All Stop!

Another failure on the way to work, and as it happens, on the same hill where the third gear stripped its teeth last year.  This time, the fuel solenoid bunt out and shut off the fuel to the injection pump just as I was crossing a busy cross road, but I was lucky to have enough momentum to pull over to safety, clear of the traffic.

The electrics were all live, and the gauges all gave healthy indications except for oil pressure, but the engine was dead.  It cranked over easily on the starter, but there was a bit of a hot smell.  On trying a longer crank, a fair amount of white smoke erupted from the edges of the bonnet, so I shut the ignition off.

The symptoms were clearly that of fuel starvation, and with a half full tank and no signs of any leaks, plus the smoke that was only present while cranking, the logical suspect was the fuel solenoid.  Another quick go of cranking with the bonnet open quickly produced smoke from the solenoid itself, and the plastic part under the wire terminal was melted, so there was no doubt as to the cause.

I didn’t have the tools, parts, clothing or safe location to attempt a repair, and since I was due soon at work, I had to get the AA to tow me to the airport and then recover me home when I finished at midnight.  It was a wise decision – access to the solenoid is extremely poor due to all the surrounding fuel pump parts, brackets and pipework.  In the end, the only way I could get a spanner onto the solenoid was by removing the injector, leak off and turbo boost hoses and the rear bracket that holds the throttle cable and attaches to the cam shaft gallery bracket (which involves removing the two bolts that hold the brackets to each other and the four socket head bolts holding the bracket to the back of the pump).  Once that was done, removal of the solenoid and the rebuild with the new part was simple enough.  All of that took well over an hour.  The good news is that the engine is now running fine again.

In an ideal world, I’d like to have bought a second new solenoid as a spare, but given its price of £107+VAT (for a genuine Bosch part; I wasn’t willing to take a punt on the £20+VAT Britpart version as I don’t trust their quality), this was not affordable.  The plunger is not retained in the solenoid – a bush repair of the failed unit would have been to refit the solenoid main body without the plunger, allowing unrestricted fuel supply to the pump, leaving the control wire disconnected and tied away safely.  To shut the engine off, you just need to stop the vehicle, select fourth gear with the brakes on and ease the clutch up at idle to stall the engine.  It’s not ideal, but it’d get you home without a problem.