Project BX17RD - the further adventures of PBO

[mat_the_cat]

3 hours ago, vulgalour said:

One of the most useful things was an old Black & Decker DN54 circular saw.  We've been clearing a lot of overgrown stuff out of the garden, old laminate flooring, and bits of fence and we've needed something to chop them down with.  Current pandemic restrictions means getting a tool we don't have hasn't really been viable, so providing this little saw actually works it should go through what we need to clear fairly quickly.  I'm guessing it's no newer than mid 90s.

Late 70s/early 80s I would say - my Dad had one when I was a small child. I recall it being present when we moved house in 1984, but was too young to remember him buying it, which ties the date down to roughly then.

[vulgalour]

Happy days, the new pump parts arrived!  They're even correct, so that's nice.  I used https://injectionpumps.co.uk and can't fault them.

Unfortunately, I've come unstuck.  To save me going from garage to house I brought the pump indoors, surprisingly it doesn't really smell of diesel now.  I've got the throttle spindle, o-ring, and governer spring assembly all assembled correctly as far as I'm aware.  The problem is, every time I line everything up and go to put the lid on, I can feel that something is stopping the lid lining up.  I'm not forcing this for fear of breaking internal components again.

The larger black lever (for want of a better term) on the top right of the internals is I think what's stopping the lid sitting down.  Of the two levers, the one the spring assembly goes into is the weaker and much easier to move, the larger lever is very difficult to move.  I suspect the larger lever has sprung back against the side of the case and I need to push on it as I put the lid on somehow.

 

My other suspicion is that I've got the  black lever that goes in the top of the case misaligned.  I removed this when dismantling the pump, I probably didn't have to, and now I'm not sure which way or position it should go on reassembly. I'm concerned that if I get it wrong it will press on the throttle shaft fork and break it.

Advice sought on this one.  I feel like I'm really close to having this back together and it's my trepidation on getting it wrong that's the only thing stopping me.

[vulgalour]

Had another look at this and a couple of suggestions were to unscrew the bit in the lid that pushes against the large black lever.  This made no difference.  I looked at what else could be interfering and removed both the throttle shaft and the black lever in the lid, this allow the lid to close.  On trying the throttle shaft and the black lever in separately, without the other component, the lid will shut.

So, there's an interference issue between the large black lever in the lid, the the throttle shaft and spring assembly.  The parts are all undamaged, the new parts identical to what came out, I just can't figure out how they're all supposed to interact inside the pump.  I also can't find diagrams or instructions on this and I don't have any photographs because you can't really see how these parts interact when you're taking the pump apart until you have it apart.  May have to send this off for a rebuild yet, just to get the thing back in one piece.

[vulgalour]

A no-contact collection was done today for a BX bonnet for the I got for £20.  It's the wrong colour, and it's from a turbo model.  At the price, all I was hoping is that it was as straight and tidy as it looked in the photographs and happily, I was not disappointed.  On getting it home I first checked fit, which was good, and then set about swapping the insulation pads on the bonnet since they're different and I can't actually shut the bonnet with the turbo insulation pad fitted.  Very easy to remove, you just gently ease the pad over the metal clips that hold it against the bonnet.  If anyone needs this insulation pad it's yours if you can collect it from Kent, it would get destroyed if posted, I'm sure.

The pad from my old bonnet was transferred to the new one, which involved removing a lot of trim clips since the turbo pad needs more clips to hold it in place.

On the back of the original soundproof pad was this little hand-written sticker.  I left it in place, it was fairly firmly attached.

The silver bonnet does fit a lot better than the old white one, it isn't exhibiting the same signs of being twisted.  There is still an issue with the passenger side headlight area, which is mostly down to the lower outer peg the headlight pushes onto being loose and bent. This also means the headlight is pushed slightly too far to the middle and just touches the bonnet, which is annoying.

Other than that, the overall fit of the bonnet is much better and I could even get it to fit the hole evenly with the adjustment available at the bonnet latch, which I can't with the original white one.

In person, it's a big improvement over the other bonnet.  The main issue at the front is that wonky headlight now.  Did my best to line up a shot from my previous efforts to get the alignment correct and while there does appear to be a slightly lift to the silver bonnet over the headlight in the photo, it's mostly down to the way the headlight has drooped a lot more and the angle of the photograph with the car currently being on ramps because of the injector pump issue.  In person, it's quite a large improvement.  Alignment along the wings is much better too, without the big rise on one side and dip on the other.

