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  • Landrover TD5

    Hi Folks I am brand new to the forum and wish to know if my 2001 Disco TD5 seres 2 wil run on 100% Bio, I have been told it will run lean as Bio is thicker than diesel and also been told by another that it will run OK as long as I dont use tallow as the oil, I would be grateful to be put on the right track as I am keen to have a go.

    Regards Ken

  • #2
    Re: Landrover TD5

    Biodiesel can, in most situations, be used as a direct replacement for PetroDiesel in infinite blends with no difference in lean/rich settings. There are slight power output differences between BD from different feedstock oils, and also different cold temperature behaviour, but again it is irrelevant in vehicle applications to seek a particular feedstock BD for a particular vehicle.

    That said, Land Rover TD5s have an issue with ANY Biodiesel that has not yet been fully nutted out. On this site, Robert has discussed imagined issues with BD and his TD4 Freelander, and has found out enough answers that he now runs BD in it. Is the TD5 fuel system similar to that in the TD4? Have a look at this thread on the Aust Land Rover Owners Forum: http://www.aulro.com/afvb/showthread.php?t=27937
    Mazda's Secret Service motto: "Tell 'em nothing, charge 'em double".

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Landrover TD5

      Thanks for the reply Gunner, I contacted an injector repair company yesterday and was told that in their opinion it would be unwise for me to try BD in my TD5 or in any common rail injector system for that matter. He went on to say that commonrail has been around in Europe for a long time ( as they have had much cleaner Petrodiesel than we had) and it has only been introduced into Australia in recent years since we improved the refinement of our Petrodiesel.
      So I guess a bad batch or two of BD may stuff the injector system on my TD5 which is about a $3000 repair he said.
      I would appreciate any feedback from any members of the forum
      Regards Ken

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Landrover TD5

        I run my biodiesel in my peugeot 307 common rail diesel and have done so for 30,000 km (2 years). Only issue so far is a blocked fuel filter due to poor filtering of my biodiesel, which in my opinion is good bio, poor practices though!

        Either way its running fine, make your fuel well and try it once, if you don't you'll never know but do not try and put crap fuel in, crap fuel is crap fuel either way and you'll pay for it some way too.

        Then make your mind up. I know of one more recent model higher power 307 HDi running it too, runs fine according to its owner as well and he knows what he is doing making bio. So common rail systems run on well made bio, let the buyer beware though.

        Matt
        Biodiesel Bandit

        Landcruiser '98 80 series B100.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Landrover TD5

          Ken - Has your injector repair co ever tried biodiesel? I'd severely doubt it. They'll just give the safest answer, then make up some stuff to make it sound right. Been there, done that. I experienced all the same sort of crap with my TD4, including official answers from Land Rover that in retrospect made them look like they were typed by the work experience kid.
          A common myth about common rail is that it is a "new" technology. You will hear absolute crap like "biodiesel is more viscous" (and the like) used to justify why people don't really know whether it will work or not. Rather than say “I have not tested it” or “I can see no reason”, they have to make up stuff!
          This is all the same crap that motivated me to start this website as I was tired of all the misinformation. I hear your pain.


          A couple of quick points:

          1. The TD4 is also common rail and probably shares a lot in common with the TD5 (I'm a little out of my depth here as I have not really compared the 2 side by side, though I did drive a TD5 once). Very many diesel engines are common rail now and it can hardly be considered a "new" technology any more. Eventually, it will become quite common.
          2. Biodiesel has the same viscosity as petroleum distillate. I know, I've tested it myself . It has much higher lubricity than dino diesel, but this can only be a good thing. Uneducated mechanics frequently confuse viscosity and lubricity. Always take these arguments with a pinch of salt. You can quite easily discount a large base of the "fact" that your injector pump dude has based his assertion on as he does not know that increased lubricity will lengthen the life of his equipment and without any increased viscosity. Many mechanics who spend the time to understand this critical difference will change from biodiesel cynics to converts pretty quickly. Still it is a leap of education that most do not bother to take.
          3. “Clean Fuels” hardly have any bearing on the injectors, at least in the context that you were being told about. In fact, the removal of sulphur means cleaner emissions from the exhaust pipe, but much more wear on your injector pump! The new ULSD suffers in the lubricity department. In France, they add biodiesel 5% to ULSD to restore the lubricity. The cleanliness of the fuel in terms of the injector pump will be far more to do with how good your fuel filter is at getting out small bits of crap this would be the same for bio or dino. The injectors will actually get a nice little clean out from biodiesel that they would not get from dino diesel due to the excellent solvent properties of bio. This is the stuff that these guys really need to go and research before selling you these scary veiled threats.
          3. Anecdotally, I've been running over 20,000kms on biodiesel now and there are many more "common rail" folk that have done far more than me. If you did take the plunge and start using biodiesel, you'll find out for yourself pretty soon that it will not break your car (it might clean out some of the crap that the dino diesel has left behind and clog your filter with it though).

