2001 Mk6 2.4 engine swap

[pakunalle]

Hello everyone,

First off, English is not my first language so sorry if there are some issues in my wording. Also, I work at a Ford dealership with parts but I'm not very experienced with the field yet, but do have access to all the workshop manuals.

I got a 2001 Mk6 2.4 120hp(with turbo, EGR, no AC) engine code D4FA. Last summer started hearing some slight ticking noise from the engine which slowly turned into a knock. Checked injectors, hydraulic tappets, injection pump solenoid resistance, all good. Took out oil pan and found scraps of bearings. Took apart the front end of the car (I have no lift) and pulled out the engine and the transmission, and found out that 3rd cylinder piston's upper bearing is done.

I bought an identical engine off a donor van to replace my engine with. I swapped starter, inlet manifold, EGR, valve cover and some water pipes from the original engine because they were in much better condition and because my original EGR was plugged and I want to keep it that way. Some wires were cut from the donor engine so I had to solder new connections to the wires that go to crankshaft position sensor, and the two wires that go to transmission from the same loom (speed and reverse sensors I think?).

Put everything back together, used a hand pump to fill the fuel line between fuel filter and injection pump (the larger line, I assume thats the one that feeds the fuel to pump cause the hand pump didn't fit the smaller one). Didn't bleed the line between tank and fuel filter cause I didn't have to take those apart anyway, should be fine? Workshop manual says that some early 120hp versions are fitted with an electrical fuel pump on top of the filter, and there is a sideways cylinder-shaped plastic casing on top my filter so figured that might be it? Turned key to position two but there was no whirring sound or anything at the filter so I'm not sure if that's what it is. Anyway, I continue to loosen up injector pipes one by one and doing short starts to bleed the injector pipes til fuel came out on top of valve cover. The fuel was a bit foamy, so there was still some air in the system but don't think there was much. Tightened the injector pipes and tried starting but the engine wont run. Also some slight smoke came out from between engine and transmission after running the started engine, didn't smell like anything really, think it might just be some oil burning off the starter/flywheel area?

Is there something obvious I'm missing? Original ECU is in place, but injection pump is the one that came with the donor engine. Are there any compatibility issues between my original ECU and some parts that came with the donor engine? Workshop manual also says that when installing the new engine you should remove the crankshaft position sensor and set the engine to a certain position but it doesn't say why. I never removed the injection pump so I figured I don't need to mess around with timing right? Could still be that the injectors on the donor engine are busted, or injection pump is faulty. I have 4 tested and working injectors and a working pump from the original engine that I could swap in there. Could be that I messed up the fuel line bleeding and can't get enough pressure in injection to make it run? Unfortunately I have no error codes to present to you folks, because I don't own a tester of any sort and the car is immovable right now.

I appreciate any wisdom I might receive from the Transit Wizards around here, thank you in advance!

[scas]

the fuel pump is coded to the ecu, so unless you virginise the pump that came with the engine, it wont run. you can either use your original pump- which is a bit of work or virginise the pump using forscan which is free or pay someone about 50-100euros to do it.

[pakunalle]

Hey,

And thanks for the reply.

How difficult is the forscan way? I've never used those, nor do I have any hardware for testers. Sounds scary, might opt for changing the pump to the original one.

What exactly is happening with my pump when turning the key right now then? I mean it's pushing fuel even tho it's not coded together with the current ECU? Have I caused damage to some components by trying to get the engine runnin with a mismatched ECU/pump combo?

[Altransit]

The only thing you're likely to damage, is the starter motor, from repeated attempts to start, oh, and you'll kill the battery permanently if you flatten it.
You won't hurt the pump, it just won't pump diesel without the correct code match.

[pakunalle]

Yeah, I tried making sure I don't damage the starter, gave up pretty quickly since it showed no signs of running.

But still, fuel was coming through the injector pipes. If they're not coded together, shouldn't it be blocking fuel completely, or is my pump just doing it wrong?

EDIT: If I remove the pump using a special tool to lock the timing, should I be fine to just install the original pump just like that, or do I need to do some tricks to get the timing correct, and/or replace crankshaft position sensor?

[Altransit]

You'll still get fuel, but not under enough pressure to fire the injectors.

I've never swapped a pump myself but there's probably lots of info on here from people who have, or someone more knowledgeable may chip in soon

[pakunalle]

Looks like changing the pump would be quite alot of work.

Could someone guide me a bit or point me to some resources on how to go about resetting the fuel pump with Forscan? I've never used it, have no clue of the tools and procedure.

[WheelyBigBox]

Using forscan is easy - you need to get a modified OBD2 connector from tunnelrat electronics, plug it into a usb socket on your computer and install forscan. You then sign up for a free licence for programming - it'll take an hour to send (the sites says within 30 mins)..

Once you've got the licence your copy of forscan will work for two months for programming - and you can apply again for another one. Without this it will only read error codes (which is often more than enough). Anyway.. so you've now got your licence installed... Forscan will detect an error in the security module and will let you go about resetting it. It takes around 15 mins as the system makes you wait 10 mins (basically a anti theft deterrent - you're not going to hang about outsides someones house for 10 mins and risk being caught nicking their van..). Once it's timed out it will do it's thing and ask you to turn off the ignition. I found turning off to be a pain - it wouldn't ask me to turn back on again and would then say it had failed. In the end i left it on and a few seconds later it said it was completed successfully.

