DiGIToYS

I had a strange noise, sound something like a repetitive clicking or tapping.  It took me a while to find the fault here – but I notice that when I disconnected one of the vacuum pipes, the noise went away. This led me to think a vacuum fault.

The Vacuum pump (for brakes etc) runs on a pushrod surrounded by a spring that is activated directly with the cam shaft. Oil build up causes the problem, as the pushrod cannot complete it’s full movement properly.

I noticed that the tapping sound could only be heard when sat stationary, like at traffic lights. The way to tell if this is the fault is ridiculously simple, pump the brake pedal a good few times and see if the noise goes away!

I replaced the whole pump including pushrod – be careful as there are a couple of different sizes of rod available. I have since learnt that just draining the oil out of the pump and giving everything a good clean would have sorted it, but it didn’t cost a fortune so I’m not too concerned.

This is the pump:

It is located at the front of the engine, with 2x bolts holding it in place. One bolt is accessed via the top of the engine, and the second at the bottom. The second one was a pain to get to as space is limited so a crows foot spanner like the one below or something similar will be needed.

I had a bit of trouble with the van recently – Engine turning over like a good en, but refused to fire up.  Tried a can of Easy Start but still nothing. Plenty of power etc but just refused to fire up.

Anyway, eventually I found that I had a little wiring fault.

Here is what you need to do:

Remove the cover and get into your relay / fuse box. This is what you are looking for.

Remove relay 109 from the fuse box area (near your right knee as you sit in the drivers seat) to test.

Take the removed relay 109, there should be a little circuit diagram on the side, get a small length of wire and join it to terminal 30 then terminal 87, so you got a small loop, basically you bypass the switch in the relay. Put the relay back in the fuse box.
Put in key and see if the glow plug light comes on and try starting.
If the van starts up, it will be relay 109 is faulty or a problem with the relay / fuse box or else the wiring. At least you are back on the road, I’m not sure if this could cause the battery to flatten so I would remove the relay when you get to your destination.

Cheapest thing to try is a replacement relay – shouldn’t  cost much more than £5.

In my case a wire was broken in the engine bay, leading to the ECU. The wires are all sat in trunking that runs right across the engine and eventually due to the head and vibration etc, they wear down and all of the insulation goes. I replaced about 5 or 6 wires and wrapped them all very tight in insulation tape before putting them back.

This worn wiring can also cause limp mode – it took me a good week of this before I found the fault on another occasion.