Limp mode with P1178 Bolt Up Limits

[les.breizh.trotters]

Hi there fellow transitomaniacs !

As explained in my introduction post, I am currently traveling with my family in Mexico within a Ford Transit mk5 powered motorhome. I am currently investigating a lack of power that I suspect to be triggered by the injection pump. I plan on going to a garage in a week or two but as this Ford Transit model was never commercialized in North America I would like to get as much clues as possible to hint the mechanic and not spend too much time in the garage

The problem

A few minutes after a cold start, our motorhome suddenly starts to lack power. Acceleration are not as strong as when it just started and when going uphill we frequently cannot go faster than 40 km/h.

Context

We baught our motorhome in 2023 in France, juste before we shipped it to Canada to start our trip. It is a Tourneo from 1998 that currently has 160000 km with a 2.5l 100hp turbocharged engine. It always suffered a lack of power, especially uphill so for us this was its normal speed. It only has 100 hp but has to move about 3.5 tons so that was fair according to us. Also the engine noises seem fine to us at whichever revs and no engine error light comes up on the dashboard.

History

According to the owner, the injection pump was changed in 2022 and indeed it seems quite new.

In September 2023, in Yellowstone National Park (USA), our engine started to make weird noises. We had to be towed to a garage where the mechanic found out that our timing belt was loose and needed to be changed. Which was done, except for the tensioner that I had no spare part of.

While pegging the flywheel to change the timing belt, the mechanic discovered that the crankshaft sensor support was broken and that the crankshaft sensor was in fact glued approximatively in place. This wonderful mechanic removed the glue and welded the sensor support back in place (hopefully).

Investigations so far

In the days that followed the timing belt change and the sensor support welding we discovered that our motorhome was capable of going uphill very fast after a cold start. We never sensed this power before and were amazed. However this does not last and cease usually after a few minutes, sometimes more, sometimes less.

By reading this wonderful forum I was quickly hinted to use Forscan to get a more precise information on the errors that can be triggered by the engine. After some time I could finally get my hand on a ObdLink Ex USB cable to finally found the sole error that is poping :

P1178 Bolt Up Limits

According to the service manual, this error appears when crankshaft sensor and the pump sensor are not exactly timed together. This is confirmed by the ENGSTAT and BOLT-UP gauges in the screenshot below.



Questions

How to prevent the bolt-up error from appearing again ? Epic Service Manual states that timing belt tensioning should fix it but in my case it obviously only fixes it at cold start.

Is it possible to adjust the injection pump static timing as I read in some other thread of this forum ? If so what is the procedure ? Might this have any unwanted side effects ? How skilled a mechanic is needed (because here in Mexico there's a wild range of mechanics).

How come that the error pops only when the engine is hot ?

Thank you all for your help

[MinorMatt]

This only happens when the crankshaft and pump position are out of sync. i.e. the timing belt position is wrong.

This can be down to the belt not being correctly fitted, or the tensioner not sufficiently tensioning (or set incorrectly)

[les.breizh.trotters]

Thank you very much for your answer MinorMatt

So I'll start with that as soon as I go to the garage.

But if this gets cleared out and the problem is still present, what would be the next step to check ?

[MinorMatt]

There is no next step.

Thats what the code says - the timing between crankshaft sensor and pump os not correct

[les.breizh.trotters]

Hi there !

So I found a mechanic in Mexico willing to work on a small european diesel engine The timing belt was replaced along with the tensioner with all three pegs in place.

However my limp mode problem is still present

The mechanic suggest to remove the injection pump and to send it to a specialized laboratory where it could get resynced properly. The entire process will probably last a week or so. I am a little afraid by this solution, as many mechanics here in Mexico refused just to look at our motorhome because it's european and the laboratory might have no clue on how to sync my injection pump properly.

What do you think of the proposed solution ?

Would there be another way to fix the bolt-up limit issue ?

[MinorMatt]

If its pinned up correctly - then there shouldn't be any issue

The other way to try and do it is to slacken the 4 bolts on the front of the pulley and rotate the center slightly retighten, try it, and repeat until the issue goes away.

(People have cut holes in the timing belt cover to make this quick and easy

There is a + - 2 degree allowance in the sync between crankshaft and pump sensor before it throws the code (might be + - 4 - its one or the other)

[les.breizh.trotters]

Thank you very much for this procedure MinorMatt, I will definitely try it

Just to confirm the pulley you are talking about is the injection pump pulley ?

[MinorMatt]

correct