Forscan is pretty simple to use to be honest and on a transit, there's not a lot of systems for it to even communicate with so it'll only list a few modules - ecu, security and gearbox if memory serves.

[WheelyBigBox]

One other tip... the mk6's are a total pain to get going after they've been empty of fuel from the injectors.

Turn the engine over by hand as you open each injector pipe so that you are able to get fuel to at least 3 injectors. I couldn't turn mine over completely as the big pulley has 3 bolts through it not one central one however it was enough that i was able to get fuel to three injectors.

Once i had that, it still wouldn't start... but i didn't stop cranking. After around 12 seconds of constant cranking i started to hear very mild diesel spluttering from the engine - very mild. Kept it cranking another few seconds and the splutters got louder and louder until it finally fired and that was that - running (injectors had compressed air in them which resisted the fuel - until the fuel pressure was enough to push the air through).

So you need two things to get a mk6 running again - correctly coded pump which is known to have a working EDU (the electronics box on top) and at least 3 injectors primed as much as possible. Then it's a matter of cranking.. with the jump leads if your battery isn't strong enough.

[scas]

pump coded, fill filter, crack any injector slightly, crank until fuel comes out. Close injector, crack another . Repeat, filling fuel fiter each time. Takes about 5 mins with with jump leads and a running donor vehicle

[pakunalle]

Hey folks,

And thank you again for all the answers. Really appreciate your input.

I took my colleague from work with me today who brought a Ford tester laptop with him. We plugged it in the van in order to code the pump back to zero so that ECU and pump would get along. The tester was saying that there was an issue with fuel injection pressure, but simply wouldn't let us reset the pump. He told me that the pump control module (not sure of the correct term) is known to have issues in this model, and he has changed many of those before. In short, we were not able to code the pump back to neutral at all.

He recommended that I simply swap the pump control module from the original engine and that should solve it, since the PCM and original pump module are already paired, so I'm going to try that tomorrow. It's much simpler than changing the entire pump, so I can't help but wonder why I haven't heard of this option before. I would very much like to hear your opinions on this. I already removed the module that is on top of the pump from my original engine, and tomorrow I'm gonna remove the EGR from the current engine and make the switch.

[knobby1]

Hey folks,

And thank you again for all the answers. Really appreciate your input.

I took my colleague from work with me today who brought a Ford tester laptop with him. We plugged it in the van in order to code the pump back to zero so that ECU and pump would get along. The tester was saying that there was an issue with fuel injection pressure, but simply wouldn't let us reset the pump. He told me that the pump control module (not sure of the correct term) is known to have issues in this model, and he has changed many of those before. In short, we were not able to code the pump back to neutral at all.

He recommended that I simply swap the pump control module from the original engine and that should solve it, since the PCM and original pump module are already paired, so I'm going to try that tomorrow. It's much simpler than changing the entire pump, so I can't help but wonder why I haven't heard of this option before. I would very much like to hear your opinions on this. I already removed the module that is on top of the pump from my original engine, and tomorrow I'm gonna remove the EGR from the current engine and make the switch.

Your mate is correct.....the "EDC" which lives on top of the pump is the pump control module....they fail with monotonous regularity. You'll usually get P1564 & P1664 fault codes....P0149 can also be present which points to the timing solenoid, but when this fails the engine still runs but very poorly.

Lord Knobrot

[pakunalle]

Much appreciated, EDC change solved it.

I am so relieved that the car is running again. I have no background in with cars before my current job, I've changed winter tyres once before this whole sh*tstorm. I bought this camper Transit a couple years back, inspector found a ton of rust in the rear so me and my father spent the first winter basically rebuilding the back half of the rotten van. Summer came, and I managed to put in 3000km with the van before I started hearing a slight ticking sound from the engine bay, which eventually got louder and louder. Checked tappets, injectors, the other solenoid from pump, and finally found scraps of metal in the oil pan. Took apart the front bumpers and stuff, removed engine and transmission and after removing the bottom part of the engine found out the top end of the piston had gone. Since the ticking sound started I started scanning Finnish markets for a used engine, and last winter I found on (not another used D4FA engine has been for sale during that time). Glad I bought it cause turns out I needed it.

A really stressing job for a complete noob but I learned alot. Thanks for all the input.

Now I have to decide whether to keep or sell the car once spring comes.

[WheelyBigBox]

Given that old transits tend to have a long list of failure points, you might want to consider selling.

I've had... bad battery (ok not the vans fault), bad earth to the engine, expensive rust repairs / welding, starter motor failure, fuel pump failure (EDC was swapped for another dudd which i reprogrammed and then had repaired) and as mine is auto, i naturally had the HPU motor pack up and fail on me too.

I've still got the timing chain to get done along with a oil / filter change.

They're great when they run but when they fail they're a pain but i suppose you could say that about any 20 year old motor.

[Altransit]

In defence of the humble and much maligned Mk6, I have to say that mine was ultra reliable whilst in my ownership
Apart from tyres, a battery, bulbs and servicing, it didn't cost that much to run in the 3 years and 50k miles that I owned it, BUT, even after spending £1200 to get the rust plated up for its final MOT, it still needed more doing for the next one, so I moved it on, having reached 212k miles and still running sweet