I'd say that was £20 well spent.  Once I've got the car running again I'll see about getting this bonnet repainted and see if I can find some way of straightening out that headlight.

 

[vulgalour]

Had a go at installing the pump today and found out quite quickly that I couldn't do it.  For one thing, I don't have a dial indicator so I need to get one of those to set up the pump in relation to the engine so that the timing is correct.  However, that shouldn't stop me installing the pump itself, that should be a nice straight forward job.  The most difficult bit is getting the woodruff key slots lined up.  There's a slot in the pulley, like so.  Note one of the mounting studs is removed here, I'll come to that in a moment.

There's another slot on the pump shaft that goes through the pulley and bolts from the other side.

However, the two slots are misaligned quite a lot.  I didn't set the engine to TDC when I removed the pump because that wasn't in the instructions.  Rather, the engine was rotated to the point that the bolts could be put through the pulley and into the pump mounted plate which means you don't have to remove the timing belt, etc. and, in theory, makes for a quicker job if you're just dropping the old pump back on.  The problem here, is that I'm dropping what is effectively a new pump on and that's why there's this alignment issue.

I got one of the pump mounting studs out fairly easily, the other two don't want to budge.  My thought there was to line up the pump with the pulley without the studs and then rotate the pump to the correct position while the pulley was still locked which, in theory, should allow everything to line up nicely and I can then order the tool I need and be done.  However, because I can't get those two studs out with the tools at my disposal, this option is a no go.  Also, I can't figure out how to rotate the pump off the car to make the key slot line up, and I daren't force anything since I've only just forked out a considerable sum to get it made nice again.

Either way it's faff to fix.  I either need to get the tools to remove those two mounting studs so I can fit the pump in the wrong orientation and then rotate it to the correct orientation, or I can remove the timing belt and pump pulley, fit the pump and then fit the pulley to the pump, after which I'd have to make sure the timing was correct, etc.  Third option is to save up some more cash and just get someone else to do it which honestly, is my preference at this point.  I'm fed up of working on engines, I don't understand how anyone derives any joy from any of it.

[MikeKnight]

Ok now I've seen the pic of the pump after you told me the problem on Telegram, I'd say get some plumbing pliers (or any pliers that open wide) and turn the shaft manually. Don't turn on the threads as it may damage them, but "technically" the only part of the shaft that's important is the woodruff key so you can scratch the shaft no problem as long as you don't gouge it like a barbarian. Try to turn it the way the engine would turn it, it's better for the pump, mechanical things generally don't like being turned backwards.

[vulgalour]

Right then, idiot boy here to give you another update on these stupid cars.

Attempted to fit the fuel injection pump to the BX again. This time, I had a stud extraction tool so I could, in theory, extract the studs, fit the pump in line with the pulley and use that to turn the pump to the correct orientation. Fell at the first hurdle in that I'm simply not man enough to undo the studs, even with a longer bar.

Second option then is to 'simply turn the pump'. Yeah, good one. It's incredibly difficult to turn because you can't easily get purchase on the pump shaft, especially when you don't want to actually damage it. I got almost far enough but it simply refuses to turn any further without the tool I'm using slipping. I just can't get sufficient purchase to turn it and it's just out of alignment with the pulley, so I'm stuck. If I could remove the studs or turn the pump shaft by hand just a few millimetres I could have this together.

But I can't, so that's that. I'm currently in the 'sell the ungrateful lumps' stage of the job, skirting the edge of 'scrap the fekkers' so it's definitely time to down tools and have a think about this for a while.

[vulgalour]

Right then, some good news for once.  Removing the nut from the spare pump wasn't too difficult once I figured out how to hold it to stop the nut just rotating the whole pump.  Then I could fit the nut to the new pump and turn until the woodruff key slot was in the correct location, take the pump to the car, carefully align it and watch the pump rotate just a bit further than I wanted it to so I couldn't line it up properly, remove the pump, realign it, and repeat several times.  It was... frustrating.  It seems I stopped the pulley in a spot where the pump is halfway between each stroke or whatever it is that makes it clunk into one of the four spots of rotation.  Eventually, I had it installed and had a mystery bolt left over that I've not identified yet.

The other annoying issue was that as you put the pump in place it quickly obscures your line of sight for the slots and the only way I found I could see it and align it was to stand alongside the driver's side wing looking down and over the engine, it was quite uncomfortable.