          I say just do it (but make sure that you get commercial biodiesel that is made to Australian spec – don’t give anyone any excuses to blame biodiesel). You'll be glad you did and the more people that do might help to change all this misinformation that is out there.
          Robert
          Administrator
          Last edited by Robert; 13 July 2006, 11:18 PM.
          Robert.
          Site Admin.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Landrover TD5

            Now Ive heard just about everything, a few months back I took my 2003 td5 defender to BlackLock Ford in Wodonga (for those who dont know Ford bought Landrover in 04ish) and asked the fuel system specialist (in a blue oval shirt) about running BD in the rover... his reply in essence

            well Bad BD will just clog stuff and the good stuff is to thin and slippery and it will cause excessive pump slip in the in tank priming pump which means you will have no pressure in the fuel transfer system this loss of pressure will starve your injector rack and that will cause damage to the plungers..

            almost sounds feasable except as the TD5 is common rail it doesnt have an injector rack with plungers and pump slip is caused by excess pressure not the "slipperyness" of the oil..

            What do you guys think?

            Dave

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Landrover TD5

              I think this is perfectly typical of the horseshit that the uneducated/illinformed make up on the fly. Unfortunately all too common these days. Biodiesel actually has a much higher lubricity than distillate, but the same viscosity. Too slippery? I think you've already found your answer in the fact that he got it wrong about common rail (and the rest).
              Maybe it will just take time for people like these to pass on... When I'm King, it will all be different.
              Robert.
              Site Admin.

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Landrover TD5

                After dumping plenty of time at my internet connection and making a few phone calls I found some information about electronically controled common rail diesels and the draw back to running them on BD, SVO or other fuels.

                Apparently, similar to the problem caused by lack of goop in the BD and SVO that keeps seals and gaskets "moist" there can be a similar effect at the junction of the sensors and the electronic control part of the injector.

                This in turn causes various SNAFU's within the fuel system via poor sensing or injector control with the expected bad running that would result.

                There are probabley other contributing factors such as how much PD has been run through the engine, how hot/cold is the environment it runs in, how hard do you work the engine.

                To my way of thinking if you already have a combination of these things working against you, maybe, just maybe the switch to cleaner running BD might, just might, cause a fault in an engine that wouldnt have faulted otherwise.

                For my money, If Im making fuel for 70c a liter (including little Johny's money grabbing self delcared excise) and diesel here is flirting with $1.50 a liter with the rate I burn fuel, I can afford to replace the entire fuel system every 18 months or so, every 2 years if I get lazy and pay someone else to do it. Hell for that money I could probabley afford to go out and buy a second hand donk from the wreckers and install that.

                Dave

                "In a Landrover the other car is your crumple zone."

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Landrover TD5

                  Originally posted by Blknight.aus
                  Apparently, similar to the problem caused by lack of goop in the BD and SVO that keeps seals and gaskets "moist" there can be a similar effect at the junction of the sensors and the electronic control part of the injector.

                  This in turn causes various SNAFU's within the fuel system via poor sensing or injector control with the expected bad running that would result.

                  Dave
                  Good to see that someone has finally started to get to the bottom of the problem, but could you clarify just what the issue is? "No goop?"
                  Mazda's Secret Service motto: "Tell 'em nothing, charge 'em double".

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Landrover TD5

                    Ok as I understand it the "goop" I mentioned previously is one of the "addatives" in PD. I know that part of it relates to the sulfur content of the PD as there have been reported problems when switching from the old high sulfur fuel to the now mandatory low sulfur fuel.

                    During the switch there were a lot of problems with older CAV stye and DE type fuel pumps begging to weep and in some cases leak. In similar fashions there are other "addatives" in PD that assist in the protection of your existing fuel system, with out these your protection is reduced. Some are there to assist in the stabalisation of materials like plastic and rubber. So far as I know these are not present in BD.

