2005 Mondeo 2.2 TDCI fueling woes

[ChrisRS]

A couple of weeks ago I bought a 2005 2.2 TDCI Titanium X, the car has covered a documented 111,000 miles and apart from the issues I'm going to describe is in nice condition. (The price I paid reflects the fact the car was faulty)
When I test drove the car I was very aware of a couple of issues regarding the engine, it takes quite a lot of cranking over to get it to start, once started the idle is slightly erratic and there's a fair amount of vibration in the cabin. If I switch the engine off and start it immediately it fires straight back up, however, if left for an hour or so it then becomes difficult to start.
During normal driving, if you let off the throttle there's a misfiring like sensation from the engine, this can be avoided by driving about in a lower gear than usual.
The biggest issue is if you drive around and regularly go above 2500/3000rpm the glow plug light (Engine management) flickers and the car quickly cuts out, once restarted the car's fine until you repeat the spirited driving.
The first thing we did was plug the car into a Snapon hand-held diagnostics tool and at first displayed the code: P1211, This appears to point the finger at the Injector control pressure sensor or wiring related issue. We cleared the code and I drove around the problem for the next week.
Last week we had another look at the car, we checked the following:
• Egr valve, this was quite clean but we cleaned it anyway.
• Turbo actuator rod, this appears to be free to move.
• Turbo rotation, this span freely by hand and didn't have any float.
• General condition of hoses and a physical/visual check of wiring, this all appears ok but it wasn't the most thorough of checks.
• Cam position sensor, this was swapped for a known good one.
During this check it became apparent that someone's had a good look around before, there were tell-tale signs that bits have been previously removed, it also looks like the timing covers been off at some point in the recent past.
I then test drove the car, the car was difficult to start, I drove it quite hard for about 10 minutes. For the first 10 mins there was still the misfiring sensation when on a trailing throttle, however there was plenty of performance and I regularly exceeded 3500 rpm. Right at the end of this test the engine management light flickered so I turned the engine off and restarted it. We plugged the car back in and the code that displayed this time was P0251, Injector pump fuel metering control. A quick Google seems to suggest this could mean quite a few things.
Yesterday I performed a injector leak off test using a procedure I found on here, the procedure I planned to use was as follows:
Connect a new leak off connector to each injector, piped into 4 measured containers, prevent air getting into the existing connectors. Run the car at 2 mins normal idle, 30 secs at 3800 rpm, 30 secs normal idle, 30 secs at 3800 rpm, 30 secs normal idle (There or thereabouts).
I began this test, however after 1 min, 24 seconds I had the following results:
Cylinder 1, 110ml, Cylinder 2, 85ml, Cylinder 3, 80ml, Cylinder 4, 130ml. I had to stop the test as the containers would only hold 150ml!
Does this mean I've got 4 seriously broken injectors, have I made a mistake on the test or is there something else a miss? I appreciate it probably needs to go in for professional diagnostics but I'd like to do as much as I sensibly can before I get to that point.

[mighty kitten]

Take the fuel filter off and cut it open . Any metal in there means metal in the injectors pump fuel lines and tank

[dumfriesdave]

mighty kitten said:

Take the fuel filter off and cut it open . Any metal in there means metal in the injectors pump fuel lines and tank

Then replace with an OEM or quality branded filter.
These engines are highly sensitive to fuel supply so saving a couple of quid by buying a motor factor/Ebay cheapo causes probleems
Remove MAF sensor and give a gentle clean with a cotton bud soaked in alcohol based cleaner.
You state EGR valve has checked as OK and clean which is also a common issue, but most people don't realise the inlet manifold gets badly choked up too.
Around an hour to remove, clean and refit manifold makes a big difference.
I have seen some inlet manifold ports almost completely blocked...the cylinder nearest EGR valve is normally the worst.

[Disco_Biscuit]

All your injectors have had it, you should have no more than 30ml per injector over 3 minutes at idle, also empty the fuel filter into a clean clear plastic bag and check for metal .

[ChrisRS]

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated

The first thing I did was replaced the filter with a genuine ford item, I didn't cut the old one up but I did pour the contents into another container and nothing other than diesel came out.

Unfortunately I'm coming to the conclusion the injectors have had it, I replaced the pressure switch in the fuel rail today as there only cheap but it made no difference.

Could someone confirm the procedure I carried out to test the injectors was correct?

[R1Mark]

Disco_Biscuit said:

All your injectors have had it, you should have no more than 30ml per injector over 3 minutes at idle, also empty the fuel filter into a clean clear plastic bag and check for metal .

Have to agree...........

I had the same on mine with similar mileage and went through the same process as you but as nothing made any difference I bit the bullet and had all the injectors changed for reconditioned/new ones and its now running like a dream.

[ChrisRS]

Is there anything else that could be causing the high leak off seen in my test or is the test I performed a pretty certain confirmation the injectors are definitely goosed?