But finally I had it seated seemingly correctly and could start buttoning everything up.

I've got most of the pump ancillaries connected now.  None of it is particularly fun, access is unpleasant and a lot of it you have to do with spanners because you can't get in with sockets.  It is a chore.  With the majority of the pump installed I could then install the alternator.  In the manual it suggests you leave the alternator connected but I couldn't get in at the lower bolt for the injection pump so opted to remove the alternator.  The most annoying part of refitting the alternator isn't figuring out the convoluted path it must take past fuel and hydraulic lines, it's the one pivot bolt that there is no good access to.  You can't put a socket on it because the chassis rail is too close so you have to use a spanner, and because of other bits of car in the way you can only get about a quarter of a turn at a time.  The bolt is also about a mile long.

Getting the auxiliary belt on is no better, I hooked it over the alternator before finishing doing up that ultra long bolt because I know it's going to be a pain later if I don't.

Then I stopped for food and will likely finish this job off and do my best at timing the pump with the new dial indicator I bought tomorrow and, hopefully, it'll work.

In other news, I'm wondering how best to restore the front bumper which is badly scratched and gouged in places.  It's textured self-coloured white(ish) plastic and I'd prefer not to paint it if I can get away with it, I just want to make some of this damage go away since it bugs me every time I clean the car.

 

[Shite Ron]

My best guess for the plastic is a hot knife type soldering iron and some of the same type plastic melted in as filler material. Blend as best you can with the hot knife  then possibly finish with very fine wet sandpaper when cooled. My only experience of plastic repair though is repairing cracked water buts with a hot air gun and scraper, so I am no expert!

[vulgalour]

It's more experience than me, I've never done it before.

[loserone]

Definitely a soldering iron, clean then warm the contact surfaces, then push them hard together whilst scribbling side to side over the top surface perpendicular to the crack.  Do the underside first so you can add in some extra material if you have it.  Milk bottle top or a ball point pen.

[vulgalour]

Progress was made today, got the alternator fitted and the auxiliary belt tensioned which was faff due to rubbish access but not terrible.

Then went through and reconnected and tightened everything as needed it with the exception of the three bolts hold the pump to the mounting plate, these need to be left loose so I can rotate the pump to set the timing, rather like a distributor, or at least that's how it reads in the instructions.

With everything buttoned up and ready to time I got the dial indicator I'd bought out of its box and then found I need to order some probe extensions (or whatever they're properly called) since the one supplied is far too short.  So, it's right on the verge of starting now, just got to wait for yet more tools to arrive.  Here's the dial indicator next to the bolt you remove to check engine piston location so you can see the difference I'm talking about.

Ah well, nearly there now.

[Sunny Jim]

I've read the whole of this thread over the last few days and picked up loads of useful tips and ideas. I just wanted to say I admire your dedication and patience - the diesel pump is another hurdle I'm sure you'll overcome. All the best with it.

[jonathan_dyane]

Fair play for putting the bottom nut back on, many lesser men have thrown that one away.

You have already got the DTI so you might as well do the job properly but I’ve always just fine tuned the timing by ear

[vulgalour]

Had another crack at the BX today to see if I could get the thing running.  Carefully followed the instructions in the book right up until it came to turning the front wheel by hand with the car in gear.  Annoyingly, with the car in any gear, the wheel just wouldn't turn, like something was locking it up.  A bit of a think and a tap of the starter motor with a broom handle sorted it out, looks like the starter motor has taken to sticking lately.  That done, I could rotate to the requisite point with the dial indicator.

Now, I'm not sure if it's because I've not slept properly for a week so my brain is currently full of bad earths, or if it's just one of those jobs, but I found this to be an incredibly annoying thing to do.  The magnetic base on the dial indicator is next to useless because all the magnetic surfaces are too far away from where I need to be, and all the flat surfaces close enough aren't magnetic.  So trying to get a reliable reading of any sort on the dial indicator is pretty much impossible.  In reading the manual it then turns out you need to leave the first dial indicator in place while you set up a second one for the pump which... well... I've only got one indicator and I cannot see how I'm supposed to set a second one up for the pump.  So that puts us back to the alternative of 'move the pump about until it sounds about right' which is the route I'm likely going to go here.  Get it running well enough and then get someone that knows what they're doing to fine tune it for me.

