Outer Limits 4x4 Board

G'day Fellas,

Over the last month or so the Prado has become very difficult to start in the morning. If the engine is dead cold ts may take a few attempts to get it started. If it is warm there are no issues whatsoever. After being left overnight I will wait until about five seconds after the glow plug light has gone out then start cranking. It starts like it has no compression. It will idle violently at around 250 rpm for around 3-4 seconds and die (if the car has been sitting for 24 + hours); or eventually kick up to the correct idle speed and idle perfectly. When it does this it virtually blows no smoke.

I have taken it to a diesel specialist and after many checks they can't find a problem.

- Glowplugs?: one wasn't reaching operating temperature so they replaced all of them and there was no improvement
- Cracked Head?: Compression test came up fine. No coolant is being lost, no bubbles etc.
- turbo?: A bit of dust was found but otherwise fine
- Injector pump?: no leaks were found it it's not being starved of fuel
- Suspect fuel?: fuel was dumped, tank cleaned and filled with clean diesel and no improvement
- Fuel filter?: replaced and no improvement
- Injectors?: mechanic seems to think if this was the problem it would run poorly all the time and blow smoke.
-Air leak in the fuel system?: he seems to think that this wouldn’t be the issue. I’ve asked them to check anyway.

The next step that they are going to take is remove the injector pump and do a full inspection. I’d like to avoid this if possible knowing this will cost $$$$. Is there something else that is being overlooked? Apart from this starting issue the prado runs perfectly. No smoke, loss of power or economy. The issue here appears to relate directly to engine temperature.

Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

Gee

If the injectors are leaking, then they will run like shit until they get hot and seal back up properly- Dads 2000 prado does this because one injector doesnt quite 100% seal until its up to engine temps- first 20 seconds or so.

ferrit wrote:If the injectors are leaking, then they will run like shit until they get hot and seal back up properly- Dads 2000 prado does this because one injector doesnt quite 100% seal until its up to engine temps- first 20 seconds or so.

Yeah, I thought the same thing. But old mate seems to think that it would run sh!t all the time if this was the case. I'm starting to think maybe I should just replace the injectors myself and see if this sorts out the problem. It definately gets harder to start the longer the car sits.

But the other thing is that on these rough start ups I'm barely getting any smoke. Surely if the injectors have been leaking for 12+ hours you would get an excessive amount of smoke on start up?