[Engine] Breakdown fun - EGR, FPS, HP Pump ???

[Juski]

Had a bit of a runin with a blocked fuel filter last year - the local garage charged me £50 for swapping it which wasn't too bad - and all has been well up til recently.  Then late Friday night a couple of weeks ago 35 miles from home the van went into limp mode & ultimately conked out right on a roundabout.  Great.

I couldn't get it started for love nor money & the AA told me they were at least 90 minutes away. I was freezing cold but seen as I had time on my hands I thought I'd try the fuel primer bulb & see what the score there was.  Nope all I could hear was air & definitely no swishing of diesel - and the bulb was soft.  Bugger.

The AA came & recovered me & working on the theory that maybe it was the filter again (so soon?) I trumped off to Euro to get a new one the next day.  Fitting was a piece of cake but could I get the damn thing bled?  Hell no.  Spent the best part of that day trying to bleed it but still no dice.  Online Haynes manual (£17 a year - could be a bargain for some btw) said to try a length of hose on the filter outlet & pump away again til diesel comes out.  But no.  So off to the garage again.  They told me I was so close.. and charged me £30 for their time.

Motoring happily again for a while & disaster struck on the A1 last week.  Doing 70 mph the engine went into limp mode & shortly afterwards cut out completely.  I pulled onto the hard shoulder & it wouldn't restart.  Called the AA out again & an hour later was making my way home thanks to a couple of squirts of EZ Start & a code reset.  Not half a mile down the road the self same thing happened again.  Another call to the AA & another hour to wait.

Knowing I had time on my hands again I got thinking. Maybe the fuel sender in the tank is duff & I've actually run out of diesel!  Aha!  So I walked to the nearby garage, bought a can & 5L of fuel.  Nope, still no dice.  AA arrived, towed me to the pumps - I put £15 worth in & they had no joy either.  Their computer was indicating low fuel pressure & it just wasn't increasing.  So it'll be the pump.. or cutoff solenoid stuck right?  Sigh. Very expensive jobs.

So again the next day the local garage picked up the van.  It turned over 1st time but the engine warning light came on.  They read the codes out & it looked to them like it was low fuel pressure - potentially indicating HP pump and/or injector(s) issues they said.  Not a job for them they say, talk to a specialist.  Oh & they said the EGR valve was stuck open. Nothing to worry about they said & probably not worth fixing.  

I've got an OBD2 reader with bluetooth and the free edition of Torque on my phone so figured where's the harm in trying to find out what's going on right?  Ok.

Well far from LOW fuel rail pressure it was reporting P1351, P0409, P0193 (IIRC)..   P0193.. fuel pressure sensor reading HIGH - as in disconnected, wiring fault or duff sensor. Something glowplug related... Anyway I reset the codes, turned it over & wahey it started fine.  Revved it a fair bit.. fuel pressure readings changing, MAF readings changing (NB I can't interpret the actual numbers but they're changing, which is better than never changing I guess).

Spoke to a recommended diesel specialist who only deal with injection related stuff & they said they could test the pump & injectors for me but I'd have to get it to them 30 miles away.  Hmmm.  Recited the codes at them & they said P0193 sounds like blocked DPF causing the high fuel rail pressure reading (really?)..

Spoke to another diesel specialist later who poured cold water on everything they said, saying oo sounds very much like it's worth checking for dud wiring on the fuel rail sensor.  He says your local mechanic said WHAT about the EGR valve followed by a load of expletives.. 

Browsing around the internets about the fault codes all I can seem to find is conflicting information.

Now tonight I found another app to try... it's read from the ECU so far with a much different picture which seems to point to the EGR valve.

With the van having done over 200k miles now & maybe worth £500 I'm reluctant to spend much money getting it fixed but a mobile diesel doctor is coming for a look on Thursday.  If it's 'just' the EGR valve being a bit sticky - or at a push needs replaced I'll go with that but HP pump & injectors? Nah then it's scrapping time.

It starts fine all the time now, or seems to. Idle is really juddery though but seems to be able to rev like a trooper.  Could a stuck EGR valve have caused all the cutting out & failing to start shennanigans the other week as well?  I figure - maybe - but what do I know?

I reckon.. if it's the HP fuel pump, would it even start at all & rev ok? 1st specialist said it's rare they go pop.
If it's dodgy injector(s), would it be misfiring like a bugger all the time not just at low revs?  Would it have caused the cutout & non-starting?
If it's the fuel rail pressure sensor totally out of whack.. er... I dunno.
If it's the camshaft position sensor would it still start at all?

I DO know the P codes you read out are far from the be all & end all of it.  Codes can spurt out like a chain reaction - e.g. one fault leads to other problems being picked up & diagnosing is actually a PROCESS of deduction rather than following error codes blindly - hence me calling the specialist in.

