Black smoke & loss of power

[TheKeymeister]

98 306 1.9 tdi (XUD) bog standard with lucas pump, lately it seems to have lost top end power & black smoke at full throttle. Struggles to make 70 when it sees anything that looks like a hill, usually slows down to 60 or less. Have changed air & fuel filter, neither looked outrageously clogged up. Doesn't seem to be any blockage in air inlet duct. No change whatsoever so far.

Any ideas what to look at next?

[padge]

boost leak, ckeck the dseal, and turbo hose, see if its split, inlet bolts might need tightening aswell

[Mal]

Any unusual noises from the turbo?

[Just Sean]

Your LDA pin may have fallen into the turbo mate.

[darrenjlobb]

Your LDA pin may have fallen into the turbo mate.

Complete rubbish / off topic.

Back on topic....Sounds like you have a boost leak, as already said, most common places are the D seal (remove intercooler to reveal) and / or the boost pipe at one end or another....Or in a worst case the turbo could have failed, but if you can hear loud hissing, that sounds unlikely!

[andywhy]

Hi Sam I'd also say boost leak as well given your description.

[Carlos vinyls]

I have the same thing with mine but haven't got the black smoke I have a sound coming from the engine bay it's like a Whistling noise

[TheKeymeister]

Unbelievably it's taken me until today to look at this - I have another car that I've been using and sorned the 306 when the tax ran out. Moving house hasn't helped either lol.

Anyway I took what I could apart in the spare half hour I had, there was a small amount of oil in the intercooler, not an unreasonable amount and about what I'd expect for an engine that age, probably a tablespoon or two. The pipe from the front of the intercooler down to the injector pump however was full of oil, I suspect it's the lowest point and acts as a bit of a drain.

I'm going to clean everything up as well as I can and see if that improves things, the D seal has a split in it too so that can't be helping matters.

The inlet manifold is full of shit (suspect from the EGR) so I want to get that off too and give it a bath, as I haven't got the manual for this car, can anyone tell me how it comes off? I could only see some big allen/torx head bolts that looked like head bolts. Once I've got the manifold off I can have a proper look at the turbo too, see if it has shit a seal.

[andywhy]

That pipe I would expect to have some oil as it comes from the intercooler. It might help to give it a clean though.

The D seal will give you a boost leak, you'll definitely want to replace that. They soak up with oil, expand and then perish and split. They're about £3 from a Peugeot dealer. If I remember rightly it's the only place you can get them.

If you want to disable the EGR, the easiest way I found was to with the ignition on and engine off, open the throttle to full so the microswitch activates and then disconnect the EGR plug. It'll stay in the last position it was at. I got a lot of power back by doing that but it only worked if in the position when the throttle is open.

[TheKeymeister]

Took it apart some more after work tonight, it would appear all the oil is coming from the breather, the inlet pipes only become oil covered after the breather connects on. If it was the turbo I'd expect to only see it on the pipe between turbo and intercooler but that's not the case...

Had a run round to the dealers for a new D seal, apparently they don't keep them on the shelf any more so I've got to wait until Monday! Other than that I just need a few normal jubilee clips instead of these silly ones it comes with, and then hopefully we'll be back in business.....I've got a half leather interior and a bosch pump in the shed that's been there for months waiting to be fitted!

[padge]

pump might be seized if its been stored without diesel in it.

[TheKeymeister]

Right, put it all together just now, new D seal, checked everything I could see. Admittedly haven't had much of a poke down the turbo end of things as I can't work out how you're supposed to get to it (obviously i'm too spoilt from working on Land rovers all the time with a huge engine bay)

Was a bit ropey starting up, but it has been stood since about the end of September. Still getting clouds of black smoke when coming off throttle, and theres a huge black sooty patch on the drive. Haven't took it out on the road to test if its boosting properly as it isn't taxed and I'm reluctant to tax it unless it's working. Not sure what the limiter is set at but it stops at about 3700rpm, whether that's normal or not I don't know. When coming off throttle there was a few air bubbles in the clear fuel pipe, this seemed to get better the longer it was running, until it more or less sorted itself out just before I got pissed off and came inside.

