2LTE Noisy & Difficult To Start?

[Jolfa]

First post, so hi!

Currently driving a 2.4 Surf around Australia, done a good 30k km or so in the last 6 months and it's only had a couple of niggles in that time.

in the last 3000km or so something is getting very noisy in the fuel pump/cylinder one area, sounds like the exhaust is blowing but it's on the inlet side of the engine. I'm pretty handy with a spanner and there's nothing obvious wrong in that area.

Additionally it's getting harder and harder to start, we've often needed to warm the glow plugs up a couple of times since we've had it but now I can warm them up 6 or 7 times and it makes no difference. It will crank for 10-15 seconds and not even start trying for 3 or 4 attempts, then it will start spluttering into life but not firing properly. It eventually goes and will run all day (literally) but noisy as above.

It does stutter at steady low speeds/idling along where it didn't before, but runs as well as it ever has at motorway speeds.

I would say glow plugs but it's not really much easier to start even if I've only switched it off to fill up (it is a little easier still takes too much cranking).

Things I would note - pretty sure the head gasket/head has gone, but if it has, it's been gone for some time, doesn't overheat or suffer any of the usual ill effects of a shot head, just makes the coolant a little foamy.

I've tried pumping the plunger on the fuel filter to no avail.

Currently running injector cleaner through it.

Oil and filter has been changed fairly recently.

It doesn't use fluids excessively.

Fuel consumption may be up a fraction.

We have moved south, it's a lot colder here than what the car has been used to.

Yes I have tried Googling it and trying what it comes up with

Thanks in advance!

[jode]

Mine kinda does the same thing runs perfect but very hard to crank.... when u take your fuel cap off does it hiss like its under pressure

[yorta2]

Jolfa, you are in Melbourne, so if you don't get on top of this issue, join the Australian Surf site and get someone (another member) in your local area to have a look and advise further. Good luck with it.
http://toyotasurf.asn.au/forum/

[Jolfa]

Diesel cap does hiss if fuel is below a quarter, and generally when we've just used a whole tank of fuel in one go, don't know about short trips over time. The primer on the filter was soft today but didn't make any real difference.

Swapped glow plugs and tried jumping the buzz bar straight to battery made no difference. If I over tightened the little nuts on top of the plugs would that shag them? Going to test the plugs out of the engine asap anyway but I feel I may have over tightened 2 of the nuts...

Cleaned out all the inlet hoses and fixed all crumbly old couplers, no change (although a bit quieter and less stuttery at low speeds).

When I'd put all the cleaned hoses back together when doing the plugs, presumably because of all the WD40 in the inlet tract it fired on the button.

Just been testing how long before it won't start properly after switching off warm engine - anything longer than about 30 seconds and it goes back to cranking too much, anything less and it fires as it should...

My next port of call is to put a non return in the fuel line.

Signed up for the Aussie site, never sent me the verification email, I'll try again at some point, in the mean time I'll seek wisdom from my own kind :P

[jode]

Diesel cap does hiss if fuel is below a quarter, and generally when we've just used a whole tank of fuel in one go, don't know about short trips over time. The primer on the filter was soft today but didn't make any real difference.

Swapped glow plugs and tried jumping the buzz bar straight to battery made no difference. If I over tightened the little nuts on top of the plugs would that shag them? Going to test the plugs out of the engine asap anyway but I feel I may have over tightened 2 of the nuts...

Cleaned out all the inlet hoses and fixed all crumbly old couplers, no change (although a bit quieter and less stuttery at low speeds).

When I'd put all the cleaned hoses back together when doing the plugs, presumably because of all the WD40 in the inlet tract it fired on the button.

Just been testing how long before it won't start properly after switching off warm engine - anything longer than about 30 seconds and it goes back to cranking too much, anything less and it fires as it should...

My next port of call is to put a non return in the fuel line.

Signed up for the Aussie site, never sent me the verification email, I'll try again at some point, in the mean time I'll seek wisdom from my own kind :P

yeah check the tank breather it may be clogged I have this problem as well trying to get at it is a nightmare ..... also try taking off your fuel cap and cranking the engine a few times and see if that helps, its probably creating a vacuum and sucking the fuel back into the tank

[Jolfa]

Interesting, the fuel cap was pressurised and releasing it has made it start a bit better (still not amazing, but an improvement). Presumably the tank breather is the little hole just inside the filler neck? Is there a easy-ish way to sort it? Blast an air line down it or something?

Thanks so far

[Jolfa]

Update on this, all sorted, the noise I described was in fact the accessible M8 nut missing from the pump, which was allowing the pump to vibrate excessively and knocked the timing out, which the ECU had consequently adapted to.

Replaced nut, reset ECU by leaving the batteries off overnight, now it starts on the button first glow and it's now healthier than it ever has been thanks to all the other stuff I've done in the process of sorting it.

Dead pleased

[yorta2]

Good stuff!