Patrol go bang! Problem with new motor

[Bird]

OK, got the old girl back again today. First impression is there isn't the grunt the old one had. Still running in though so I guess wait & see. It's a hell of a lot quieter though which is a gain I guess. Sure is nice to be able to see the road again after driving a foulcan for a couple of weeks.

its a new motor?

what else was replaced at the same time?

[noel_w]

Yep a reco motor. Replaced all belts, hoses, got the radiator done, new injectors, fuel pipes to the injectors cleaned & checked, turbo seals (arf arf)  & checked over by turbo shop, couple of other bit's & bobs. Complete flush of the coolant system etc etc.
Clutch was new not long ago & Fuel pump was reco'd not long ago as well.

[speewa158]

Its always nice to have an old friend back

[Bird]

Yep a reco motor. Replaced all belts, hoses, got the radiator done, new injectors, fuel pipes to the injectors cleaned & checked, turbo seals (arf arf)  & checked over by turbo shop, couple of other bit's & bobs. Complete flush of the coolant system etc etc.
Clutch was new not long ago & Fuel pump was reco'd not long ago as well.

Nice work..

what was the total damage in the end??

should be ready for another 10 yrs now!

[noel_w]

Its always nice to have an old friend back

Sure is Speewa, I was genuinely missing it



Hi Lost
So far I am very happy with the workmanship and professionalism of the fixit shop. To be honest he quoted me between 7.5 & 8 give or take, notwithstanding things along the way they found. Final price was ~8.5 but a new set of injectors was called for which he did not quote for and told me that before he started work on the beast. I knew that the injectors would need to be renewed and I was correct. (Just testin') The two injectors 5 & 6 were buggered due to the coolant seepage and I was going to renew them all in about a months time anyway (before the bang). Was just sweetening up the minister for war & finance for that little jobbie.
There were a couple of things they didn't charge me for as he said that would have upped the price beyond what he thought was fair to both of us. Whether that was a furphy or not who knows.
Some will say I may have been ripped off as my mates cousin's wife's bro in the shed down the road would have done it for $1K less. I don't care as I now have my truck back and if this motor lasts as long as the last it may well outlive me. SWMBO told me that we need to keep it for a few years now to recoup costs a bit. Sweet mercies sometimes eh! Bugger, I've gotta keep my fourbie. What a shame.
The first service is not charged for which includes a tighten up, change of oil & coolant.
Time to hit the road Jack. Scenic Rim have a comp on next weekend, might just have to spectate.


Thanks to all who gave their commiserations, was much appreciated.

[Bird]

I don't care as I now have my truck back

Thats pretty much all you need to say...

now get out and enjoy it!

[duggie]

Hi  noel_w,
I have been reading this post and watching you progress, 8.5 k is not a bad deal for what you have got. Don't be shy to feed it the fat, if you run that motor in while you are driving miss daisy around, it will forever more be a lazy motor. I don't mean that you flog the bloody thing, just drive it like you have always done so. Diesels are different to petrol motors in the running in process. Hope that all is well for you and yours in the future, enjoy what you have.
Cheers duggie

[itchvet]

Guys..
what I meant was, coolant is fine when it's just coolant, but where there's a head gasket leak that is where contaminants gets mixed in - anything such as combustion blow by, oils etc. This causes an acidic reaction between that, the coolant and the alloy and the gasket starts to disappear and the cylinder head metal becomes pitted (which is my old school expression of the leak eating the head), it just gets down hill & worse.

Even some coolants don't mix eg: Toyota (red) coolant and regular (green) coolant together becomes mega corosive, that can wreck a head gasket or radiator and worse.

I don't know if it's a known problem with the 2.8 but cars that have a known head tension problem like the older dattos and later Saab Turbos (same boat) it pays to check the tension of the head bolts at major services.
Re-tensioning head bolts is only a no-no with engines that have the head bolt threads that go all the way into the water jackets, old holden red & blue motors, stuff from that vintage.



Mallory, you are DEAD RIGHT, go to the top of the class mate. Well done.
After forking out $4,000 to replace the head on my 2.8 TD just recently. Turns out the culprit was exactly as you've stated, however the plot thickens.
It appears the alloy used by Nissan in our engines is of lesser quality then the stuff used in earlier engines and requires a much stronger anti corrosive inhibitor, ie; the RED STUFF. 50/50.
Anything else and corrosion will occur causing all sorts of miserble breakdowns and costly repairs.
In my case, the corrosion began as stated via the cooling holes in the head gasket, the gasket was compromised by the corrosion, actually lifted in places despite the head being on top, allowing water egress into cylinder, compression then escaped into coolant system, blowing out all coolant over heating engine, then cracking head.
I had all six exahust valves also damaged by severe corrosion and the guides had dropped caused by the overheating, then the valves hit the bottom of the guides. Need I say it, quiet a mess.
So all you Patrol owners out there, irrespective whether it's a 4.2 petrol or diesel, or our humble 2.8 or the hand grendade 3 litre, ensure the proper coolant in your water systems and maintain it religiously if you wish to avoid costly repairs.
Ref the head bolt question, I know Nissan and any reputable head specialist shop will tell you, remove the head, then all head bolts must be BINNED, and new ones used, apparently they STRETCH and thus cannot be reused, nor can they be "re-tensioned".