In an effort to see how far off it was I did try starting the car.  It does now prime without the pump making weird noises, and in fact I couldn't hear any weird noises like it was making before, so hopefully that means the air leak has been cured.  Unfortunately, the battery on the car is quite flat and the only other battery I have access to is too small to offer enough of a boost.  Because of how the cars are set up at the moment and the fact both of them are currently sort of broken, I couldn't hook jump leads up either without expending effort and energy I didn't have on pushing cars about.  Never mind, at least I've learned that things turn over freely, the starter motor may be on the way out, and nothing is leaking while the car is sat still and the engine is being cranked.  I did notice the driver's side engine mount has a lot of movement in it, not ecause the bolts are loose, it just seems to be that the rubber is very soft so perhaps that's going to need replacing too.

Stuck the battery on charge and turned my attention to something else.  I'd recently bought a Valeo original headlight adjuster to replace the broken one on the car.  It's a very slightly different design than the original but is the same where it matters.

To install it, I first needed to straighten out the hole it goes into.  I also had to use the old collar since the new one seems to be just a tiny bit too thick, I can cure this by sanding the back of it down by about the thickness of one half of a birthday card.  For now, old and new will do.

Initially, the headlight sat quite badly, as I thought it might, because this corner has had something done to it in the past and something about the headlight surround is out of shape slightly.

There are other weird alignment issues on the front.  The subtle crease that goes down the centre front of bonnet, grille, and bumper, all line up.  However, the black grille itself seems to sit too far over to the right by a little bit.  I can centralise the grille and then the crease doesn't line up with anything so I'm not sure what that's about.  I did some faffing about with a hammer and a pair of pliers and massaged the headlight mounting area until I'd got the fit improved as much as I could.  It's not perfect, there's still something amiss about the bonnet or the wing that I can't pin down and everything is so flimsy it's difficult to get things to stay in place for very long once you've adjusted things.

To celebrate, the passenger side headlight lens then fell off.

Luckily I have a spare headlight and it happens to be the passenger side.  On fitting the replacement headlight I noticed the lens on it too is loose on the bottom edge so that will likely fall off too soon.  I'll have to get some sealant to glue the lenses back on again, recommendations welcome providing the sealant is white or clear.  The front end is looking marginally better.  I do need a new pair of indicators, both of mine have broken clips so they have a habit of popping out if you're not careful, at least they're easy to get hold of.

This weekend I'll have another crack at starting the car with the battery charged and fiddling with the pump until my ears reckon it's about right, there's not a great deal else I can do about it other than that really.

[vulgalour]

Good news!  The BX is running again.  After some trial and error I found the spot the pump seemed to run best and now the car starts quite willingly which is great.

Bad news!  After a while of running at idle the car stalls.  If you apply a lot of throttle and let off, it stalls.  Raising the idle made no difference and moving the pump just made the car stall quicker.

I have no idea what the cause of this is.  The car is driveable, and perhaps some fresh fuel would help even though what's in isn't that old.  It doesn't seem to be exhibiting any of the air leak signs it was before and the pump isn't make any unusual noises or leaking (just as well really, considering) so I suspect this is a timing or set up issue rather than anything actually being broken.  The only problem I've faced in setting up is that to get the car to run its best, the pump is all the way at the end of the adjustment, by which I mean turned fully towards the windscreen, and I'm not sure that's correct.  If I turn the pump back it stalls more quickly, and if I turn it back further you start to get knocking noises, so it is where it is.

Help and advice, as always, welcome on this one.  I do want to get someone with more knowledge than me to set this up properly and get it to best tune so it runs the best it can, I just have no idea who to go to for that since I'm not after any sort of performance gains here, I just want it set up right.

[vulgalour]

Decided to attempt my errand today, a quick jaunt to the shop to pick up the stuff I need for the Princess.  BX was running well enough yesterday that I could have got there and back providing I feathered the throttle when stopping, so I had hoped to stick some fresh diesel in and do the errand and see if it just sort of improved a bit with use.  The BX had other ideas.  It now won't idle long enough for me to get it in gear and even with throttle applied, it will eventually stall.  It's behaving more like it's running out of fuel than like the timing is off, and when the wind changed direction and blew some exhaust fumes into the car, it smelled a bit paraffin-y.

