Xantia diesel clatter and perished vacuum pipes

SethY · Post by **SethY** » 15 Sep 2005, 22:04

Hello all, I wonder if you can help me with this one? Whilst accelerating hard up a long hill at the weekend, there was a ‘pop’ at about 3.5kRPM. With this on came the engine management light on the dash and the engine started clattering very loudly. The clatter sounds almost mechanical but I’m pretty sure that it is just the normal diesel clatter, just massively increased/amplified. On inspection, the small pipe that connects to the vacuum pump at the T-piece has perished and split (is no longer connected) could this be the cause of the problem?

splat · Post by **splat** » 15 Sep 2005, 22:40

Sounds like one of the many things the timing belt goes round is beginning to fall apart. I'd suggest not driving the car until it's been checked out.
I had a stone hit the bottom half of the timing belt cover on mine, the belt jumped a couple of teeth as a result. The management light came on for a few seconds but then went out again in spite of the timing being wrong. The other symptoms were increased smoke, poor starting and lots of noise.

citronut · Post by **citronut** » 16 Sep 2005, 00:35

splat could be right but its best to check things like air in fuel system and any other minner thiings before you start thinking the worst
regards malcolm

fastandfurryous · Post by **fastandfurryous** » 16 Sep 2005, 01:38

The vacuum pipe could possibly be a problem, as without vaccum applied to one of the cold start solenoids, there's a good chance that the engine is now in permanent "cold start" mode, and hence has excessive injection advance. This will indeed make the engine sound horribly clattery. Fix the pipe, and see if this fixes the problem.
If it doesn't fix the problem, then I'd be looking suspiciously at the timing belt for a tooth out. How long since it was last changed anyway?

sdabel · Post by **sdabel** » 16 Sep 2005, 12:16

Have you checked the crankshaft pulley? The harmonic balancer on my 2.1 TD XM went bang with consequent rough running (I think it also skipped a tooth on the timing belt).
regards
sean

Post by **RichardW** » 16 Sep 2005, 12:59

There's a long thread on here somewhere by Ebod who was trying to solve clattery running on a 1.9TD Synergie. The later engine uses a form of ECU that controls injection advance etc electronically. I suspect what has happened is that something is bust, and the ECU has put it into, limp home mode, which involves putting the pump on max advance, making it clattery as hell!
In fact, there are 3 threads....[:o)]
http://www.andyspares.com/discussionfor ... C_ID=10775
http://www.andyspares.com/discussionfor ... C_ID=11055
http://www.andyspares.com/discussionfor ... C_ID=11945
Enjoy!

SethY · Post by **SethY** » 16 Sep 2005, 14:22

Thanks for the replies, gives me something to be going on with. the belt was changed just over a year ago (about 15k miles ago) so i would have thought that should be OK, but i'll start there.

SethY · Post by **SethY** » 16 Sep 2005, 20:06

OK, pipes replaced but still the same clattering so no improvement yet. Do I need to reset the ECU to get it out of 'limp home mode' and if so how do I do that? car is a 1997 LX 1.9TD