Delica Canada | Mitsubishi Van Club

Hi all,

I have an issue with my L300 Delica 2.5td.... It will tick over for days but stalls as soon as I apply any throttle. Whilst it sounds like the L400 fuel pump seal issue I'm pretty sure that this does not effect the L300. This issue also coincides with having a new head fitted after the last one cracked. I've spent the last week tinkering, with help from the guys on MDOCUK but I've not made any progress yet.

The guys who did the head promise me that the pump wasn't touched and I don't buy that it simply failed at exactly the same time as the main work was done... I can only think that something somewhere is not connected correctly or has been missed out.

At the end of the day, it's a £500 van, I should really scrap it but I love the damned thing! I've resprayed it and built a camper interior so it would be a shame to give up on it, I just can't justify spending much more money on it....

There are more details and some of the fixes I've tried here.

http://www.mdocuk.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=42652

Can anyone help?

Cheers

Carl

You have fuel starvation. First check is replace the fuel filter. I've had things go coincidentally and chased my tail imagining it wasn't something as simple as that. The hint is that the mechanic manually primed it to make it go, same as mine. You've nothing to lose.
As always start with the simple:
Tank with fuel
Fuel lines to tank are good (no leaks)
fuel filter is know good (recently replaced)
pump timing okay.

Seems like you've done everything but fuel filter and injection pump.

If the engine is running you should have excess fuel running back to the tank, another clue its fuel starvation. Try checking the vacuum on the inlet side of the pump. if it's quite high another indication that something from the tank forward is restricting fuel to the pump. If it's low, almost certainly the lift pump in the injection pump is toast ( I don't know the specs for the Delica but with my 1.5 litre boat diesel it normally ran about -10, but when the filter clogged it went up to -30. If it is the pump, you should be able to save big bucks on pump rebuild by installing a generic 12 v inline fuel pump.

Fuel lines have all been replaced.
Filter is new.
I've triple checked the timing (Notches on the cams line up, the manual refers to further adjustments if the pump is removed but it wasn't)
The issue is still obvious even when running from a jerry can direct to the pump....

Very confusing!

I replaced the injector return pipe with a clear one. After four days and plenty of idling time it's still full of air, nothing is being sent back to the pump, is this normal behaviour?

Then one has to assume the problem is the injection pump. The lift pump part isn't working. You should always get excess fuel returned to the tank, even at idle, in my experience with diesels. You could try an electric inline pump or bite the bullet and get your injection pump rebuilt. That's where I would be at this stage as you seem to have covered everything.

I didn't cover everything apparently! Guy on the UK forum mentioned leak off washers, they used normal ones when putting it back together!

Took copper washers out....

Drilled two 1.5mm holes in each...

Winner! Problem solved!!

Wow, talk about a head scratcher. Feels great when you can overcome something like that. Congats! Too bad we don't have a thumb's up smiley :)

LOL! I got to the end of post 1 and thought "I wonder if the return rail has been reassembled correctly"...