hear it.

I am pretty sure I have the dual stage injectors, any experience of companies people have used that know these injectors and how to set them up would be good too. Otherwise will be going to our local-ish injector place known as electro-diesel.

Sorry for long post, I usually get to the bottom of most mechanical faults fairly quickly but with no codes or testing equipment at my disposal others experience is going to be very useful.

Will try and grab a video tomorrow if I remember before I park it up.

Thanks in advance,
Dan

 

[stumog]

Hi Dan

I would check the pre filter on the stack pipe in the tank. Not 100% sure the 100s have them but your describing the issues that it causes.

 

[Higgy]

Hi Dan

I would check the pre filter on the stack pipe in the tank. Not 100% sure the 100s have them but your describing the issues that it causes.

Hi Dan. Its obvious you know what your talking about, But id start with fuel restriction, check filters, Tank filters and pipes. And as Stumog says the stack pipe (if it has one)...Its just iv saved many a Diesel truck from the scrap yard where folk have thought it Knackerd.. but all it needed was a filter or a Minor repair... Fuel starvation/Or air in the system can throw up all kinds of different behaviour.... Plus it normally the cheapest point of remedy... Good luck with it Dan.... As said on many a post before, Try running it straight from a drum, By pass fuel tank and filter, ( I don't have to tell Ya you know what I mean)

 

[Josh Tagg]

Hi Dan as the others have said check the basics first all filters etc, then I'd agree with you sounds like an injector not opening properly when cold. Merc 651 engine was a bugger for this. Would have thought you could get injectors reconned maybe with someone like feathers?

 

[AndycruiserguyLomas]

Yep, with Josh and Higgy. Go from cheapest and simplest first. As you know one end of a spanner from another it will be of interest to us all ( especially us 100 owners) how this is resolved.

 

[big-yin]

I had similar issue on my 99 100 4.2 TDi on start up it would go fluffy then eventually clear if you gave it bootfuls of throttle. I have changed the fuel filter to a genuine Toyota one and I haven't had the same issue again. Have a look on YT for fuel filters on the 100 and it will show you some potential issues. Other than that what everyone else is saying as they have a lot more experience than me plus it sounds like you have most boxes ticked anyway.

 

[uHu]

If you end up having to check the injectors:
All 1HD-fte have 2-stage, but there is a difference in opening pressure depending on new or old model. The new one has water cooled EGR, 6 butterflies on the intake manifold and a different programming for the IP in the ECU. The Electro-Diesel place I used didn't have this info, but they could deliver the right nozzles at a very good price.
Remember to get a set of washers/seals (alu) for the return pipe on the injectors, they are useless after removal.

 

[Dan_the_drifter]

Thanks everyone for your input, greatly appreciated. I will check the tank and filter in due course just to be sure however I had about half hr yesterday morning to have another look and I think I have found the area at fault.

With it running I was cracking off each injector to try and narrow it down to one cylinder as felt it was a misfire on a particular cylinder or maybe 2 rather than an overall fuel delivery/starve problem. When doing this I had to remove the pipe that goes to the swirl flaps on the intake manifold as uHu rightly says mine is new enough to have a water cooled EGR cooler and intake flaps. pulling the vac pipe opened the flaps and immediately improved the tone of the engine, left the pipe off and revved it up, a lot less smoke and the stuttering pretty much gone, probably not 100% right but a a massive improvement, re-fit the vac pipe and the swirl flaps close and it goes back to the stutter/smoking on light throttle and misfire at idle.

This tells me I might be wrong on my initial thoughts about the intake being carbon'd up. I now think either the intake has carbon build up covering part of the intake port, or I have a valve clearance/worn rocker or valvetrain issue that is not allowing the valves to open enough and when the swirl flaps are closing it is basically suffocating the engine on one or more cylinders. This does make sense as when you put your foot down the flaps open, boost comes on forcing the air in probably covering up some of the restriction and that is when the smoke mostly clears and engine pulls better.

Plan is to pull the intake pipe that goes over the rocker and inspect the manifold and then depending what I find probably pull the whole intake manifold off to clean/check the flaps. Then I may pull the rocker cover off and check clearances etc as i'm halfway there pulling off the intake.

I will update my build thread in the garage section and also put my findings in here for anyone else in the future.

Thanks big-yin for mentioning the fuel filter differences I had not heard until having a quick look on youtube that aftermarket companies supplied the incorrect filters for these engines. The video is not a uk video so this might be a problem over here but still a good watch for anyone with a 100 series 4.2td. Here is the link for anyone interested:

Cheers Dan

 

[Indie]

I agree with Dan_The_Drifter my toyota dealer has supplied 23390-YZZAB ??