Ford Transit Forum

by **edessaios** » Mon Feb 24, 2020 12:31 am

As usual.. Its a transit 1996 2.5td alcoven caravan. The car was in a garage about 5 years ago until 12. 2017. I repaired the water damage and changed only the timing belt with a new one, because the prev owner told me that water pump and tensioner were new as well. No problems at all for at least 2 years of driving until last month, after almost 1 month of inactivity, i want to drive it from germany to Luxemburg. The car did not start at all, cranking but not starting. Drained the battery, replace it with a spare, and after a lot of attempts, it started, but with check engine lamp on. Turn on, off-on off until limp mode goes of, it worked, Since then, i have the same problem. Sometimes it goes directly into limp mode, and sometimes for example today i drove it from Prague until Dortmund were i live with no probs at all. The car has of course the epic pump, still the original one, actually km are 232.500 and the belt was changed at 202.000 in 12.2017. I have also istalled an intercooler, and also AGR is long time ago blocked. Unfortunately, i do not have a private place to start testing what is wrong or not, so i have to do all the repairs at the side of the road, which is in Germany illegal,so, -i have to be fast-. Should i replace directly the whole belt set? (belt, tensioner, water pump). Or is the Epic pump maybe at its last? For sure i can not afford to have it fixed at a workshop, it is gonna cost more than 2000 euros. I do not want to replace the epic pump with a mechanical one, because as i said, i have to do all of the repairs at the side of the road, so i have to be fast.A lot of personal work has been done to this caravan, and it is really shame to be scrapped because of this reason.... What do you recommend to start with? Directy order the belt set and just replace it?

Best regards,

George

by **MinorMatt** » Mon Feb 24, 2020 9:53 am

Does it go in to limp when you are driving or only when you start?

When you turn it off does it stop immediately or does it keep running for about 10 seconds?

by **edessaios** » Mon Feb 24, 2020 6:42 pm

MinorMatt wrote:Does it go in to limp when you are driving or only when you start?

When you turn it off does it stop immediately or does it keep running for about 10 seconds?

It goes to limp mode only after driving, never when started. But if it goes in limp, it will stay also after 5-7 attempts of starting- turning off.
When i turn it off, it goes directly,- after 1 second- off....

I am going to get crazy!

by **edessaios** » Mon Feb 24, 2020 7:55 pm

Or better just to buy this one and just fit it? I think is not gonna be so difficult to install it, isn't it?

https://www.ebay.de/itm/Neue-Bosch-VE-E ... 2735535841

by **Altransit** » Mon Feb 24, 2020 8:19 pm

Did I not read somewhere, sometime, that fitting an intercooler to an 85ps EPIC would randomly bring on the engine light :?:

Maybe it was a dream :oops:

by **edessaios** » Mon Feb 24, 2020 9:41 pm

Altransit wrote:Did I not read somewhere, sometime, that fitting an intercooler to an 85ps EPIC would randomly bring on the engine light

Maybe it was a dream

It is the the 101ps version, but i think the pump is the same. I drove it over 30 km because of a broken clamp, and no engine light at ,all... Why?

by **Hondekop** » Tue Feb 25, 2020 12:15 pm

edessaios wrote:Should i replace directly the whole belt set? (belt, tensioner, water pump).

It was running fine previously with the same belt setup, so replacing it is not a logical step.

edessaios wrote:Or is the Epic pump maybe at its last?]

Not unlikely after 232.500 km. Lots of people had issues with it from some 100000 km on. Not necessarily the case however, the Epic is quite susceptible to other errors in the pump environment as well (sensors, electrical connections, EGR).
Most guys in Germany decide to have the pump rebuilt or the pump environment error fixed.
Most guys in the UK/Italy/Russia change to a Bosch VE setup, as they don't want to deal with this myriad of potential error sources.
To explain the difference to the UK public: The freedom to modify your car is much more limited in Germany than it is in the UK. Over the years, this has lead to a little weary, on the verge of submissive, attitude towards the vehicle inspection authorities (TÜV, Dekra). If one raised a question on a German forum whether, say, a certain steering wheel could be mounted, chances are one of the first responses will be "What does the TÜV/Dekra say about this?" without the question even being answered in a technical sense. Combined a somewhat exaggerated (in a European context) love of rules in German society, this may explain why the decision is mostly made to restore the original situation.

The hardest part on this issue is the diagnosis, fairly rotten if you mount a new pump when a sensor is toast instead.

Altransit wrote:Did I not read somewhere, sometime, that fitting an intercooler to an 85ps EPIC would randomly bring on the engine light.

You could start by bridging the intercooler and see if that changes anything.

Knoll in Chemnitz and Dresden as well as a Bosch service in, I think, Cologne can rebuild Epic pumps. As for diagnosis, do not rely on your Ford dealer, as he is generally of no use here (bar exceptions)!

The conversion kit you linked to seems to be more or less comparable to the Italian kit I had mounted some years ago. Though it is not terribly difficult to install, there is quite a lot of effort & time involved. I doubt you would get it done in les than 5 hours, working outside as an amateur.

