2001 C5 2.2HDi - Very Rattly then Stopped!!

[corsehf]

My car no longer runs - nor wants too
It became very rattly which i thought to be an injector? and then lost power and stopped. On trying to restart it, the battery was also dead - coincidence????
When the car was running, the rattle from the engine was only there when torque was required and was followed by a plume of white smoke from the exhaust however as the car neared to its demise, the rattle became much louder and the white smoke turned to black.
The french recovery guy said i had put too much oil in the engine?? but i had serviced it just before we went and i had checked it and it was perfect but as he pulled out the dipstick and it was showing slightly overfull - i had no argument at that time. On arrival at Dover, the English recovery guy actually managed to get the car running albeit on about 3 cylinders (sound wise) whereas the French guy couldn't. I told the English guy what the French chap had said and when he looked at the dipstick, the oil level was now markedly higher on the stick??? He thinks an injector may be flooding the bore which is washing down past the rings and into the sump - sounds a bit of a long shot??
Absolutely no warning lights appeared on the dash at all so i am at a loss as to where to start.
I have purchased a new battery as a start but have yet to fit it.
Any ideas please????

[DickieG]

If a diesel engine is very overfilled with oil the big danger is that it starts to burn the excess oil as fuel and run out of control i.e. outrageously high revs and the only way to stop it is to stall the engine.

From your description I'd be checking the timing belt as it may have jumped a tooth and now be down on one cylinder due to a broken rocker or bent valve.

[Deanxm]

white smoke is usualy oil or fuel boiled and black smoke is too much fuel or not enough air getting to the engine (running rich), the high oil level could be fuel running into the sump, didnt early HDI's fill their sumps with fuel if used on short trips all the time????? or have i heard wrong?

D

[corsehf]

From your description I'd be checking the timing belt as it may have jumped a tooth and now be down on one cylinder due to a broken rocker or bent valve.

There was no discerning knock or bang to say that a rocker or valve has gone. The rattle noise was more of a pinking noise which i was led to believe was an injector and a trait of the HDi lump - or so i was told!!

[HDI]

One possibility is that it could have hydraulicked a cylinder or 2 because of a high sump oil level. This could have smashed a piston hence the, noise, smoke, loss of power and difficult starting. Doesn't explain the battery though. Or maybe it isn't overfilled oil but the sump being filled with diesel from a faulty injector, same result though, would cause a hydraulicked cylinder. Smell the oil for a clue.
Is the auxiliary belt still on and intact ?
You need to start a diagnosis process to find out what has happened, very difficult to do this at a distance without seeing the car.

[dieselnutjob]

On the 16V it isn't so easy to check that both camshaft are turning as they are covered by the inlet manifold and that won't come off without removing the injectors.

I think the first thing I would do is to put a spanner/socket on the crank pulley bolt and make sure that the engine turns over okay my hand. I guess that if there was no compression on one or more cylinders you would probably be able to feel it. If something has badly broken you should be able to tell.

If the engine turns over by hand then I would disable the injection by removing the engine ECU fuse and turn it over on the starter motor and see how it sounds on the starter. Don't do this if it won't turn by hand as it might cause more damage (though probably it would already be done I suppose)

If you got a pinking noise then I would suggest that diesel was being injected when it shouldn't have been. Really the only way that fuel can be injected when it shouldn't is that it gets past a closed injector, so maybe you have an injector that's slightly stuck open. This might also reduce rail pressure to the point that the other injectors don't work either. In fact below 150bar (maybe it was 120, I can't remember) the ECU gives up injecting fuel anyway.

So another thing you could do is put the injection ECU fuse back in and get a diagnostic computer on there, and make sure it acheives 120 (or 150) bar rail pressure when cranked over.

If you're not getting a decent rail pressure then either the LP or HP pump are not working, or they are and you are loosing it all past an injector in which case get the injectors out and checked or replaced.

the rattle from the engine was only there when torque was required

rail pressure is ECU controlled and varies from 300 bar at idle to 1350 bar at full power. Sometimes an injector can be okay at 300 bar but gets upset at 1350.

[Peter.N.]

..and this could also account for the rise in oil level.

[corsehf]

Put newly acquired battery on tonight and the car fired up first go albeit on about 3 cylinders. Will not rev at all so didn't let it run too long.
Still no warning lights whatsoever.
I have to assume that the battery failing is just coincidence - unbelievably so!!
Not sure if this helps a diagnosis from afar??

[Peter.N.]

If you have a dodgy injector it should be knocking like a good'un and could be dribbling fuel into the sump.

Peter

[corsehf]

I have never had an injector fail before on any car so this is new to me and can only go on what other people think.
I am assuming that as i do not know which injector is faulty that i can as a way of elimination and with the car running, just disconnect the power supply to each injector in turn - feasible??

[Peter.N.]

Hi Andy

You could do that with the old IDI engines but very risky with the much higher injection pressures with an Hdi. You need to get the fault codes read I'm afraid, one of the penalties of running a modern car. Is there anyone near you with a Lexia?

Peter

[HDI]

If you have a dodgy injector it should be knocking like a good'un and could be dribbling fuel into the sump.

Peter

Do piezo injectors knock ? Mechanical types can be very noisy and some petrol injectors can tick like a loose valve clearance but piezo diesel ones I've always found pretty quiet.

[Peter.N.]

Its not the injector that knocks but the injection of unatomised fuel. They are very quiet when working correctly as I have found with my 406 but pouring neat fuel in usually results in a noise like a failed big end - much like using easy start.

Peter

[KevMayer]

I don't think they'll be piezo injectors on this 2001 C5.

Piezo injectors came a few years later.

[dieselnutjob]

I have never had an injector fail before on any car so this is new to me and can only go on what other people think.
I am assuming that as i do not know which injector is faulty that i can as a way of elimination and with the car running, just disconnect the power supply to each injector in turn - feasible??

Don't do that.
If you disconnect one with the engine running I think it can destroy the ECU.
The injectors work in pairs anyway so you can't just isolate one.
Last time I had to identify a knocky injector on my 806 HDI I had to substitue a known good one until the problem went away.
Sometimes one injector will have an increased leak off volume. You can buy or make kits that catch the leak off diesel from each injector in a clear vessel. Sometimes this will tell you if an injector is bad.
One failure mode on HDI injectors is that the pin that connects the nozzle to the solenoid leaks high pressure diesel from the nozzle to the solenoid which can upset its balance and stop it from closing properly. This also results in increased leak off volumes.
On the other hand if it is simply the nozzle that's leaking I don't think it will detect that.