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        General >> Give/Need advice to/from others >> Towing performace with an old diesel
        
(Message started by: sector-9 on Mar 24^th, 2007, 11:49pm)

Title: Towing performace with an old diesel
Post by sector-9 on Mar 24^th, 2007, 11:49pm

As some of you will know, last year when I towed a small caravan to the lakes I was unimpressed by the ability of my diesel to maintain 60mph on the motorway in fifth gear (the caravan was about 7-800Kg so shouldn't have been any problem on the M1).

Since then I've been playing about with the fuel system (including ultrasonically cleaning the injectors), and found the following:

Positioning of the TPS is critical for the EGR valve to work correctly, and possibly the timing. Mess this up and you'll not get much power at small throttle openings. Of course, if you pull the vacuum pipe off the EGR valve diaphragm then it'll make little difference!

The max fuel adjust screw on the back of the injection pump is well worth tweaking. Just a quarter turn clockwise turned the engine from being rather limp (though passing the MOT emissions at about half the limits) to almost a rocket! Downside is there's a lot more smoke on acceleration (whether or not it fails emission check I'll see in October) and it's idling at around 1000rpm (900rpm with a/c on). Fuel economy in normal use doesn't seem any worse though.

Today I borrowed my parent's 15ft Bailey Pageant caravan and went up and down a few hills and on the local dual-carriageway. What can I say? It stormed up the steepest hill in third gear no problem and managed to keep between 55-60mph in fifth gear, even with a few minor hills in the way, provided the a/c was turned off.

Basically, a quarter turn on the pump adjustment has changed my opinion of this as a towcar - even my dad said it was almost as good as his Volvo S60 2.4 diesel is at towing (though nowhere near as frugal)!

Darren

Title: Re: Towing performace with an old diesel
Post by mazzy_j on Mar 26^th, 2007, 1:10pm

Darren, what a timely post as i was meaning to ask you whether it was turning it in or out as iv been running with mine a whole extra turn (causing the cars behind to nearly dissapear at full throttle ::)) but couldnt remember whether it was clock or anti clock as i could do with backing it off a bit.

Good to hear you've got it sorted :)

Matt