Is my Xantia TD diesel pump knackered?

[goldfinche]

OOPS my apologies, I didnt realise it had been mentioned before. Must learn to read things properly.
Cheers.
Geoff.

[CitroJim]

No worries Geoff I'm a shocker for skimming a long thread and many is the time I've composed a reply and realised I've missed something, said exactly the same thing as someone else or got completely the wrong end of the stick Better to have two say the same thing rather than none not saying what may well be the cause

Not long ago, one of Xac's cars had a long lay-up and after we got it running, we realised the water pump had died. It was perfect before. A waterpump that has seized can be the culprit for making the belt skip a tooth or two. It may have been only a brief seizure, now cleared. Have a listen to see if the pump is making strange noises. We diagnosed Xac's by the groans it was making

[andmcit]

Right.

Perhaps going back to basics here for some folk reading this but
humor me as I'd like to clarify a few things to help me make sense
of some of the helpful/welcome suggestions!!

I only managed to get a brief look at the poorly car this evening and
a few observations struck me!!

Where is the ECU!!?
I know it may sound like a silly question but I only found a VALEO
hydractive suspension computer on the offside front wing with what
I'm guessing is the double injection relay. I must admit I was expecting
a chunky metal ECU box on a par with fuel injected systems!!
Which part of this equation has the immobiliser code stored in it!?
Not that this matters but at least I'd know which parts could be
temporarily exchanged over with two other happily running TD Xantias
I have access to.

I've looked around the rear of the inlet manifold on the back of the
head and cannot find anything resembling a valve for the EGR or
connections to/from it. Am I missing something or is it completely internal?

I've examined the diesel pump for anything untoward - the main
accelerator cable/linkage moves smoothly and runs to it's correct
adjusted stop. There are physical multi connection wires on it's
nearside which are clean and undamaged but in fear of the risk of
disturbing/damaging connections on it or other engine sensors
which one specifically is the TDC pick up?

What/where is the lift sensor?

The engine seemed to run worse this evening being reluctant to start
at first and seemed to offer a LOT LOWER maximum revs and still nothing
like a healthy comparable engine. Still chugging grey smoke too.

I did undo the inlet trunking and got some roar but still no joy with the
poor running and very mediocre max revs. All pipework has been
checked as is firmly connected and not damaged/leaking.

Whilst I have physically checked the appearance/condition of ALL fuses
and connections, if this problem is an electrical one is there a remote
chance of disturbing anything SIGNIFICANT between the steering cowling
and the driver's door jamb - I've had to feed a single wire from the door
pillar into the engine bay for a new +ve feed from the battery to the main
light switch. The main interior fuse holder has not been disturbed as far
as I'm concerned though it's not firmly held onto the inner dash
metalwork.

I'm planning to get the car checked out for the correct physical timing
tomorrow but will need the timing covers and possibly the starter off first.
I did manage to see the timing belt which looks almost brand new and
unlikely to be damaged or miss-timed.

I had this impression that diesels were basic and didn't require much
unusual work on them!! Whilst I'm sure they are, I don't profess
to know anything about XUD's as I've always been a petrol driven
Citroen nutcase so this is the start of a new learning curve!!

Andrew

[CitroJim]

Hi Andrew,

The ECU is located next to the HA ECU in the engine bay. If you can't find one then you are lucky, you have not got one and you have a mechanical pump with a keypad operated stop solenoid. That explains the lack of K light The keypad connects straight to the pump.

You'll not have an EGR valve either, nor a needle lift sensor (which would be on No. 3 injector - a black wire coming out of it by the leakoff pipe identifies it). The tacho drives straight off the TDC sensor in the bellhousing above the flywheel.

Life has suddenly become a lot simpler for you now

I know how you feel, I'm the reverse! After years of diesels, I came back to petrol fuel injection and had a steep learning curve.

All the best Andrew, I shall pick up this thread again in a week after my internet-free holiday...

[goldfinche]

Hi This may be a long shot (VERY) but I have had an instance of the woodruff key on the cam gear shearing and although the timing appeared to be correct it was out. There have been instances of the crank key also shearing. Might it be possible ,noting that it may have had a cam belt recently, that this is what has happened. Bad running and gray smoke etc. being the one of symtoms of injection timing being out.
Cheers.
Geoff.

[andmcit]

UPDATE

This evening I've just managed to hoik the sender out of the fuel tank
to check it's pick up and the condition of the diesel in there. The filter
gauze on the bottom is clean although there are traces of a golden fine
cloud in the BOTTOM of the bowl where the pick up sits in its own
internal shoulder in the tank - not sure what it is but it doesn't look like
the oily looking contaminated black tar substance that I've seen pictured
on this forum before.

