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[VXL V6]

I see you have the ticking EGR on switch off, ours does that too, aparently it's to stop the valve sticking.

[Sir Tigger KC]

Awesome result James! 

And I'm ever so slightly jealous of your FFRR!   

[JamesV6CDX]

I was worried this morning. I started her up, and soon afterwards, she was coughing and stuttering. I gave her a gentle rev, there was a clear injector rattle, and a mushroom cloud (I cannot begin to say how much) grey diesel smoke from the exhaust. I certainly won't be getting any neighbourly awards anytime soon  It took me by surprise, stank, and went as far as the eye could see  which wasn't very far, by the thickness of it.

This was followed by a misfire, but not for long enough to log a code -(even a pending one) - I had to turn it off.

Running it on the driveway even for diags wasn't an option after that, so I took it out for a careful spin (I am lucky enough to live right next to some really remove country lanes where you see one car an hour). Anyway, after less than 2 miles smoking, it went away completely, and runs clean as a whistle.

I obviously can't give it a proper long run during the lockdown, but I did the ten miles to the nearest big supermarket, to top up on core essentials, such as crates of lager, and BBQ charcoal, using A roads.

I was pleasantly surprised. I didn't go over 3,000 rpm, but it's very drivable. The clutch/box is brilliant, handling exactly as expected - everything works. There is little initial turbo lag, and the turbo works as expected. Computer says 48mpg, having reset it before setting off.

But, there's a definite injector clatter if accelerating under load, and a slight drop in power / occasional hesitation, which I think is linked.

Thought process

1) It's had open heart surgery. Treat it to a tank of V power, drive carefully, see what it's like afterwards.

2) No4 injector is a second hand one. The original No4 we know is goosed. (We know this because when I swapped 1 and 4 before the repair, neither pots fired, whereas before the swap, no1 did). Maybe this injector needs coding to work properly, and is the noisy one because it's not coded?

3) Forget coding the injector - send the duff (but original, and coded) no4 injector off for reconditioning, then fit it.

4) Do some sort of leak-back test, to see if I can identify the unhappy injector?

I'm only guessing it's number 4, but it could be any of them. I've seen the leak-back tests on ebay, which look quite good.

Opinions please ladies and gents - This is not my area of expertise, I'm just trying to apply common sense.

I should add - no pending, or stored codes after a 20 mile round trip, which means i must have at least got it right putting it back together

It's perfectly usable as it is, but it's not right. And, given we now have compression, and are not burning oil, I don't want to undo that good work by running it with a duff injector that will mess up the internals again

[JamesV6CDX]

£30 a year road tax, though!!? 

[Doctor Gollum]

Option three would be a reasonable one.

Re confirming which injector is tapping, use a long 1/4" extension and place one end against each injector in turn whilst holding tother end between finger and thumb. Should be able to readily identify the grumpy one.

Don’t overlook a potential wiring fault causing poor injector operation 

[JamesV6CDX]

Option three would be a reasonable one.

Re confirming which injector is tapping, use a long 1/4" extension and place one end against each injector in turn whilst holding tother end between finger and thumb. Should be able to readily identify the grumpy one.

Don’t overlook a potential wiring fault causing poor injector operation 

Cheers DG, I'll warm her up tomorrow and then do that

I should add, during the test run - she ran on all 4, continuously - no misfiring

[dave the builder]

leak down test can be done with some fish tank air line or washer jet pipe and 4 empty pop bottles
plenty of youtube videos 
costs nothing and gives a good indication on what all 4 injectors are doing 
you could temporarily blank the EGR to test drive,rule that out 
are you sure you swapped the duff injector for the used one (after moving it to other cylinder)
 Migv6 le Frog Fan (Albs) had injector problems recently with his French tractor

[Doctor Gollum]

The smoke on start up suggests an injector leak, so option 4 whilst you are waiting for the refurbished one

[JamesV6CDX]

The smoke on start up suggests an injector leak, so option 4 whilst you are waiting for the refurbished one

I'll be interested in how she behaves from a cold start tomorrow.....

With that said, she was smokey from the moment I ran her, when revved, after the rebuild. The injector hadn't had any fuel by that point, so can't see it would have leaked over time 

[Doctor Gollum]

Don't underestimate the fuel pressure, any leak or wrong duration will add far more fuel that the ecu has accounted for.

[JamesV6CDX]

Don't underestimate the fuel pressure, any leak or wrong duration will add far more fuel that the ecu has accounted for.

That's Very interesting, DG.

On the very first ever start up, after a couple of minutes, I noticed that during the rebuild, I had somehow forgotten to tighten up what I think is a return union of some sort on the rail, and diesel was pissing everywhere, which caused the engine to run terribly after it's first two minutes running.

I tightened it up, and it seemed to smooth out again - but I wonder if it's a knock on effect from that, and just took a while to sort itself out.......

I had forgotten about it - as it's not unusual to make oversights on a job like that, but now you mention fuel pressure / leaks.......

[Migv6 le Frog Fan]

leak down test can be done with some fish tank air line or washer jet pipe and 4 empty pop bottles
plenty of youtube videos 
costs nothing and gives a good indication on what all 4 injectors are doing 
you could temporarily blank the EGR to test drive,rule that out 
are you sure you swapped the duff injector for the used one (after moving it to other cylinder)
 Migv6 le Frog Fan (Albs) had injector problems recently with his French tractor

Good advice. This was very helpful in diagnosing my injector issues. There are videos on youtube to show its done, although it really is pretty much as simple as it sounds.

[JamesV6CDX]

So the cold start this morning. Fired up first time, but didn't idle very smoothly. Some smoke, but not much, and quickly cleared.

When I went to gently accelerate in first gear, the engine just bogged down, and nearly stalled, but then came back into life again. Did this a couple of times, but didn't last long.

Now I don't think that is "an injector". One single injector would, at worst, surely just cause a misfire - and even running on three, it wouldn't behave like that. It was as if the fuel had just been turned off for a moment or two.

Interestingly the fuel gauge had just dropped into the red. I have put in a couple of bottles of wynnes ultimate diesel treatment along with half a tank of fuel in, and the fuel starvation / trying to cut out symptom has seemingly disappeared. The injector also doesn't seem quite so noisy, but it still feels a bit asthmatic / not quite right, especially in the lower gears / revs.

I wish I could look at the injector coding, but the tool I Cannot name just will not support it on an Astra J - it's quite well documented that it doesn't work with this model, for some reason.

Sadly I'm now at work for a few days, so not so much time to play around with it

[STEMO]

You'll get there, James, it's all good experience 

[VXL V6]

Don't discount the EGR, sounds very similar symptoms to what ours had. Cleaned it (fully - solenoid as well) a few times but it still failed eventually, new one was the only answer and I was lucky to win a new genuine one on eBay for less than half the price of a dealer supplied one.

Ours did raise EGR codes though along with complete lack of power which required code reset to make it driveable again! Also cleaning the boost valve (one torx) is a worthwhile excercise.