TDCi Engine vibrating at low rpm

[jansu83]

I have a 90 ps Connect 1.8 TDCi 2005 with 225 000 km (about 140 000 miles). The engine is running pretty well, but there's vibration between 1250 ... 1500 rpm when I push the gas pedal on neutral gear. I can also hear a ticking sound from the engine. Just like one or two valve's clearances were wrong.

There's no smoking at all and it fires up every time at first start. When the outside temprature is cold, engine runs a few seconds with only three cylinders, so the glow pins should be renewed but after that no pboblems. Is it possible that glow pins may cause vibrating engine running and ticking sound to the engine? I also should renew my clutch as it rattles a lot below 2000 rpm. When I press the clutch, ticking also gets a little stronger. So now I don't know where to start to find out where's this ticking and vibration coming from. I have noticed that ticking and vibration are in sync, so the engine vibrates the whole van at same frequency with ticking. There's also a notice in my service book that cam belt has been renewed just before I bought the van and it has been driven about 8000 miles after that. Could this vibration and ticking be a problem with camshaft timing as well?

I have driven about 6000 miles after oil change but haven't noticed any oil or water loss during this period. If anyone has solved this kind of problem some advice would be appreciated.

[jansu83]

Today I fired up my cold engine and drove the van to the ramp. When I had a little load for engine when rising to the ramp and the door was open, it sounded like hard knocking sound coming from one cylinder during the load. Outside temp is today +19'C (+66'F) so that was about the engine temp aswell. Now I'm starting to believe that one injector is about to be at the end of it's journey.

How do I make a leak back test? I have seen a video on youtube where it is done. Is it just that I clean the return pipe connections as well as I can, then disconnect and plug the pipes immediately with clean plug and put leak back pipes that lead to cans to the return connector of injectors? What else should I do during the test? How long should the engine be running when testing? And is it usually difficult to take out an injector on TDCi engine when they are renewed? I could read injector codes with my OBDII reader and forscan, so I believe that I could code new injectors as well with the same setup.

[Altransit]

Just had something quite similar with a Focus, and that was leaking injector seals

[jansu83]

Just had something quite similar with a Focus, and that was leaking injector seals

How was this figured out? Did you do a compression pressure test for the engine or could it be noticed without it?

[mrtn]

I have a similar judder at some specific rpm (mine's TDDi tho). Had the pump rebuilt and leakback test done while they were at it, all looked fine. There's still something tho and It's been there for the past 100 000 km+. Not gotten worse. No extra noises.