One long walk to the shop and back and supplies got at least, one of those walks where it's just too far to be pleasant, and almost not far enough to justify going in the car.  I'm going to chuck a can of fresh diesel in the BX and see if it improves matters before fiddling with any settings.  I have already run out of patience with this job now so I would very much like to give it to someone else to sort.

[vulgalour]

Got a lift up to the fuel station and got a jerry can of diesel for the BX.  Dumped it in and watched the fuel gauge bob up and down, which is not normal, it's usually a nice clean sweep, so something is up there.  Anyway, fresh diesel meant the car would idle for long enough to actually select gears and I could sometimes get it to hold on the throttle when it tried to stall and recover back to idling normally.  That was something.  So I decided to run to the fuel station and stick more fuel in to see if it would make any more difference.  It did, the car was more willing to idle but still tried to stall sometimes, the fuel gauge now swept cleanly rather than bobbing, and I got home fine with the car stalling just as I pulled onto the drive.  Then, when I got out, I noticed a puddle of diesel on the floor.

What I can't figure out is where it's coming from.  It's not where I had the jerry can when I was using that and I didn't spill any from the jerry can either.  There's no obvious sign of where it's leaked out and it's definitely diesel.  It must have come from the back of the car because it's parked now where it has been while doing fuel stuff.  The drop on the bumper is from where I filled up at the fuel station.  Looking underneath the car there's a couple of spots of LHM under the rear displacer which is from the bit where the sphere meets the socket as far as I can tell.

Diesel tends to stick around when it leaks so I expected to see something obvious under here.  My gut feeling is that there's a leaking return pipe somewhere at the back, I've done the hoses at the front and everything is staying fuel tight up there as far as I can tell, but I've done nothing at the back because of the tediousness of access.

I'm admitting defeat on this one.  It will have to go to a specialist, or a talented enthusiast, to get to the bottom of the issue.  I am at a loss and have no desire to do more on it.

[mat_the_cat]

This may have been asked/answered before, and doesn't quite fit the symptoms of appearing at the rear of the car, but how are the front to rear fuel pipes, behind the driver's side sill? They are a common failure point and have likely been replaced already, but doesn't necessarily mean they are OK now.

[vulgalour]

They're dry, and no obvious signs of damage.  I've done the flexible bit that runs from the sill up to the filter, but there was no signs of any issues along the length of the sill for the hard line so I left it alone.  Also, no further diesel has appeared so I'm a bit confused as to where the blob on the floor has come from.

[mat_the_cat]

Ah ok, I think we can rule those out then. I can understand why you've lost your mojo somewhat! I wonder whether a diesel specialist would be able to pressure test the whole system, to see whether it is indeed an air leak, or whether the symptoms fit another fault?

[vulgalour]

Today, there was a new patch of diesel under the car and it's about in the area where the pipes come out of the tank so I begin to suspect there might actually be a split or pinholed return line.  In my reading of other diesels, a split/holed return line can cause unpredictable stalling, it seems to effectively lean out the fuel by drawing in air and the longer the car runs, the more air it sucks in.  Car stops running, air is expelled in the usual way through the breather pipe etc. and there's no air to be drawn up to hinder a restart.

If I run the car from a jerry can, and take the return line from the engine to an overflow container instead of allowing it back to the tank I assume that will allow me to diagnose whether or not there is a split return line issue at the back of the car by isolating it from the system.

[vulgalour]

Hooray, time off work!  Got myself under the BX this evening to see if I could find the source of the diesel leak, a leak that mysteriously hasn't reappeared.  With the exception of the rear suspension sphere, nothing is wet under here.  I'm pretty sure the reason the rear suspension sphere is weeping is due to the union between the sphere and the thing it screws into which is, I'm told, a fairly common BX thing.  I haven't found the parts needed to sort this out and the weep isn't so bad that it'll fail an MoT, besides which it only manifests when the car has rested overnight and had a little sink.  So, underneath the car then.  There's nothing obvious at all from the filler neck to the fuel tank, and the fuel tank itself seems in decent shape, what I can see of it.

There's a couple of steel lines on the inner sill that are a bit surface rusty, but they're not pitted or wet so while replacing this will probably be sensible, I'd be surprised if they're the cause of the issue.

I made sure to use my special invisible ramp on the other side of the car.  You can see there's a bit of rust appearing at the end of the sill, I'll need to address this soon and if the tank needs to come off, then would be a good time to do it.