The only other cock up that's happened is the heater matrix appears to have not survived the winter as during all this I ended up with a lovely pool of coolant in the drivers footwell. Occasionally when really revving it, there was a cough of white-ish smoke from under the intercooler, I guess this is probably to do with the dodgy matrix.

Any suggestions most welcome. I really don't want to end up binning this car, as much as it is a big pile of shit right now

[andywhy]

Hi Sam. It'll be ropey if it's been sat that long. It's probably got air in the fuel system. Just make sure your glow plugs are good too. If it runs, don't worry about that for now. To get to the turbo I've heard it's best done jacked up and with the wheel and arch covers off. I never did dabble with that though as I wanted reliability

There shouldn't be any smoke when coming off throttle, only when on. I'd look more into this if you can take it for a drive and see if it still does it under load. It could just a be a lag in the exhaust system pushing out soot that was made on throttle. I'd run it until there are no bubbles left in the fuel system and see what happens then. Air in the lines can cause all sorts of issues. If you can't get air out of the lines, check the fuel filter and replace if needed (only about £4) and check the priming grenade isn't letting air in too.

Limiter should be about 4200rpm, but I wouldn't like to approach those RPM's regularly anyway so I wouldn't worry. Governor mods are well explained on the forum and I'm sure someone will help if you need it.

The matrix is an entire dash rip out job unfortunately from reports I've read on here and other forums. Not sure about the white smoke under the intercooler. This said and as you're aware the intercooler is easy enough to get off if you wanted to investigate where it's coming from.

Don't bin it just yet, it's just teething trouble and a bit of bad luck. It happens sometimes. Look at me and my stupid Passat, and that's still going

[TheKeymeister]

Ah, just worked out who you are Andy

It did the exact same thing before it was temporarily 'laid up', covered the road in soot when coming off throttle, total lack of power - i.e struggled to make 70 and gave up when anything looking like a hill came up, and you could sometimes see the smoke through the back window.

Fuel filter and air filter already replaced, the old ones didn't look bad at all. The white smoke under the intercooler seemed pretty consistent with more coolant pouring in to the drivers footwell so I reckon it was the steam drawing into the engine bay from the leak in the matrix. Still at a loss to this problem though!

[TheKeymeister]

Post mortem carried out last night/today, I've been far too spoilt working on land rovers with loads of space around the engine, would have taken 2hrs max to get manifolds off on the Defender but took almost a whole day on the 306!

Induction pipework nice and oil soaked most of the way down, expected to find the turbo drowning in black runny mess but surprisingly it wasn't. When I got it off finally, there's loads of resistance in the turbo, was like tightening a screw up. Got to get it fixed, moted and taxed though to get my personal plate off it... So now on the hunt for a new turbo, it's a KKK K03 so I assume the same needs to go back on it.

Wish me luck...

[Mattcheese31]

Post mortem carried out last night/today, I've been far too spoilt working on land rovers with loads of space around the engine, would have taken 2hrs max to get manifolds off on the Defender but took almost a whole day on the 306!

Induction pipework nice and oil soaked most of the way down, expected to find the turbo drowning in black runny mess but surprisingly it wasn't. When I got it off finally, there's loads of resistance in the turbo, was like tightening a screw up. Got to get it fixed, moted and taxed though to get my personal plate off it... So now on the hunt for a new turbo, it's a KKK K03 so I assume the same needs to go back on it.

Wish me luck...

there was 4 different turbo's fitted to 306's, your k03, K14, T2 and something else that i forget right now lol . .

[TheKeymeister]

Are they easily interchangeable? Want to put this back together with the minimum of fuss. Also going to look into a cheap and easy (pikey) way of removing the EGR as it didn't half get in the way when taking it apart so I don't plan on putting it back.

Even after all this, still got big love for the XUD, and I fully intend on fitting one to the other halfs vitara one day.