Loss Of Acceleration, Sludge In Fuel Drain

[son-of-seaton]

HELP!!.. bought a xantia td a couple of weeks ago, should have walked away when i heard it hadnt been driven for over a year but milage was low, and price was cheap.. 

however!.. after having to replace the heater matrix, today was driving home.. accelerating up a hill there was a slight pop from exhaust, a bit of (i think) oil smoke out the back and a loss of acceleration.. still seems to run, just no boost from the turbo..  does this mean the turbo's shagged??

read a couple of streams and i investigated the fuel filter.. un-did the drain and nothing really came out.. so i took the cap off the filter and some thick brown sludge started coming out..

fuel filter doesnt look too bad, and as its raining, and night, i havent investigated taking the filter box apart to see if i can get more sludge out..

oh.. the other day the injection light on the dash came on once.. then went out and i pretended i'd never seen it!

 

any clues if its the turbo or just crap in the fuel pipe??

[paul.h]

Welcome to the forum.

 

A blocked fuel filter will cause poor performance but if the fuel tank is full of sludge then maybe this should be cleaned out as well as a new filter. The filler cap needs to be checked that it has not let water in which could result in jelly forming in the tank.

[coastline taxis]

Sounds like a intercooler pipe has poped or split, check all thick black pipes for splits or have come loose both above and below the engine

[son-of-seaton]

ok cheers for those suggestions.. and any idea why no diesel's coming out of the fuel filter drain?

[son-of-seaton]

ok, its official.. i'm an idiot!.. i could just thank coastline and say that 'yeah, found a dodgy pipe and replaced it.. working fine now'.. but after looking i noticed a pipe i'd undone the other day and not tightened the jubilee clip properly had slipped off.. so its all my fault! (anyone need any car repairs?? lol)..

 

and being uber intelligent i'd neglected to actually pump diesel through the system to clear the crap from the fuel filter drain.. all done now..

 

the injector light came on again tho.. i've read something about heavy rain somehow affecting them.. anyway to know how much i need to concern my motor improvement skills over this?

[coastline taxis]

on the plus side though you now know were the intercooler pipes are

[paul.h]

By injector light do you mean the yellow engine management light that looks a bit like the side view of an engine ? If so then there should be a fault code stored which will indicate what is wrong. Cheap code readers though may not work on your car due to it being pre 2004 when diesel cars had to be EOBD compliant.