Other than that, everything is normal.  Nothing is wet or damp, it's all quite dry back here, and there's been no reappearance of the diesel under the car so I'm not even sure what was leaking before.  I know it wasn't LHM as it smelled like diesel and wasn't green.

I have a mystery oil leak at the front too, the lower engine mount has a bit of oil on it but I can't figure out where that's coming from as everything I can see higher up is dry.  This seems to be engine oil rather than LHM or diesel.

Now for the annoying bit. With the car up on the ramp so I could roll around underneath it simply didn't want to stall, idled like a champ and behaved perfectly normally.  As soon as I started getting it back on the floor it tried to stall, and then succeeded.  It's not particularly difficult to restart, though it is notably easier to restart when the rear end is higher than the front end.  I did read there was a reason for this when I was looking for what causes running problems with diesels but I can't remember what the reason was, typically.

I had a look under the bonnet and the line to the preheater looked a little damp, but was dry to the touch.  That could be the issue?  I know the preheater can cause issues and while I didn't think my car had one, it does, it's a weird inline metal cylinder thing on the driver's side and is on the line in to the fuel filter.  Next test is the jerry can test, I don't have that sorted today, and this will basically rule out everything from the tank to the fuel filter since we'll be bypassing them all.

At this point I'm thinking the sensible course is to drop the fuel tank and replace all the fuel lines that I haven't already.  It's not a particularly expensive job, just an involved one.  It will also give me a chance to have a look at the end of the sills where you can't really see and deal with any issues that might be developing there.  I'm pretty sure all of this fuel issue is down to the previous owner that ran the thing on unfiltered used veg oil and it's just taken this long to work through the system and start causing problems, if nothing else it's another good reason for dropping the fuel tank so any gunge in there can be got out.

[stuboy]

sounds like you may finally sort the starting issue

[mat_the_cat]

I admire your determination! I have a set of the genuine Citroen pipes available, but TBH unless you're desperate for originality I would replace with copper.

[vulgalour]

It's been suggested the issue is blocked pipes/pick up and that does make sense given what sludge I removed from the filter housing when I put the new fuel filter in.  Next job is to do the jerry can bypass to make sure it is fuel blockage rather than air ingress (it could still be both) and if it runs better off the can rather than from the tank then at least I should be on the right track to sorting this.  I was just going to scrub the steel pipes, give them a splash of rust converter and paint, and leave them be unless I found something really wrong with them, but if I do need to replace them, I'll give you a shout, @mat_the_cat

[vulgalour]

Right then.  Let's isolate the fuel pipes and fuel tank from the equation by running the BX off the jerry can.  Initially this went well and after a while I turned the car off and back on again, and it was going fine until it wasn't.  Hmm... a few repeats and it wasn't actually improving.  Right, so the problem is likely between the jerry can and the engine then, and most likely between the jerry can and the injection pump so that means it's probably a blocked fuel filter.

Took the fuel filter off, emptied it out and honestly, there wasn't anything of note to see.  The diesel was nice and clean, there wasn't any gungey deposits or big chunks, the filter and seals still looked in great shape so I just put it all together again.  It now needed a lot more throttle to idle so I took a chance and adjusted the injection pump to a more normal looking location than where I had it before and it just... works.

I mean, I waited a while for the car to stall and it just didn't.  I gave it a lot of revs and then let off which would normally make it die and it wouldn't.  Took it for a drive around the block and it was perfectly happy with no attempts to stall or anything.  It just works.  I have no idea what I've fixed, I don't know what was wrong, all I know is that it works as it should now... or at least it does today.  We'll see if it's still behaving tomorrow.

[LightBulbFun]

26 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

I mean, I waited a while for the car to stall and it just didn't.  I gave it a lot of revs and then let off which would normally make it die and it wouldn't.  Took it for a drive around the block and it was perfectly happy with no attempts to stall or anything.  It just works.  I have no idea what I've fixed, I don't know what was wrong, all I know is that it works as it should now... or at least it does today.  We'll see if it's still behaving tomorrow.

yay happy to see its working now

and I hope it continues  to do so! 

what a saga this has been! and I thought diesels where supposed to be relatively simple etc! 

[vulgalour]

How French that the answer to what was wrong with it is literally *shrugs*.

[MJK 24]

I wonder did it have trapped air in it somewhere?  Diesels can run very lumpy until they’ve had a decent run (say 20 mins at motorway speeds) to get all the air out after a fuel filter change.