Xantia 1.9td occasional hard to start

[white exec]

Just a thought, have you checked the valve clearances. Just remembered a gem of info that Jim told me, the clearances are tightest when the engine is fully cold so if they're tight it'll make cold starting near impossible due to low compression.

See my advice on a quick compression check above.

[white exec]

SFAIK, a leaky (or even unconnected) injector leak-off pipe simply results in annoying and smelly fuel spillage, and doesn't affect fuel being fed under pressure to the injectors, nor engine starting or running. Fuel leak-off pipes just lead back to the fuel tank, via the return pipe.

[demag]

Although "non serviceable" I opened up the glow plug relay on my XM and found the contact points badly pitted. I used the wet 'n dry method to clean them up. I also found one of the heavy duty cables nearly rotted through by the connector so I remade ALL the connections.

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[white exec]

Exactly the same here: pitted contacts and heat-damaged cable terminations.

[Stewart(oily)]

Any splits in the leakoff pipes will cause non or poor starting with Bosch pumped engines, for some reason Lucas pumped ones behave differently?

[aerodynamica]

Well it started on the button this morning! I'm still going to renew the glow plug cables as a precaution.

[white exec]

Has to be cabling or relay, I'd guess, Graeme. If it was dodgy GPs, starting would still be consistently ropey.

[falling-out-with-my-car]

If its an s2 xantia the glow plugs run on for a while when started as long as you don't touch the throttle. My 1998 xant didn't like starting with perished leak off pipes.

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[aerodynamica]

Thanks, well it's still starting on the button! It started after a day's rest this evening on what sounded like half crank of the engine so it's pretty good now. New MOT just got as well!