It might just be totally screwed...  Any guidance from wise folks would be appreciated

[brodfather11]

I had the same sort of problems with a ford . (same engine I believe) It would sit down and refuse to start again , then it would burst back into life for another two or three days or weeks.
Eventually would not start again , read that unplugging the egr valve worked wonders, tried it and away it went never looked back.
The code that I was getting were similar to yours " Low fuel pressure in HP rail" etc.
The egr had a plugin socket in the top of it and took a second to unplug. When the egr was removed I took it apart and the electrics inside were all corroded.

Even thou yours is not a Ford I wonder if its the same setup ?

[cancunia]

Not 100% sure what engine we're talking about here but am assuming it's a 1.6? As Brodfather says, the EGR can cause some strange symptoms. Not had the same issues as you, but FWIW my 2.0 will go into limp mode but no EML if the EGR is high or low, but will run fine if I disconnect the wiring, albeit with the EML light on. Maybe worth checking what happens if you disconnect the EGR wiring, but this does not explain the issues you've had with the primer bulb. I'm wondering if you have a blocked fuel pipe?

[brodfather11]

Not 100% sure what engine we're talking about here but am assuming it's a 1.6? As Brodfather says, the EGR can cause some strange symptoms. Not had the same issues as you, but FWIW my 2.0 will go into limp mode but no EML if the EGR is high or low, but will run fine if I disconnect the wiring, albeit with the EML light on. Maybe worth checking what happens if you disconnect the EGR wiring, but this does not explain the issues you've had with the primer bulb. I'm wondering if you have a blocked fuel pipe?

Another symptom I had with the ford (1.6 tdi)was the lack of fuel , for awhile I was trying to get a fuel pump which I thought was in the tank and faulty as I couldn't get fuel, ( No fuel pump in tank on that model), even put on a new fuel filter, about 45 to 50 quid each.
The fault must have caused a fuel valve /solenoid  to stay shut.

[Juski]

I don't think it's a blocked fuel pipe but I'm definitely going to have a look at the egr valve. With the air box off the electrical connector is clearly accessible.

My dad can get parts at cost so if it turns out to be that I'll be looking at about 110 quid to fix the problem.

I only need to get a few more months out of it before I get rid. And probably replace it with another Berlingo!

[cancunia]

Just a thought. Is there a fuel cutoff solenoid valve before the filter / primer on your engine? I do wonder if you just happened to find some other faults that had been lurking for a while and came to light investigating why your engine stopped. So far as the EGR is concerned & given your mileage it may be worth looking at some of the threads on EGR blanking for your engine as a way to find out where the problem lies.

[Gravity]

The mechanical side of the egr valve would not cause the problems you've described, but if the electrical connection was corroded, or suspect in some other way, it is possible, because it could give false signals to the ecu.

The egr valve is closed and therefore inoperative for most of a car's running time, but even if your's was jammed open the car would still start and run.

Gravity

[Juski]

Cheers Gravity!
When I get home tonight I'll check the connector & state of the wiring loom.

If it turns out to be just a job for contact cleaner I'll kick myself & jump for joy at the same time lol.

I've been thinking it might not do much harm whipping the valve off to have a butchers at it anyway.

Oh & I went looking for reviews about that diesel doc character... Omg I'm not even gonna go there now. 1* on google, average 2.4 on yell, and he's got a new facebook page without any recent reviews. Let's run out of stuff I can check myself first eh.

[Juski]

Right then.

I've had the EGR valve off - pipes didn't look half as coked up as I'd imagined they would - good news - but the plastic cover on the top has had a hole worn in it by the air box. Arghh.  So then I took the screws that hold the plastic housing out & had a peek inside.. found that the valve will turn but not smoothly at all like the innards are all pitted.  There are only 2 electrical connections used & I fancy applying some volts to give it a test. For science. Or summit.

Scratch that - felt inside the body of the valve & can feel the flap moving so the roughness might be something like bearings in the solenoid have gone. MOTHER HUBBARD.  Tried to investigate further by taking the entire plastic off the valve body but guess what - Torx bolts & one of the heads broke. Hahaha. 

So, new valve is coming my way & let's see if this gets me back on t' road.

UPDATE: I dismantled the thing further just out of curiosity to see how bad it'd got after watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuAfI1QbGAw

The stuck Torx bolt? A hacksaw soon dealt with that & I got the body apart with no more trouble.  It was fairly well coated with soot inside - especially the slider but nothing an old toothbrush couldn't shift by itself.  The motor part of the deal though - that's still rough as a badger's wossname & its guts aren't accessible.

I guess the ECU must reckon what position the EGR valve is in by doing calculations on various pressure & airflow measurements - there's certainly no position sensing in the valve itself.

[Juski]

Righto - got a new EGR valve on & it was still idling like a pig. Checked MAF sensor & it looked massively dirty so cleaned it & the contacts. Allowed to dry off overnight & refitted this morning. Now idling much better so took the van for a short test drive. A couple of short laps later loads of white smoke was coming out of the exhaust constantly. The prognosis for this old can isn't looking good :/