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Woorkshop Tales Part 2 (long)

G

Guest

Guest
Well I burnt the midnight oil last night and managed to remove my
injectors, check my valve clearances and then remove the injection
pump.
Whilst the car has been running reasonably well, it drinks fuel (16-
18mpg - best 21mpg) and has started to sound a little rattly at the top
end, so whilst I have the motivation I want to get everything checked
out - I'm very conscious of the fact that pootling around the Cotswolds
is a far cry from playing in the Sahara when fully loaded with the
family on board.
Trying to remove the injectors was fun, once you remove the clamp you
have to try to wiggle them out of the head - fortunately having removed
the radiator and fan etc I could actually sit in the engine bay which
makes things a lot easier, although some took a lot of twisting to ease
them out - certainly for the last one closest to the bulkhead was made
easer by removing the rocker cover.
They all looked pretty dirty with some rust on the upper parts of some
of them. I numbered them as I took them out so that I could find out
if any of them had specific problems (more about that in a minute).
With the injectors out it was a lot easier to turn over the engine so I
then checked the valve clearances. I have spoken to a few others that
have checked theirs with similar mileages (150,000) and not noticed and
significant differences - after checking mine only two out of the 12
valves were in the accepted tollerances.
The rest were all too tight with some worse than others, so it was
worth checking. I now have the fun game of checking each one to see
what shims are being used, working out what shims need to be replaced
and then repeating for each valve.
I have been lent the proper tool remove the shims for each valve at a
time (thankss Toby!), but with so many needing changing, I will do what
I have done in the past and just remove the camshaft, make a note of
the shim sizes used for each valve at a time and then shuffle the shims
around to make sure that the final clearances are correct.
I have done this in the past and managed to avoid buying any new shims,
just by doing the shuffling, but you need to keep meticulous notes of
the clearance for each valve and the shims that were being used and
then work out the actual thickness of shims that you need to end up
with - having a computer and spreadsheet at hand makes it a little bit
easier and also ensures you sit down and think through it properly,
rather than trying to work it out on an oily piece of paper in the
workshop.
Having checked the valves I set the engine at bottom dead centre and
then removed the injection pump. It is a bit of a fiddle and I can see
that some of the nuts are going to be a pain to get back on, but
relatively painless, although you do end up with diesel and water
(despite draining the system) all over the place.
This morning I took the pump and injectors down to John and Bob at RVS
in Swindon (01793-421 166). These guys are lovely old school engineers
who work out of a small unit in Swindon. Having some years ago tried
looking for an injection specialist about to talk to about my high fuel
consumption, I rang round every firm in Bristol, Gloucester, Birmingham
and Swindon and these guys were the only ones showing any indication of
knowing the LC injection pumps and also were the only ones willing to
chat on the phone about different options, rather than respond with the
customary 'bring it in and we will look at it for ?xxxx'.
They are very flexible and offer a broad service from testing and
setting up the injection pump to factory specs, through to stripping it
down completely, replacing all seals and other consumable items within
the pump. They also tend to go above and beyond the standard Bosch
pump tests, testing things like the pump's ability to suck the fuel up
from the tank, something that isn't on the Bosch test list and is one
of the reasons people recommend fitting the Walbro pump to compensate
for poor performance of the transfer pump.
Price wise they start at ?80 for the basic testing and setting up
through to around ?300-400 + materials for the full strip down.
Whilst there, they tested the injectors and found that most of them
were out of spec with one in particular just dribbling out fuel. I
consider this to be encouraging - there is nothing worse than going to
great lengths to strip down the car to try to resolve an issue and then
not to find any problems.
So all being well, with serviced injectors and pump as well as
reshimmed valves I am hoping that the consumption might improve and the
engine run a wee bit smoother.
Next job is doing the actual reshimming as well as checking the big end
bearings - with the cam belt off I will need to keep the camshaft off
untill I have checked the BEBs, ordered and then fitted replacements,
otherwise the pistons can end up smacking against the open valves.
--
Regards,
Julian Voelcker
Mobile: 07971 540362
Skype: julianvoelcker
Cirencester, United Kingdom
1994 HDJ80, 2.5" OME Lift
 
Hi Roman,
OK thanks, that looks far more sophisticated than I had planned, but
very useful none the less.
--
Regards,
Julian Voelcker
Mobile: 07971 540362
Skype: julianvoelcker
Cirencester, United Kingdom
1994 HDJ80, 2.5" OME Lift
 
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