                    Im not entirely sure if these "addatives" are there by design or by accident. If theyre there by design then I would imagine that you should be able buy it in a similar fasion that you can buy octane boosters or fuel line cleaners at most auto shops. In some situations these "addatives" pentetrate the seal to keep it sound and on others they bind with the surface.

                    Now heres one Ive tried recently just incase this was the problem. I got hold of an old (non landrover but i assume they are all the same) sensor that mates plastic, metal and diesel then wacked that into an open tin of methanol that was just conveniently hanging around. It was about 90% pure according to the tin so in went Mr sensor.

                    After 2 weeks of sitting the injector was in very poor condition the plastic had gone brittle and there was movement at the joint between the plastic and the metal parts. Bare in mind this was just with purish methanol in an open container, but id hate to think what would happen if you had methanol in your BD and ran that at 135+Atm's.

                    Now Im going out on a limb and going to have a guess at something..

                    Assuming your BD is clean, well filtered, water and methanol free. (Im also making the assumption your mechanic has access to a perfect world workshop)

                    All diesel fuel systems when removed for cleaning, inspection repair and re-assembly are put together with a special fluid that isnt even remotely like diesel (well ok they're both fluids and they burn). It also has some agents that remove carbon deposits, diesel snot and other things. Given that since the components are put together and tested without diesel I would guess that if you put BD through from brand new or just after a fuel system rebuild then the seals should be just fine. But since most modern diesels now come with vitron seals which are stable with BD the points pretty moot.

                    Thats all I can offer by way of explination of the "goop" perhaps theres a chemist out there who can give us the breakdown on what does what in diesel, where we can get it and how we can put it in BD.

                    Dave

                    "In a Landrover the other car is your crumple zone.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Landrover TD5

                      I also own a TD5 Discovery and have not put any Biodiesel into it at this stage. I haven't made my first batch yet! I have been trying to find out an answer to the question about BD & TD5's and have not seen or heard any solid evidence against using it, only rumors. I believe that there had been reports of a TD5 or TD5's at Graham Cooper Automotive in Sydney with problems from using BD, however when asked directly (not by me) that that was not the case. I guess when I'm ready I might just add the BD & PD at 50/50 at first. If I still dont find out anything negative I'll slowly increase the BD until I'm running at 100% BD (whenever that might be!).

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Landrover TD5

                        Aussie1 - go for it. I've been running B100 in a TD4, which is basically the same for about a year now and nearly 30,000kms. I've not had any problems so far, nor do I expect to have.
                        Robert.
                        Site Admin.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Landrover TD5

                          Hi just joined as im interested in running my TD5 on bio. This question has been around for a while with no information to support or reject its use. I do now know of 3 TD5's using Bio. At least on has done 100,000km on the stuff with only the filters needing to be replaced due to the crap being dislodged from the tank. I plan to start sampling a mix of both at first and slowly increasing the bio content. This is once I have access to the stuff.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Landrover TD5

                            Dear All,

                            I happened to stumble on this forum by mistake, but inadvertently found myself reading the content.

                            Firstly Can I correct everyone on their TD5 assumptions. A TD5 is not a common rail deisel engine, where as a TD4 is.

                            Simply described the differences are as follows,

                            A TD5 has a low pressure fuel pump which delivers low pressure to the cylinder head. The pressure regulator on the head regulates the internal pressure accordingly. In the Td5 engine each of the five cylinders has a unique component called a EUI (Electronic unit Injector) These components create their own high pressure.

                            A TD4 has a Low pressure pump, a secondary pump (low pressure) and a high pressure pump which is driven of the camshaft chain. The high pressure pump delivers high pressure fuel to a Common rail. The injectors then share that common rail fuel.

                            I personally use the recommended fuel in my Land Rover because it has been designed to operate on this fuel, and I want to preserve its operation for many years to come.

                            Ohhh by the way Land Rover states that Bio fuel is unsuitable for use on TD5 and TD4 Variants.

                            Thats my view for what it's worth, but each to his own

                            Dipped in Green

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: Landrover TD5

                              Thanks for the correction on the TD5, my only experience is on the TD4, so I had assumed that the TD5 might be similar.

