WD40 - wonder drug?

[Vic1958]

Up until 2 weeks ago my lovely motor would only start after hooking up to a battery booster and turning her over for a good few minutes. Without it I would just flatten the battery and she needed a lot of turning the engine to get her to cough into life. This went on for a good few weeks. It was of course a real pain in the *** to do each cold, dark, morning at 5am so I decided to try the dreaded EasyStart.

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings I reached for my can of EasyStart which I vaguely remembered was rolling about on the floor behind the driver seat and sprayed into the air intake. each time she started after 4 or 5 turns.

On Saturday around lunchtime I jumped in and thought I'd see if she would start without help - to my amazement she started first time and off I drove.

When I got back I decided to give her a bit of a tidy up inside - when I picked up the EasyStart it wasn't exactly EasyStart - it was WD40 (I later found the EasyStart can in the shed)

3 days of spraying WD40 into the air intake and now she is starting first time and has done so without fail for the last couple of weeks.

Any thoughts anyone?

[BUSHWHACKER]

You need new glowplugs, or the fuse has blown in the fusebox in the engine bay.

[marky]

When the GLOWPLUG light goes out wait for a RELAY to click then crank the engine over

[Nismo]

Not too sure about these engines but is there not some sort of idle control valve or cold start valve type of thing going on somewhere on the injection system??? This could have been stuck/sticking & the spraying of UB40 has unstuck it

[Vic1958]

Glowplugs and fuse new 3 months ago and seem to be operating ok - as I said, she has no problems starting now so they must be ok.

Vince, what do you think about the ...idle control valve or cold start valve type of thing going on somewhere on the injection system...that Nismo mentions?

[BUSHWHACKER]

That's all controlled by the ECU on the EFI engine.
You may have a duff sensor somewhere. Is the air temp sensor plugged into the outlet tube on the air filter housing?

[Vic1958]

It is plugged in but I have wondered if it is as tight as it should be. It will sometimes be a couple of millimetres away from the housing and I turn it so that it is tight against the housing. Probably no problem there but on the other hand...

[BUSHWHACKER]

Are your batteries in good condition? a diesel engine needs to spin over fast to make it fire up.

I always wait for the beeep after switching on the ignition, then I know the glowplugs have had a good warm up before starting the engine.

[Vic1958]

I was reading about the glowplug bleep on another post earlier - I have never heard a beep when using my glows. I turn on the ignition, I hear the click, the glowlamp goes out, and I then fire her up.

Battery tested recently - chap said it was good

[BUSHWHACKER]

only the 2.4s and not all of them have it, mine never

[Vic1958]

I'll try that in the morning - thanks Vince.

[hawkwind]

Mine never used to beep, but a couple of months ago i had the glovebox off, whilst looking for fuses, and there was a black box with an unplugged connection next to it, connected it up and i now have a beep that comes on just after the click.

I cant remember what the black box was but it did say warning on it???

[Vic1958]

Gonna take a look behind the glove box this afternoon!!