A few weeks ago my brother tells me that the white SD is having some bad problems starting. Okay, glow plug is dead, no big deal. A few days later it starts idling rougher and an occasional, but very loud clank/clink noise is heard. Did the wonderful 'loosen the injector line' trick and found that cylinder #4 wasn't running. Took the injector out and saw that there was no more pintle!!! Well that would explain a bad idle. Also noticed that the prechamber ball was not in the right place. Didn't have the idea to actually poke it with anything though... so only ordered a new set of injectors (the rest didn't look too hot either).

Put in the new injectors, and actually thought to poke around at the prechamber ball and it was loose. The clank/clink noise was that ball bouncing around in the prechamber... Wanted to see if it would run decent enough for my brother to drive while we waited for the prechamber and tools to come in. Fired it up and it ran just a little bit better. Thought that it wouldn't be great for the engine, but would be alright for a few days. He drove it for about a week, after which I had second thoughts and parked it.

About another week later (this Tuesday) prechamber tools finally came in. I replaced the prechamber, GP, etc. I noted that the injector's pintle was still intact (was worried the bouncing ball would have damaged it). Fired it up with new prechamber and it ran WORSE!!! It knocked really really bad, smoked like crazy, and rocked really bad as well. I thought that it was just all the built up crap from that cylinder not being run for a week. So off to the italian tune up! The knock slowly went away, but the car never really got any power back. floored, it could maintain 65. Its never been that slow before...

Got back to the house and it was still idling really rough. Did the injector crack test again and found that it was really only running on 3.5 cylinders. WTF?!?!? Took out the injector for #4 and THE PINTLE WAS GONE (see pic). The prechamber ball is still intact. Okay... replaced that nice new injector (is that a warranty defect ), and put one of the better ones from the old set back in #4. No change in idle. Swapped #4 #5 injector. Injector line cracking behavior did not follow the injector.

I took a video of how the engine runs during the line cracking test:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6927372785548115014&hl=en

Something that I didn't mention earlier is that the bad prechamber has two large extra holes on the side. These holes appear to have been caused by the injector spray pattern being fubar. The head even has some *slight* indentations in the same location.

Especially with that last observation, this is my theory. This whole series of events started with the IP not functioning properly on #4. Something along the lines of badly out of time or longer lower pressure delivery, etc. This is what probably resulted in the rough starting. The IP problem caused the pintle to get damaged on the injector, which would make the injector spray a stream in some random direction. This is when the idle went to crap, and also caused the destruction of the glowplug and prechamber. With the new injector and prechamber the problem started all over again. It destroyed the pintle on that injector within 5 miles of the new prechamber being installed. Not sure about the not running with new injector and old prechamber (there was a lot of that prechamber missing, lower compression so it didn't fire often?)

I've got a big school project due this Friday at midnight, so I won't be able to do much till Saturday. I don't know anything else to do besides pull the IP from my blue car, and put it on the white car and see what happens. Anybody else have any ideas?

A chronological summary:

• Cold starts are difficult
• Idle gets rough, and clinking/clanking noise appear
• Find injector with no pintel
• Replace injector (notice that pre-chamber ball is loose)
• Runs/idles/starts about the same
• Car driven for a ~week (50-70 miles) with new injector bad prechamber
• Replace prechamber
• Destroy pintle on injector within 5 miles (the test drive)
• Engine runs on 3.5 cylinders
• Swapped in used injector (with pintle), no change
• Swapped #4 and #5 injectors, behavior didn't follow injectors
• ?????

Pictures should follow in next post...

Thanks in advance for all the help!!!!!

__________________
John Robbins
'05 E320 CDI - 240k
'87 300TD - 318k