                              Re biodiesel compatibility, I can be quite sure that Land Rover have not done as much testing as I have done on biodiesel in my engine, nor the combined efforts of just the people in this single forum. To say that the engine components or fuel system components will have better longevity when only used with dino diesel is only half the picture. To start with my car was made just before the latest standards in low sulphur diesel and there will be more changes to come too. I cannot foresee that fuel with such low lubricity would ensure component longevity. There have been many cases of diesel pumps being killed by the lack of lubrication in low sulphur diesel and not just Land Rover components either. Biodiesel that meets spec does not do this, it makes pumps last much longer as it has the same viscosity as distillate, but significantly better lubricity.

                              It has been the case for a long time in many countries that biodiesel is used as an additive to restore lubricity to an inferior mineral fuel. Biodiesel is entering the mineral fuel supply like it or not. Many of the major suppliers in Australia are already adding biodiesel to all the fuel that they sell, albeit in small percentages (2% is enough to restore lubricity). Other European countries have mandated at least 5% for some years. I'm not sure about the UK, but last year when I was there, biodiesel or any mention of it seemed nowhere to be found.

                              For Land Rover to continue to pursue this line in favour of big oil is no real surprise and if they continue to tie themselves to the dinosaur, they will eventually have to follow its fate.

                              I was told that I could not use biodiesel in my TD4 because the engine was "too highly tuned", because it was "too new", "too high tech" and also because it had modern items not in other diesel engines like a common rail.

                              I have also heard it said that engines could not use biodiesel because of direct injection, particulate filters, turbo chargers, or the colour of the paintwork. When it comes from a vehicle manufacturer, automotive component supplier, or mechanic, most of the time we have to believe them. However, we also have common sense. Most of the time these people have seen anecdotal "evidence" of fuel problems which have simply been blamed on biodiesel. The fact that the biodiesel was not made to standard, or that it was unreacted straight vegetable oil usually gets left out and "biodiesel" is simply blamed. The investigation behind such statements will not bear close inspection.

                              So far from my personal experience with many years of speaking to such people, not once have I found any valid basis to support their claims and when questioned further, none of them have actually ever directly tested real biodiesel themselves (they've just "heard a story" from some trusted source, or "read a statement" from some official source without investigating how the statement was arrived at).

                              What fuel you use in your vehicle is entirely your choice, but bear in mind that each of us have a responsibility to use a fuel which damages our planet less. In the case of biodiesel, not only is the fuel carbon neutral or carbon negative, it is also significantly better for the longevity of your engine and your fuel system components due to its greater lubricity and no sulphur content. The fact that the best Land Rover can do is tell me that biodiesel is unsuitable for my TD4 leads me to believe that they have a different agenda.

                              On another note, I am quite intimate with the fuel delivery system in my TD4. It does have a primary pump in the tank, a secondary lifter pump before the filter and a high pressure pump for the common rail. The reason I know this is long before I used biodiesel, my primary pump failed. Land Rover investigated the issue of my vehicle running out of fuel before empty then being unable to reprime once filled on 3 occasions, where they removed the unit containing said pump and replaced the fuel gauge sender unit. This was done while still under warranty. Once the warranty expired, I had to do my own investigations. I found my primary pump to be dead. In fact it was not just dead, but it had never worked (the point where the brushes touch the commutator was caked in 5 years black gunk, which means that the motor inside the pump had never turned, as this design is self cleaning.) Additionally, testing the conductivity of the coils showed that every one of them was dead, which explained why it had never turned allowing the black gunk. Now because Land Rover wanted to charge AU$1600 for a new electric VDO 12V pump, which would cost AU$150 or less in any other car, I tried to take the matter up with them, considering that it had been faulty since I bought the car new and had been missed 3 times while still under warranty. Similar to the response for the faulty $1500 airflow sensor, they did everything they could to avoid any responsibility for the issues and you guessed it - they blamed biodiesel. .
                              The fact that the airflow sensor was in now way connected to the fuel and the pump's autopsy showed 100% that it had been dead since it was made are immaterial. Of course no longer having a warranty made it even easier.

                              Sorry for going off topic, but this is an issue I feel passionate about and I take Land Rover's official stance with a big pinch of salt, as I think you all should. I display that I have a TD4 in my signature not because I am proud of it, but because I want people to see that I am running biodiesel in it despite Land Rover's "official" stance. When my lease on it runs out next year, I'll not be buying another Land Rover. Still, there are many Land Rover enthusiasts who love their vehicles and many of them are also in this forum and using biodiesel which their engines love.
                              Robert.
                              Site Admin.

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