Did I just destroyed my smiley engine? Flooded street accide

[marcrbarker]

Going through photos I just found one I think would help here confirms my understanding with TDC.

2021-09-25 19.16.03.jpg

On my crankshaft pulley there's 4 green dots that arrange exactly horizontally at each TDC, you can't see all green dots in this photo but the yellow lines show it in relation to the timing pin's position.
With the timing pins in place piston 1 & 4 is at one belt tooth pitch before TDC. (that still seems strange to me, oh well). So remove the timing pins and turn crank one belt tooth clockwise and that's the first TDC.

[dumper]

Hi I’ve not done anything on a di turbo but when I’ve had the head and belt off when the crank and camshaft are pined up they are both on tdc for no1 the piston is at the top of its stroke and the pump timing is set when it is calibrated relative to tdc even though you are timing it on tdc with the pins it is still set internally to give the correct firing point before tdc

[Chug]

IIRC when the the injection pump is set it's at 8 degrees btdc and the pump is starting the bottom of the cam stroke and hasn't quite reached the injection point, but it's a few years since I had the dial guage out and played with pump timing.

[metalworker0]

Don't know why anyone hasn't suggested to buy a compression tester ....
now I've said before my knowledge of diesel is limited
i know about petrol engines ..that's all I've had up till now

ebay sells diesel engine compression test kits for as little as £12

for £12 they will be Chinese - what i don't know is the variety of threads and adaptors

Usually Sykes Pickavant do a fully comprehensive kit ..well they do for petrol - fits all, everything ..no chance of going wrong - not sure about diesel if it would be for all.

To my knowledge .....the compression tester would tell you that a cylinder is down ..and that would tell you that you need to rebuild or get rid ..as these are the only choices you have.

So that's what I'm saying to you .....buy or borrow a compression tester, no farting about measuring cylinder volumes , looking for bent push rods ..or taking the sump off ..or putting it on a hill and rolling or turning it by hand and guessing.. do the compression tests ..and come back here with the results ..and we will move on from there.

all the best,.mark

[marcrbarker]

I'm still finding it difficult to believe myself the timing pin setting is not exactly TDC. Assuming it really is like this and it's not a mistake, would one belt tooth pitch rotation of the crank be noticeable at the piston?

[marcrbarker]

Hi Mark. A compression tester is something you bring with you when you buy a gasoline engine to check each cylinder before you hand over your cash . Or use it for showing a customer his engine is bad to quote for replacement engine!

An experienced mechanic typically doesn't need a compression tester themselves anyway because they have a trained ear and can hear a low compression cylinder just by listening to starter motor. And they bar the engine over to investigate without removing any plug or glow plug. Barring the engine over by hand and listening tells you more than any compression tester. If the engine is worth repairing or not or whether it's just gummed rings etc. If an inlet valve hisses it's different to sump hiss etc etc. Measuring combustion chamber volume with fluids is what do when race tuning to measure compression ratio.

[marcrbarker]

IIRC when the the injection pump is set it's at 8 degrees btdc and the pump is starting the bottom of the cam stroke and hasn't quite reached the injection point, but it's a few years since I had the dial guage out and played with pump timing.

I'm glad you'd mentioned that, 8 degrees is nearly exactly half a cambelt tooth pitch (7.5 degrees) if my numbers are correct

[Chug]

probably, when the pump is pinned on the bench at around 0.4 - 0.5 lift (I think the standard setting is 0.48) and you remove the pin the pump turns back about half a cambelt tooth.

[marcrbarker]

The pump has a 'psuedo' needle lift sensor too (called in the documentation "pump speed sensor") that's involved somewhere in this. The sensor is hidden under a plastic cover has the square o-ring with the 4 screws and slots.

[cherniy_chack]

If the engine has swallowed water, then at least one connecting rod is bent and the compression in one cylinder is less than normal.
In this cylinder, the fuel does not burn - the required temperature is not created for self-ignition of the fuel-air mixture, and this mixture flies out of the exhaust system in the form of white smoke.
Sadness ...

[mkgld]

Thanks to you all.
I've tried to measure the amount of diesel of each cylinder, but I failed.
I couldn't remove one of the injectors, the one of the back.

So I tried another thing, with the engine on, I started to bleed each injector and I noticed that when I lose the tube of the injector that it is stuck, the smokes stops.

Also noticed that the sound does not change bleeding that injector, but when I bleed the others it is more noticeable the difference. Especially bleeding the second and the third injector. With the first one, the sounds changes, but not that much.
I've made a video showing it.
https://youtu.be/sMfXT_ryyDE

Could this mean that the problem relies on that cylinder?
How silly is my hope that the problem is an injector?
Isn't possible that the water broke one injector before breaking the rod?

Tomorrow I will try again to remove that injector. I am also talking with a mech to come to have a look at the van.

In the meantime, finally today I found one engine from the scrap, it is the first one I see online.
They ask 1000 Eur, it has 150000 km, they say it worked good before they removed it.
I am still a little afraid of buying a new engine without knowing if it is going to be in good shape, but it may be the only way out.

[Chug]

It looks like you found your problem cylinder, it is possible its just a broken injector but don't get your hopes up.

There was a member who was selling Di engines from Poland,
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=197084&p=1719937&hilit=di+engines+for+sale#p1719937

he hasn't been on here for a while but you may be able to contact him through his facebook group memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=96084

[marcrbarker]

I'm not convinced yet there's a bent rod.... And if it was one bent, going by the nice sound I heard on the starter motor only a tiny bend I would have changed the rod/piston by now Anyway...

Yes exactly, while running on three and you crack open each 17mm in turn, when you reach the problem cylinder there's no change in sound and the smoke stops. Because the fuel is spraying around the engine instead of going out the exhaust un-burned.

Broken injector? Swap over with the one next to it and see if the "slacken off 17mm injector one at a time" test transfers to the other cylinder.

[marcrbarker]

Just a thought, would the van make it 'back to civilisation' or somewhere running on three cylinders, suitably prepared? Back in the past before catalytic converters I've driven weeks and thousands of miles on 3 cylinders. Fine for around town but up hills very slow.
Nowdays, with cats, a petrol engine it's essential to unplug the fuel injector or the cat will burn up. Same principle with a diesel, but recycle the unused inject fuel back to tank. I suppose could easily remove the pushrods for the bad cylinder so it doesn't suck power. If the engine is considered dead anyway and no intention of selling it on for salvage it might serve for getting you somewhere a better location.

[dumper]

As for the stuck injector on a pre banana I had number 4 stuck in I ran it for 9 months or more with the clamp removed and spraying wd 40 on it every time it was hot but it never moved then when foot and mouth shut down car rally’s I decided it was going to come out no matter what I snapped the head off the injector so on to plan b removed the head to knock it out only to find that all four pistons had cracks in them so don’t be surprised if you find this if you remove the head this maybe a 1990 transit fault as we had 3 at work that had a recall on the pistons.