High mileage 300TDi questions
Discussion
Hello,
300tdi engine in a Defender 110 Station wagon. High mileage (just under 300,000) and mixed use from long motorway trips, towing and green laning.
I fitted a Roamerdrive overdrive to it which is great for quieter and more economical cruising but the engine lacks the torque to leave the overdrive in on climbs unless doing over an indicated 65mph. Tyres are mild A/T pattern in stock size so rolling resistance is fairly low.
Oil pressure drops to 30psi when working hard but soon recovers to around 40 if I ease off.
Objective is to be able to leave it in overdrive more often unless the hills are steep (like the M5 Lickey incline) and get the car to 500,000 miles (if possible!) before an engine rebuild.
Questions:
1. Should I worry about the oil pressure or just keep an eye on it and keep changing it at 6000 mile intervals?
2. No record of injection pump or injector service ~ a good place to start the hunt for missing poke?
3. Would an uprated intercooler (no change to injection pump settings) help it to run cooler? Thinking lower charge air temperatures must be better for it.
300tdi engine in a Defender 110 Station wagon. High mileage (just under 300,000) and mixed use from long motorway trips, towing and green laning.
I fitted a Roamerdrive overdrive to it which is great for quieter and more economical cruising but the engine lacks the torque to leave the overdrive in on climbs unless doing over an indicated 65mph. Tyres are mild A/T pattern in stock size so rolling resistance is fairly low.
Oil pressure drops to 30psi when working hard but soon recovers to around 40 if I ease off.
Objective is to be able to leave it in overdrive more often unless the hills are steep (like the M5 Lickey incline) and get the car to 500,000 miles (if possible!) before an engine rebuild.
Questions:
1. Should I worry about the oil pressure or just keep an eye on it and keep changing it at 6000 mile intervals?
2. No record of injection pump or injector service ~ a good place to start the hunt for missing poke?
3. Would an uprated intercooler (no change to injection pump settings) help it to run cooler? Thinking lower charge air temperatures must be better for it.
100SRV said:
Hello,
300tdi engine in a Defender 110 Station wagon. High mileage (just under 300,000) and mixed use from long motorway trips, towing and green laning.
I fitted a Roamerdrive overdrive to it which is great for quieter and more economical cruising but the engine lacks the torque to leave the overdrive in on climbs unless doing over an indicated 65mph. Tyres are mild A/T pattern in stock size so rolling resistance is fairly low.
Oil pressure drops to 30psi when working hard but soon recovers to around 40 if I ease off.
Objective is to be able to leave it in overdrive more often unless the hills are steep (like the M5 Lickey incline) and get the car to 500,000 miles (if possible!) before an engine rebuild.
Questions:
1. Should I worry about the oil pressure or just keep an eye on it and keep changing it at 6000 mile intervals?
2. No record of injection pump or injector service ~ a good place to start the hunt for missing poke?
3. Would an uprated intercooler (no change to injection pump settings) help it to run cooler? Thinking lower charge air temperatures must be better for it.
Just change down. if the engine cannot make the torque required to climb a hill in top gear, change down!300tdi engine in a Defender 110 Station wagon. High mileage (just under 300,000) and mixed use from long motorway trips, towing and green laning.
I fitted a Roamerdrive overdrive to it which is great for quieter and more economical cruising but the engine lacks the torque to leave the overdrive in on climbs unless doing over an indicated 65mph. Tyres are mild A/T pattern in stock size so rolling resistance is fairly low.
Oil pressure drops to 30psi when working hard but soon recovers to around 40 if I ease off.
Objective is to be able to leave it in overdrive more often unless the hills are steep (like the M5 Lickey incline) and get the car to 500,000 miles (if possible!) before an engine rebuild.
Questions:
1. Should I worry about the oil pressure or just keep an eye on it and keep changing it at 6000 mile intervals?
2. No record of injection pump or injector service ~ a good place to start the hunt for missing poke?
3. Would an uprated intercooler (no change to injection pump settings) help it to run cooler? Thinking lower charge air temperatures must be better for it.
ime, there is no point messing with an engine that's done 300k unless you plan to fully rebuild it, so either hoik it out and rebuild it properly, or just keep driving it, after all it's done 300k miles as it is, so there can't be much wrong with it..... ;-)
Max_Torque said:
Just change down. if the engine cannot make the torque required to climb a hill in top gear, change down!
ime, there is no point messing with an engine that's done 300k unless you plan to fully rebuild it, so either hoik it out and rebuild it properly, or just keep driving it, after all it's done 300k miles as it is, so there can't be much wrong with it..... ;-)
Pretty much what I've been doing and am thinking. Curious about typical service interval on mechanical injection pumps though...ime, there is no point messing with an engine that's done 300k unless you plan to fully rebuild it, so either hoik it out and rebuild it properly, or just keep driving it, after all it's done 300k miles as it is, so there can't be much wrong with it..... ;-)
100SRV said:
Max_Torque said:
Just change down. if the engine cannot make the torque required to climb a hill in top gear, change down!
ime, there is no point messing with an engine that's done 300k unless you plan to fully rebuild it, so either hoik it out and rebuild it properly, or just keep driving it, after all it's done 300k miles as it is, so there can't be much wrong with it..... ;-)
Pretty much what I've been doing and am thinking. Curious about typical service interval on mechanical injection pumps though...ime, there is no point messing with an engine that's done 300k unless you plan to fully rebuild it, so either hoik it out and rebuild it properly, or just keep driving it, after all it's done 300k miles as it is, so there can't be much wrong with it..... ;-)
Max_Torque said:
Assuming the cambelt which also drives the pump is changed regularly, then mech injection pumps tend not to fail catastrophically, more they just wear, and fuel metering gradually goes out of wack, leading to black smoke, poor starting etc, also accompanied by wear to the injectors themselves, leading to poor atomisation (more black smoke and poor starting).
There is a large black puff of smoke on startup but otherwise no visible smoke.Trip to France it did 32mpg, return fell to 28mpg because I drove it hard on the Devon Expressway to beat the holiday traffic home.
Update to this thread...
had the injectors checked and overhauled reently after the injector technician rated them as "serviceable but 4/10 for injector pattern"
After the overhaul I found startup smoke to be significantly reduced, and with the injectors performing correctly it now holds a higher gear on long climbs with no smoke at WOT.
Back to considering fitting a better quality intercooler with Allisport being favourite...but open to suggestions based on your experiences.
had the injectors checked and overhauled reently after the injector technician rated them as "serviceable but 4/10 for injector pattern"
After the overhaul I found startup smoke to be significantly reduced, and with the injectors performing correctly it now holds a higher gear on long climbs with no smoke at WOT.
Back to considering fitting a better quality intercooler with Allisport being favourite...but open to suggestions based on your experiences.
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