[itchvet]

Sure is Speewa, I was genuinely missing it



Hi Lost
So far I am very happy with the workmanship and professionalism of the fixit shop. To be honest he quoted me between 7.5 & 8 give or take, notwithstanding things along the way they found. Final price was ~8.5 but a new set of injectors was called for which he did not quote for and told me that before he started work on the beast. I knew that the injectors would need to be renewed and I was correct. (Just testin') The two injectors 5 & 6 were buggered due to the coolant seepage and I was going to renew them all in about a months time anyway (before the bang). Was just sweetening up the minister for war & finance for that little jobbie.
There were a couple of things they didn't charge me for as he said that would have upped the price beyond what he thought was fair to both of us. Whether that was a furphy or not who knows.
Some will say I may have been ripped off as my mates cousin's wife's bro in the shed down the road would have done it for $1K less. I don't care as I now have my truck back and if this motor lasts as long as the last it may well outlive me. SWMBO told me that we need to keep it for a few years now to recoup costs a bit. Sweet mercies sometimes eh! Bugger, I've gotta keep my fourbie. What a shame.
The first service is not charged for which includes a tighten up, change of oil & coolant.
Time to hit the road Jack. Scenic Rim have a comp on next weekend, might just have to spectate.


Thanks to all who gave their commiserations, was much appreciated.

Noel, do yourself a BIG favour and check the inhibitor in your coolant system, if it's NOT RED, you WILL have corrosion problems within 10.,000 K's again.
Talk to your mechanic and get it changed out pronto.
Been there, done that.

[noel_w]

Well guys, I have put off posting about my problem with the new motor in case it was just my very vivid imagination but here goes.
As you know if you have followed this thread my trusty 2.8td died and it was decided to go for a reco. All went well except for occasionally it would smoke & missfire on startup until it got warm. As things do, it would not happen when I took it to the mechanic even leaving it there overnight. To be fair he has been good about this and has gone to all lengths to fix it but the issue would not happen when it was in the shop.
All along I have had this suspicion that the fault was not glow plug or IP related as the old motor did not do this and most parts were renewed or swapped from the old motor. A couple of times when I had it back to them, one of the injector pipes was seeping fuel around the injector and this was thought to be the problem with air leaking in or an air lock in the lines. Their other thought was the glow plugs were not working efficiently but I countered that by saying if the glow plugs weren’t working then it would not start smoothly or take heaps of cranking to get it going. It always starts first kick of the starter every time and starts smoothly, getting rougher & smokier as the glow plugs stopped glowing.
Long story short he has admitted it was past his expertise and handed it off to a diesel specialist. They did some tests and decided it was the glow plug controller and swapped it for an aftermarket one. They handed it back to my mechanic who tested for a couple of days with no issues so i got it back last Friday with the comment "All fixed"
Saturday morning I started it up and the whole front yard was filled with smoke & I thought the donk would rattle off the engine mounts. Not happy Jan. Also the tacho now doesn't work as the wiring for it goes through the Glow Control unit & wasn't wired back in.
After a "discussion" with the mechanic he came by my place this morning to see if the problem would manifest itself before his very eyes. (I was s&%t scared it would work perfectly) Low and behold when I started it the exhaust was relatively clear until the glow plugs stopped cycling then it filled the street with smoke. He had his iphone filming it all the time. At long last he could see my problem. Now it is back to them again. I’m booked in to go camping on the 11th of feb so I’m hoping it is fixed before then or he will have to spring for a hire vehicle that has trailer brakes.
I’m thinking I should have bailed on it when it went bang initially.
Thanks for reading guys, I just had to vent.

P.S. I think I will get my forum name changed to "The Bandit" as I now live with "Smokey"

[Bird]

I’m thinking I should have bailed on it when it went bang initially.

Maybe yes and no..

Maybe yes, lot of $ to throw at it, but not everyone can afford a new $30-60,000 car

No cause in reality the $ you have spent on it you should be back to sq 1 and another 300,000 klms ahead of it...
We were talkin about this at Tom Groggin on weekend about Spannermen, its hard to find a good one these days....

Good luck.

[noel_w]

Thanks Lost
Yep you are right, another new car was out of the question at the time (& still is) so it would have been a case of buying something which may have had more problems than this one, at least I know most of the problems with the GQ and when it's going it's a formidable beast. I had a good mechanic once but he left the trade & went to uni & graduated 6.9 GPA in software engineering. Now works for Defence Signals in Canberra but won't telll me what he does as he would have to kill me!!!!
I now have to wait & see what they come up with as a fix once they can find the problem.