The thing that struck me here was the tank (which is over half full) seemed
for all the world like it smelled of what I can only describe as wood
polish!? What's that all about!? I don't handle diesel much to know what
it's supposed to smell like either!! Anyway this is probably a red herring
but I thought I'd mention it in case the fuel has gone bad or is contaminated.
There's loads of it in the tank that I don't fancy throwing away

The car now runs worse than it ever has before and is barely able to
tick over though it does seem to start up albeit with plenty of grey
smoke clouds out of the exhaust. The idle is very lumpy AND THERE'S
ABSOLUTELY NO REVS AVAILABLE NOW, no matter what I do with the
pump/throttle lever...

I can now spare a bit of time this weekend to try and get down to the
bottom of this problem, with plans to fit a new fuel filter top of the list,
followed by removal of the timing covers to see what the pump/timing
is doing. Instinctively I still feel the pump is the primary point of issue
here but don't have diesel experience to know any better unfortunately.


I've got two '93 era first off the line TD engine's and pumps that ran
well enough; what differences are there with their Bosch pumps and
the one on this later '97 vintage engine. I can only physically see one
major difference on the lower front face of the pump housing between
them where one has an electrical take off on a flange with an additional
pipe/take off incorporated into it and the other has a blanking cover
bolted on in its place.

Heyulp!!

Andrew

[CitroJim]

Hi Andrew,

Sorry to hear this is still going on

Your diesel is a bit suspect. Diesel has that characteristic smell and in my experience, does not go "off" like petrol and can stay in a tank for years without problems. However, if it has been contaminated with something.. Floor polish? I wonder if someone has thrown a load of veg and white spirit/turps in there at some point. Whilst diesel itself has an unmistakable smell, so has diesel exhaust fumes. An engine running a little poorly will produce exhaust fumes that smell a little of the fumes you can get from a paraffin stove.

Fuel can be ruled out by rigging up a small header tank direct to the filter, filled with known good diesel. Note that it'll take about a pint to flush the residual fuel out of the pump. It holds a surprising amount.

The Bosch pumps are mechanicall quite similar between early and late Xantias. They look very similar. The early ones were fully mechanical and can be identified by having an exposed stop solenoid and an electrical connection on the side to what looks like a miniture stop solenoid. This is for cold advance. In the vicinity of the cold avance solenoid you'll see a small metal pipe running around the body of the pump.

The semi-electronic pump can be identified by having a throttle position potentiometer on top of it, above the throttle spindle. This has three wires coming out of it. Also, the electronic pump will have a hidden stop solenoid with a black box above it and a six? way cable exiting it. This is the anti theft module and is usually hidden by an armoured plate that covers most of the rear of the pump. Underneath the pump and facing to the rear you'll see the electronic timing actuator. This has three wires coming from it.

An electronic pump will also have a needle lift sensor on No. 3 injector. This can be identified by a small black wire exiting it in the vicinity of the leakoff pipes.

For a positive ID, pop up some pictures if you can Andrew.

The electronic pump can be replaced by a mechanical pump and this is not too complex. However, if you try running a electronic pump without any ECU control it'll fail to fully retarded timing and it'll make the engine run very, very roughly.

As Geoff says, check the keys. The pump woodruff key is a and worryingly, the pump may work for quite a long time with it missing due to the relativly light load and good strong taper the sprocket is on.

[Sturdybloke]

Andrew, I have dug out one of my autodata books that covers modern diesels. Inside is a list of fault codes for the engine managment & associated sensors. It even gives detailed instructions on how to rig up a home made fault code reader to plug in and read out the codes.

Give me a shout and I can let you have it for a couple of weeks to find out whats wrong with your TD

All the best - Craig.

[andmcit]

Hi Craig.

Thanks, that's VERY kind of you. I'll have to actually check the car
in question is sophisticated enough to have something to get fault
codes off first!!

When I know what I need to get sorted first this weekend and the order
it'll all need doing in, I'll give you a shout and we can meet up for a
good natter.

Watch this space!!

Andrew

[andmcit]

WELL, WELL, WELL, WELL, WELL.... WELL!!

SUCCESS!!

I've just managed to resurrect the poor old Xantia from the dead
and saved it from the very certain death of it being scrapped!!

I've never actually driven the car more than a few hundred yards
on/off a car transporter trailer and have had it sat outside a pal's place
in a planned temporary arrangement, while I fettled the wiring with his
electrical skilled help to get the lighting system working again and I also
repaired a damaged heater matrix bulkhead feed joint as a side effect of
messing about with wiring on the bulkhead. New tyres were fitted on the
alloys all round and I'd got a replacement exhaust and a known good SH
driver's driveshaft.

All was fine and peachy until it developed the progressively deteriorating
running described earlier on this thread, until it reached to point where it
stopped running or even trying to start altogether.

Today I opened up the fuel filter housing to see what state everything
was like here and drained it all out refilling with new diesel and a brand
new filter rigging up a concoction of primer bulb and pipe into a full can of
Mr Shell's finest..

