106 1.4 XND trouble...

Hi all,
Ive a 106 XND thats giving me grief...
the engine starts first time, idles fine and generally seems ok on the
drive. but it has no power when driven. any ideas? it makes knocking
sounds under load,and is a bit smokey. It was losing water, but that
has been traced to a cracked expansion tank (underneath... bugger to
spot). is it likely the head gasket has gone? is it a tricky job to do
at home? Ive worked on minis mostly, so I have a vague idea, but no
diesel specific knowledge.

Can you see the big ends if you remove the sump? id like to check it
isnt them knocking, the previous owner was a dizzy girl, who probably
ran without enough oil at some point...

TIA

Dave

 

I think these engines have problems with the cylinder liners (BICBW) in that
they can shift which could (or so someone told me) damage the headgasket.
The 1.5 lump is by all accounts a much better engine.

 

Yes you can see the big ends when you remove the sump. Whether you will be
able to detect any play in them or not is another matter.
You have to remember that this engine is not very powerful, which is why
they brought out the 1.5 version. If you are comparing it with a 1.4 petrol
engine (or even a 1.1), then there is no match.
If it is smoking, first check and/or replace the air filter. Then get some
injector cleaner and run it with that for a tankfull. Also you can clean out
a lot of crud from the system by finding a bit of empty road, put it in
second and floor the accellerator. Rev it to the limiter for about 15
seconds. You will most likely see a cloud of smoke in the mirror, which will
gradually clear. All diesels benefit from this particularly if they have
been driven slowly round town for a bit.
This engine has wet liners, and it is possible that when removing the head,
the liners also lift off their seals. If this happens you might have to
remove the pistons and put new seals at the bottom of the liners.
Moral is, check everything first, make sure you have a problem before
delving in too far.
How many miles has it done? Do you know if the servicing has been done,
particularly things like the timing belt replacement? If it has done
anything like 70k then change it unless you are sure that it has already
been changed. Broken belts are VERY expensive. I found that one out the hard
way many years ago.

 

<snip original bit about bad engine...>
Bit of an update:
When I left the keys with a friend to take it to MOT yesterday it was
sounding fine, nice quiet idle, but it died on the way to the MOT, now
it still starts first pull, but sounds like a bag of nails. Does anyone
know if there is usually a little bit of head gasket visable at
thejoint on the front of the engine, there are 2 'steps' which stick
out a bit on each end, as you look at it. the right hand one has a bit
of gasket visable, but the left doesnt, I suspect that this has gone
awol, and might be a clue?

Its easier to look at the bottom than the top, as the sump doesnt
involve removing any tricky bits, so i thought id start there and see
if I could find anything wrong, I have dti etc so tiny measurements are
possible.
Can you see up into the liners as well? obvious bore scoring from duff
piston rings should be spottable if so?

hmm, by no power I ment it wont go above about 25-30 mph, at all... it
definatly toast, not just a low powered engine in good condition,
question is which bit is bust...

Done, is ok.

in the process of doing now...

Hmm, i was afraid of that kind of thing, this has to be done fro
minimal cash (as always...) The haynes BOL suggests that f you are
careful it shouldnt be a problem, does anyone know if this is true, or
not?

Yes, I agree. If it was a simple cast iron (a series petrol) engine
it'd be in pieces by now, but Im new to this diesel/aluminium/liner
stuff...

Not sure but it has aparently been 'rebuilt' about 2 years ago. then it
ran fine for a bit before this problem surfaced.

yes previous owners dad was quite good at that sort of thing.

Ouch!

The thing I mostly dont understand is it starts fine as soon as the
glowplug light goes out, first pull.though it sounds very broken now
when it runs. Id expect if the head gasket has gone it would be a
bugger to start due to low compression?

thanks

Dave

 

Hi,

Comin' late on this one...

If you have problems on warm starts and lack of power, with a unusual noise
coming from the head, I'd suggest you to check & trim your valve clearance.
Critical point esp. on a Diesel, common job on TUD's as they are "classic"
fitting, I mean with bolts & nuts.
The higher-specs engines (XUD's and DW's) have rod shims instead, which
makes the valve clearance settings very unlike to be done.

Another point is the 1.4 TUD (TUD3, 1360cc) is known to head gasket failures
(approx. every 100,000km) due to a weakness in the block's design : the
cylinder barrels tend to lower in the block, this increasing the gasket/head
clearance, this involving a head gasket crack.

HTH,
G.T
205 Diesel & turbo-Diesel : www.205d.com

 

A good point. We just had this done on our 106 1.5 diseasel. It's made
a fantastic difference to the economy, 48mpg to 58 mpg.

 

An update, and a question:
Ive pulled the head today, after a few other preliminary checks failed
to point out any other causes. I cant see any obvious signs of blown
gasket, on a mini its usually dead easy to spot, soot and stuf, but
cylinders 1 and 2 look quite clean, not much soot, but 3 and 4 are both
very sooty, and there are other, non soot deposits, knid of like the
beige stuff you get on spark plugs.
Are head gasket problems on this engine normally obvious when the head
is pulled? any ideas why 3 and 4 would be so sooty?

h
Dave

 

Blowby from badly sealing valves that need a clean and regrind?

 

Or sticky valves. Another problem my wife's 106 had when it went in for
clearance adjustment was a sticky valve. The garage said that given the age
(N reg) of the car it probably wasn't worth the cost of a strip down to fix.
So they stuck some additive in the tank and now it seems fine. It was
probably a carbon deposit on the valve seat or something caused by the out
of tolerance clearances.