I have decided to buck off the exhaust under the car in front of the transmission bracket at the back of the trans. This will take the suspect section out of the picture. This particular exhaust system has three items in line the rear is obviously the muffler the middle one is a resonator and the front one attached to the piece just back of the manifold is, I am guessing, a cat or trap ox of some sort. It does not show up in any of the parts diagrams or lists I have seen. It is quite small so if it has the typical honeycomb inside it it could plug up easily with carbon. If I cut the pipe ahead of this temporarily I should be able to eliminate the backpressure it may be causing. It is a quick test in any case. I will also continue with verifying the timing, I must have been looking at the wrong pointer, I can't see the engine running at all with the timing 25 deg out. Cheers Dan

__________________
It's always something simple
91 300D 603.960 (from japan) 194K
92 Toyota Diesel Landcruiser HDJ81-t 116K
02 Golf TDI new head courtesy of PO
87 300D
97 BMW 525 TDS Wagon 5spd
bunch of Onan and other diesel generators