The car struggled to get going at first and then cleared it's throat and
ran progressively smoother until it ran where I could actually get it to
idle smoothly and EVEN rev up!! Wow!!

So I then took the trouble to examine exactly what had been coming out
of the tank and it'd make good wood polish but on comparison with a jar
of the real stuff it certainly didn't look like diesel!! In the recent past some
bright spark has brewed their own concoction up as wonky 'pretend'
diesel; as the car has been sat a good while the differing densities of
real diesel and the cod shop brew settled out and eventually the car 'hit'
a round of solid junk fuel.

Had I not REALLY wanted to keep the car, as it's a 1997 TD ESTATE VSX
with roof AND AC, it'd been scrapped a few months back, and all for the
sake of some bright spark using their beer brewing kit etc to put pure
rubbish in the tank. I understand the desire to run a car economically
BUT NOT at the detriment of the thing EVEN running.

I am SOOOO pissed off about this being the result of idiocy/desperation/
penny pinching. I've had to bear the embarrassment too, of seeing the
car stranded outside my pal's place with it putting unnecessary unfair
strain on my friendship with him and his wife...

I'm so happy, and yet SOO angry at the same time. It's a good thing the
original owner of the car is over 250 miles away!

Thanks to everyone who replied with ideas/offers/suggestions of help.
I have always believed that sitting down and being trained to actually
concisely describe things makes the old grey matter focus on the
issues/problems which then helps present ideas to formulate a plan of
attack, create a remedy...

finally,

ALL I CAN SAY NOW, IS THANK THE BLAZES THAT'S ALL DONE
AND SORTED!!


Andrew

ps; seems you were correct to question the fuel in the tank Jim!

Wish I'd had the time to spare checking it out, but hadn't until today.
Damned car has been troubling me nagging away in the back of my
mind for weeks among a whole load of additional crap...

[Sturdybloke]

Congrats Andrew. Bet you are glad that its sorted. So it was used unfiltered gunk/chipoil in the tank then? Are you going to drop the tank out and clean it?

Cheers - Craig.

[andmcit]

Hi Craig.

Tomorrow I think I'll try pumping out the fuel tank using the priming bulb
and pipework I've rigged up and used on the diesel pump. I've used this
system before when I drained Xantiae I've broken for spares before
dropping the rear subframe and tank.

The stuff removed from the fuel filter is a lot thicker and appears a darker
golden colour with a very distinct odour of wood polish compared to the real
fuel!!

I just hope there's no damage to the pump.

Andrew

[CitroJim]

Excellent Andrew, I'm very pleased all is happy again

Just a couple of point to be aware of though, You may have seen my Posts regarding TehAgent's problems. His pump sprang a leak and this appeared to be caused by the pump body/head gasket failing. Not long after, his filter housing sprang a leak around the white thermostat assembly down on the lower left. During the replacement of the filter housing, it started leaking from the filter lid and this was caused by a very hard O ring around the top of the filter element.

His second filter housing sprang a leak in the same place (the while thermostat assembly) and was replaced again. I suspected that excess fuel pressure was the cause and on investigation, I found the fuel return line back to the tank was partially blocked, allowing too much pressure to build within the pump and filter housing.

His fuel gauge is very erratic (not looked at yet) and I'm suspecting all these problems stem from some contamination that was in his tank at some point; like yours, a strange homebrew maybe. As I say, it is only a suspicion but be on the look-out for failing seals (leaks), a perishing priming bulb and do check the return fuel line is clear by blowing an air-line down it. You can see if it is blocked by blowing down it if you don't mind popping the return line in your mouth On TehAgent's car I did not mind as it has been running on 100% veg all summer

[CitroJim]

I just hope there's no damage to the pump.
Andrew

Just seen this Andrew,

No, the chances of pump damage are minimal. Mechanically they are as tough as old boots.

The very worst that can happen is the rubber seals may get hard and leak and there are only a few of these, principally the drive shaft seal (looks like a normal garter seal) the body/head gasket (which is a shaped O ring) and around the throttle shaft, just a normal O ring.

A repair kit can be obtained and it is not difficult to replace them but the pump must come off the car to do so. The only major problem is if the pump is armoured as this is a to remove.

[andmcit]

Ok Jim.

That's more reassuring to know. Can there be any potential damage to
the bores/rings if there's incorrect lubrication or abnormal heat etc?

I have no history of this particular cars' engine to go on and importantly
for me, a big doubt hangs over it now...

What would be the best way to tackle checks on the engine/pump
- is it a case of try it and see now, fingers crossed and hope for the best?

I personally don't feel brewing your own fuel is a particularly clever thing
to do. At the very least, what happens if the car gets a blame free shunt
and the insurance examiner clocks the wonky stuff in the tank!?
Would this call into doubt the cars roadworthyness and invalidate the
insurance as well as cause awkward questions from HMG officers?

Andrew