Ciao, Kai

by **edessaios** » Tue Feb 25, 2020 6:51 pm

Hondekop wrote:
edessaios wrote:Should i replace directly the whole belt set? (belt, tensioner, water pump).

It was running fine previously with the same belt setup, so replacing it is not a logical step.

edessaios wrote:Or is the Epic pump maybe at its last?]

Not unlikely after 232.500 km. Lots of people had issues with it from some 100000 km on. Not necessarily the case however, the Epic is quite susceptible to other errors in the pump environment as well (sensors, electrical connections, EGR).
Most guys in Germany decide to have the pump rebuilt or the pump environment error fixed.
Most guys in the UK/Italy/Russia change to a Bosch VE setup, as they don't want to deal with this myriad of potential error sources.
To explain the difference to the UK public: The freedom to modify your car is much more limited in Germany than it is in the UK. Over the years, this has lead to a little weary, on the verge of submissive, attitude towards the vehicle inspection authorities (TÜV, Dekra). If one raised a question on a German forum whether, say, a certain steering wheel could be mounted, chances are one of the first responses will be "What does the TÜV/Dekra say about this?" without the question even being answered in a technical sense. Combined a somewhat exaggerated (in a European context) love of rules in German society, this may explain why the decision is mostly made to restore the original situation.

The hardest part on this issue is the diagnosis, fairly rotten if you mount a new pump when a sensor is toast instead.

Altransit wrote:Did I not read somewhere, sometime, that fitting an intercooler to an 85ps EPIC would randomly bring on the engine light.

You could start by bridging the intercooler and see if that changes anything.

Knoll in Chemnitz and Dresden as well as a Bosch service in, I think, Cologne can rebuild Epic pumps. As for diagnosis, do not rely on your Ford dealer, as he is generally of no use here (bar exceptions)!

The conversion kit you linked to seems to be more or less comparable to the Italian kit I had mounted some years ago. Though it is not terribly difficult to install, there is quite a lot of effort & time involved. I doubt you would get it done in les than 5 hours, working outside as an amateur.

Ciao, Kai

Thanks for answering Kai,

I spoke today with a Bosch Dienst company in Dortmund, they want 380 Euros only to ckeck the pump and about 1500 Euros to rebuild it! That's hillarious, the whole motorhome doesn't cost that much!
I will loop the Intercooler- I will actually change it back to the factory setup and see what will happen. The last 2 days the car has been working fine though.

by **madmart132** » Tue Feb 25, 2020 7:42 pm

You dont say where in Germany you live but there is a guy who runs a garage in kent called dieselhead 123 who really knows about the diesel transits . You obviously travel quite a bit why not phone him and get the pump fixed in the UK ?
Part of the problem you have got is the transit is not an oldtimer yet but to old for most German engineers to be bothered to work on

by **Keef** » Wed Feb 26, 2020 9:44 am

If it's that intermittent, I'd be checking the wiring to the sensors for breaks and the plug at the pump for bad connections :idea:

by **edessaios** » Sun Mar 01, 2020 9:04 pm

Thanks a lot for all the answers. After some investigation today i found out that the main plug that goes to the ecu was not secure at all. But all the pins are clean, both sides, genarally i checked the whole harness. I will leave the intercooler on, and just drive it further. We are planning to drive next week about 650km away from Dortmund, where i currenty live.This will be the test. I will keep the thread updated, an if the insists, i think i have to travel to England to solve the problem.

by **edessaios** » Sun Mar 01, 2020 9:20 pm

madmart132 wrote:You dont say where in Germany you live but there is a guy who runs a garage in kent called dieselhead 123 who really knows about the diesel transits . You obviously travel quite a bit why not phone him and get the pump fixed in the UK ?
Part of the problem you have got is the transit is not an oldtimer yet but to old for most German engineers to be bothered to work on

No one will deal with it, because it is old, and very dodgily repaired. But is really to shame to crap it, i like this motorhome, also the transit, it drives really reliable, until now :lol:

by **edessaios** » Sun Mar 01, 2020 10:09 pm

by **edessaios** » Sun May 10, 2020 6:26 pm

Hi there,

after a while i am writing again. i have no problems again with the Epic Pump. The problem was the ecu plug that was not properly connected. However, i have already started to mix 2stroke oil in diesel tank in every filling, 65liter of diesel, about 300ml oil, just to keep the pump properly lubricated. I also read the stored fails successfully with the HELLA GUTHMANN reader. One of the switches in throttle pedal was faulty, already replaced it. Just think that the car has 233.000km and ist still everything original, the pump also!

by **V184** » Sun May 10, 2020 9:32 pm

madmart132 wrote:You dont say where in Germany you live but there is a guy who runs a garage in kent called dieselhead 123 who really knows about the diesel transits . You obviously travel quite a bit why not phone him and get the pump fixed in the UK ?
Part of the problem you have got is the transit is not an oldtimer yet but to old for most German engineers to be bothered to work on