[Mallory Black]

Gee Noel,
that's a shame. I spent my mechanic-ing days in general servicing and working on (petrol) EFI. so I'm not a diesel specialist
All I can think of is has anyone worked out if the startup smoke is from fuel or engine oil.
Once that's determined a big part of the guesswork is taken away and you can work it out better.
 ie if it's oil the usual culprits are valve stem seals, maybe the turbo inlet seal, anything that would cause oil to seep and pool in either the inlet tract or back of the inlet valves after shutdown to be burnt on the next startup
*If it's valve stem seals the smoke comes out fairly quickly
*If the oil is sitting further upstream it takes more time to start burning
*Because this is a different motor, might sound dumb, but is the right dipstick in there so the correct oil level inside measures properly

Like I mentioned, not an expert on diesels but I'm pretty sure that someone experienced can tell the difference on sight and smell between burning engine oil and poor combustion of diesel

What else...
Are all the electrial connectors and especially the earth wires hooked up and making good contact?

White burning of the fuel can be related to timing/leaks/wear and yes glow plugs, remember you said it didn’t pull like the other one so in your case all the checks for valve and injector timing, I say this because I have seen reco engines a tooth out in the valve timing, weird stuff like that will have you chasing your tail forever so back to the basics first my friend and go from there!

Sorry I can’t be any more helpful but these are machines - they have no emotions so a logical diagnosis process will deliver a logical conclusion is what my old foreman used to say.
God bless him!

[dazzler]

Mallory is on the money I reckon.

Though you should be able to determine whether the glow plugs are working or not by pulling the fuse first thing and seeing if it starts and behaves poorly.  But I dont think its glow plugs.  Once they start the glow plugs time off pretty quick and the compression ignition keeps it going, not the plugs.  The plugs just help ignite the fuel at initial start.

Back to basics I reckon.

How is the compression both dry and wet (wet with some oil squirted in the cylinder)?
How is the injection pump timing?  How was it set?
Is it fitted with new/recon injectors.  A dribbling injector can saturate one cylinder overnight and it can smoke for a while (if it does it enough it can compression lock the engine and smash the piston)

If they were reco's were they bench tested?  If not you could always pull them yourself and take them to a diesel place and get them tested.

I feel your pain.

[noel_w]

Hi guys, many thanks for your considered advise, it's this kind of help that makes this forum so good.
It's back in the mechanics hands to sort it as it's still under warranty.
As I have said I am far from being an expert so I have left it for them.
It does seem to be getting worse now so it may be easier to diagnose.
At build time both the glow plugs and injecters were replaced with new ones. The glow plugs which were replaced at build were 6.5v and now have been replaced with 11.5v and a new controller which extends the afterglow by cycling on and off for much longer than it used to with the oem setup.
In my opinion you guys are heading in the right direction as I think it is something internal such as valve seals, compression or a oil journal leak which seals again when it gets warm, I dunno though as I'm an IT tech, not a spannerman.
They have checked the injectors for correct pressures.
They have checked the timing, the diesel specialist has checked the pump and timing, all was well.
It's in the hands of the oily-fuel compression gods now.

Oh by the way after, or around the time of the first service, the power came back up to what I was expecting i.e. just enough to pull the skin off a custard as it always was. Fuel economy does seem to be better too by about 70-100 k's a tank from the old motor. It may have been just the tightness of the new motor.
I can't wait to get it back as once it's going well I am planning some mods for it as it now has to earn the money spent on the motor.
Rear draws with fridge slide (to be made by yours truly)
Dual battery
Electrics to the back
Clean up and re-install the cargo barrier
Once again guys thanks for your thoughts.

[Mallory Black]

Keep pluggin Noel
remember new parts can also have faults don't take them for granted, make sure your mechanic re-tests them if not already
(hope he's not reading our posts!!)
cheers mate

[dazzler]

Keep pluggin Noel
remember new parts can also have faults don't take them for granted,

Spot on.

I once rebuilt an engine and installed brand new points, condenser and dizzie cap. 

It would start but run like crap.  Worked out they had marked '1' on the dizzie 90deg to where it should have been and thats where i started from when putting the ht leads on.

Took half a day to work it out.   

[Smokey2.8]

Would be interested in outcome of this one. As mentioned above, all comments are on the money speaking as a tech also.
Strange you mention power returned after first service also (what changed what was 'found' disconnected or ...)
Good luck with repair.
I also know your pain with the RD28

[noel_w]

OK an update.
It's been with the Diesel specialist most of last week. Got it back on Saturday with the mechanic saying "let's hope it is fixed". He had had it for a couple of days going through cold starts to see if it would play up and he could not fault it. Well I have to say it has started very smoothly and with no smoke since I got it back and it might be a goer.
The prognosis was the fuel pressure in the injector lines was too high causing backflow somewhere or other............ Yet it was OK before on the old motor?.
I'll leave that one for the experts, I have no idea if I have been led up the garden path or not.
We are off to Wivenhoe Dam this weekend, time to reflect on the internal combustion diesel engine. I think not, a few ales might be the go, followed by a bottle of red and some good lies told. A good game of 500 might also be "on the cards".
Thanks to all of you for your input and kind thoughts. Makes me glad to be a member here on the best interwebby thingo Myswag. I'm off to play with our voip system, something I know something about (or think I know). In the words of the immortal Sergeant Shultz "I know nuffink"
Back in my corner!