ΑΝ ΝΟΜΙΖΕΤΕ ΟΤΙ ΤΟ ΝΙΒΑ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΕΦΙΑΛΤΗΣ....ΤΣΕΚΑΡΕΤΕ ΑΥΤΟ

[firelord]

για αγγλομαθείς - δυστυχώς -

This mail contains strong language from the beginning - be warned.

Oh s***! Why do I do this to myself?

I've got to share this with you, I need a Disco lover's shoulder to
cry on - learn what you can. ('90 3.5 V8 D1 Carbs Manual)

It started (or should I say the truck didn't start) in the beginning
of last December, truck drove 30 feet then simply died. It was a very
cold morning so I squirted some "easy start" rocket fuel into the air
intake - truck fired up for a few moments and died again.

I already had it in my mind that it was a fuel delivery issue.

I un-hooked the fuel line and turned the motor over - dry as a bone.
So either the pump has failed or the elctrics to the pump have
failed. I dismantelled practically all the rear interior of the truck
to get to the pump and began systematically checking the electrics. I
checked the electrics as thoroughly as I could and decided it could
be 2 things - a dead relay or a dead pump.

I swapped the relay over - nothing. I put a live feed from the
battery to the pump (having determined which wires did what) nothing.
So I think you'll all agree with me here that the pump is dead.

Nothing for it but to order a new one - being "tight" I went for a
pattern part - (after all the truck is 15 years old this year) a few
days later the pump arrived. Looked a bit different to what came off -
but then it's a pattern so I didn't really give this much thought. I
took the old one out and swapped it for the new one. (takes five
minutes once you're in there)

Bingo! She fired first time and all looked well. She soon started to
run a little lumpy, but I figured that was because she'd been
standing around in the cold for over a week and I thought the carbs
must be full of air locks that need flushing out. So I took her for a
spin. After a few miles the lumpiness wasn't going away so I stopped
and took a look under the hood to see if I'd left something loose.

I nearly died when I saw high pressure fuel squirting out of the
carburettor overflows! It must have been squirting out a gallon a
minute! I wasn't far from home so I limped it back, watching the fuel
guage dive and seeing a slick forming behind me in the road! I made a
few calls just to see if there was anything "special" that needed to
be done that hadn't been done - nothing, I'd even checked the fuel
return pipes for blockages.

I concluded that the twits had given me a fuel injection pump! I
needed 4 bar pressure and an injection delivers about 40 bar! My
supplier then insisted that they'd ordered the right part - I really
pushed them on this issue "Oh, we've fitted loads of those - never
had a problem..." This is where I start to kick myself. Further calls
convinced me that the float chamber valves in my carbs were so old
and worn that they couldn't take the pressure from the new pump.

Sounds reasonable...? Well, if it's the right pump then that must be
the problem. Oh, what a "dick-head" I can be! I bought a couple of
service kits for the carbs and as an extra precaution I bought a fuel
pressure regulator/filter to replace my engine bay fuel filter.

The following day to this lot arriving "Land Rover Owner
International" were arriving to photograph the truck - out on
location too - the truck looked like shit and needed a damned good
polish - so no pressure on me then.

The carbs took an age to get off and service, not to mention plumbing
in the regulator. Got there in the end and fired her up - fuel now
sparayed out of the overflows and burst the seals on the regulator!
How down was I?

I called the writer at LROI and told him we were f****d as far as
getting my truck to the location was concerened - he was very
understanding but as he'd spent his £1000 or whatever on his
photographer we'd have to go ahead one way or another - he turned up
in his trusty 90 and towed me to the shoot location! When the feature
comes out you won't see many "action" shots! How embarrasing was that?

I told my supplier what had hapened and he said he'd order a new
pump - "I guess that one could be a broken one...". This was on the
21st December - did it arrive for Christmas? Did it f***! Did it
arrive for after the break? Did it f***! It finally arrived on the
12th Jan! Guess what - it looked totally different to the first pump -
in fact it was identical to the broken one I'd taken off the truck!
At last we're getting somewhere. Thinking we were winning soon put
the kiss-of-death on that...

I swapped the pump over, feeling really confident and fired her up -
she ran so smooth, no lumpiness at all, the overflows stayed dry too.
Then she stalled, spluttered and ran out of petrol! WTF?!!!!

OK - back to the electrics... Re-ckecked everything and all was
working. My truck was parked really awkwardly on the drive so I
swapped the "dead" new pump with the new "broken" pump so that I
could park the truck out of the way.

Over a cup of tea and a smoke I decided to check out the "dead" pump
just to see if there was a broken wire or something obviously wrong
with it that I could fix. Nothing wrong with it - except it didn't
actually have a pump-motor in it! All the connections, terminals and
wiring - but no pump-motor in the pump chamber! It wasn't a pump, it
was a sender unit!

So my supplier decided to order me another one! At least his supplier
offerd to overnight it this time, it arrived in the a.m. - same as
the first pump! They'd run out of pumps to send. Even Landrover
themselves had none and they were on indefinite back-order. So I was
well and truly stuffed!

Now for the good part - what posessed me to put the old pump-motor
across my battery I'll never know - but the blasted thing pumped! So
in the end I did a transplant and took the motor from the old
corroded pump and after a few mods fitted it to the motor-less sender
unit. At last we're up and running again.

What a shag that's been. It's cut out once on me so far but I think I
can quick fix it, I'm now waiting patiently for a motor replacement
kit for the new pump housing - then the whole thing will be new.

I'm not sure what the moral of this little tale of woe is - but you
can't trust anyone can you?

Cheers

Holy