ozzie1989 wrote:

First thing I'd check is injectors. The engine can sound horrible when they are loose.

Take off the plastic cover and wiggle the bolts, retaining brackets and injectors. You'll soon see if they are loose.

Alternatively get someone to turn the engine over whilst you watch them, if they are loose they will go up and down with the piston strokes and starting will be difficult due to lack of compression.

After this, assuming injectors are ok, I'd probably start looking at the fuel system first off as water/air in diesel can make funny sounds and prevent starting.

Lack of drive is probably the recovery guy - he didn't remove the rear prop shaft or anything did he? Either way it would be a separate issue I'd say.

Checked the brackets and injectors and all seems tight I don't want to start it as I don't what damage it will cause. I assume that he put everything in neutral before moving pulling it onto the flat bed and in the dark I just managed to get it into diff lock . Don't make old people mad.
We don't like being old in the first place,
so it doesn't take much to us off.

Richard

Quote:

Unfortunately the characteristics you list in the first post are not symptomatic of a single fault.

The first part of your post sounds like a serious engine fault, possibly the old piston cooling jet (PCJ) hysteresis fault. It rather begs the question of why the vehicle was driven so far making such a catastrophic noise, I'm afraid.

The "no drive" issue does sounds as though a propshaft has been disconnected, although for a flatbed recovery this is unnecessary. This part of the mystery should be obvious if you look underneath.

Given that the Defender has been driven some distance already it is unlikely that starting the engine again will do any significant additional damage and I'd be inclined to try again to see what happens. The noise, sluggish start, general symptoms you have described make me fear that it has run with insufficient oil pressure and has damaged the bores to the point of partial seizure. I hope I'm wrong because that will mean a replacement complete engine.

I don't know what level of diagnostic expertise you have, or what equipment, but the first thing I'd do is check for DTCs, then check the oil level and examine the oil for metallic debris. An inspection of the bores with a borescope down the injector ports would probably be next.

It would be very unusual for an '07 to suffer the PCJ problem after 13 years but sadly it's not impossible.

According to S.H.M.B.O. the engine sounded fine when she parked the vehicle it was some hours later when she started it to return home that she became aware of the noise, she rang me so i could hear it then shut down, the vehicle was driven a max of 20 feet to get it onto the drive. I suspect to recovery driver put the levers in to neutral.

The only diagnostic's I have are my ears and eye's . The oil level is fine . If it was a petrol engine it would be running on two cylinders . The only thing I can see a miss is a connector covered in oil on the nearside behind a cooling pipe ,I can't get my hands in to check the connections.

I hope your worst cause is wrong to as it may mean the end of ownership. Don't make old people mad.
We don't like being old in the first place,
so it doesn't take much to us off.

Richard