Replaced leak off pipes, now it's not starting

Frontera B, 2.2 DTI, 2000 X-reg. Had it since 2007, haven't seen EML for 5 years or so, all was good except an alternator failure couple years back.

I had the difficult to start issue lately, when it was laid for a few days or when it was really cold (that is after waiting for glow plug light to go off), it would take some cranking to start it. It was getting worse so I decided to replace the leak off pipes, thinking long weekend would be a good time. Having said that, once it started, it would start easily the same day or next day. Idle was sweet, no misfire or irregularity at all.

Car was running normally on Saturday, filled the tank up and did an errand, around 20-30 miles drive, all was fine yesterday. Did the leak off pipes today, then bled/primed the system (attached a Facet pump to the return line, drawn around 1l of diesel into a container), started cranking, it wouldn't start! Not firing (or misfiring) at all. Did 40 second cranking, 30 second waiting as TIS suggests (it says 20 seconds wait but I thought it's an old car and can do with a bit longer rest

, did this 6-7 times but no luck! No EML, no fault codes, it just wouldn't start!

Now I might be unlucky, maybe the fuel pump decided to die even though it was working yesterday or something else I cannot think of.
How can I check if fuel pump is OK? Any other ideas what I might have cocked up doing a simple job like replacing the leak off pipes?
Thanks!

You also have to bleed each injector, once you are sure you have fuel up to the pump. You crack number one at the top of the injector while cranking until diesel comes out. Nip it up and move to number 2, and so on.

Thanks RatCav, I will give it a try. IIRC you can't get to all of them with the leak-off pipes in place though?

Can get to all of mine on my xdth.

Thanks Stretch. I suppose it depends on how much play you have in your leak-off hoses. I'll give it a try, I can always cut new lengths with a bit more play and bleed it again and maybe replace the fuel filter too while I am at it.

You are cracking the fuel inlets to the injectors. The hard lines.

To keep myself busy, I did replace the fuel filter and leak-off lines (again, as the previous hose wasn't good quality). Unfortunately didn't have a chance to crack the injector lines as I didn't have a helper. But I did notice one thing whilst priming the system, which looked like bad news to me: I could prime the system, i.e. draw fuel through the return line of the pump, whilst the ignition was off! Return line is supposed to shut when ignition is off, right? That sort of tells me that the injector pump is somehow broken, please someone tell me I am wrong.
I should be able to crack the injector lines on Wednesday as a last attempt but don't have much hope now :cry:

Opel field remedy 1398, poor starting behaviour due to insufficient tightness at injector pump

Have you replaced the copper sealing rings at the fuel pipe and fuel return pipe connections to the fuel injector pump
connections at fuel injector pump = tighten to 15Nm
if over-tightened the sealing rings will become damaged air will enter fuel pump and lines

Thanks for the suggestion Sarge, I haven't touch them, will add to the list of things to do/check, if poor start issue is still present when (or if) I can get the car start again.

More worried now that the return line is not shutting off though, bad seal shouldn't cause that, the flow of fuel I could achieve with ignition off was no different to when ignition on TBH.

I am also surprised that I am not getting EML or any fault codes with OBD reader, surely something should get logged, right?

dont lose heart mate... im sure fuel draining back overnight is not uncommon, ive read a few threads of members fitting an inline electric pump which is used for cold starting.
have a read of this -
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=60032

Did mine at the weekend. Got some pipe from eBay. Cut it to size. Left my facetc pump chugging away for a few minutes and fired up after a few seconds. Now seems to.be firing imediately again.
My facet pump is directly after the fuel filter.

Thanks chaps, I won't give up, had this car for over 8 years now, just worried a bit

Tomorrow is the day, I will be at home with some spare time, will give it a try again and keep you guys posted.

Just an update for anyone who's interested to hear my ongoing adventure on getting the Frontera back on the road

I have read my old post re priming the system with a pump and followed it carefully

[linkurl=]http://www.fronteraowners.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=22202[/linkurl]

I have had to let the pump run 30 minutes or more, drawn few litres of diesel through, and there were still air bubbles in the fuel, they never disappeared. So air is getting in the fuel somehow, and quite a lot of it. It might be that I didn't properly do up the fuel filter casing or it's something else which was there beforehand. It can't be leak-off pipes, just replaced and they passed the vacuum test.

Ordered the copper washers from Vauxhall dealers, a week delivery time (thanks for the field remedy idea Sarge!). Whilst waiting for them, I will feed diesel from a canister directly into the injection pump to rule out everything in the fuel line and see if I can purge the air out and get the engine going. If there're still air bubbles, I know for sure that copper washers are badly shot. Or the pump is leaking which would be bad news. If I manage to get rid of air in the fuel this way then I'll know that I have an air leak somewhere, most likely the filter casing.

If still no start after purging air out, then I will check the electrics to the pump and maybe connect it directly to the battery (already checked fuses and relays).

Make sure you torque these down correctly., dont just tighten up by hand..

if you over tighten them then they can crush and let air into the lines.. cant remember the bulletin but there was an advisory on it..

So I managed to get some time to work on the car and a friendly neighbour gave me a hand. First I pulled out injector pump connector and checked to ensure pump was getting 12V and it is. Also swapped relays and checked fuses and it all looks OK.

Then I run my facet pump on the fuel return line again and primed the fuel lines. I tried cracking the injector lines, the metal ones at the manifold side, one by one, whilst cranking the engine and doing them up again before stopping cranking and it didn't help. Fuel came out of each one when cracked so I know we are getting fuel. I also loosened them up properly whilst cranking and the amount of fuel coming out looked satisfactory. Engine is now washed with diesel

Engine didn't seem to be trying to start at all, no smoke coming out, no spluttering, no nothing at all, just cranking.

I also fed fuel from a can, through an inline fuel filter, pretty much gravity fed to rule out fuel lines and air seeping in, cracked fuel lines again to same result, engine just wouldn't start.

Tried easy start, it starts and runs on easy-start for a few seconds but would stop once you stop it (and I didn't want it to run on that stuff for longer than a few seconds). So engine should be mechanically OK, I'm guessing. It should be any way I just brought this problem onto myself by replacing the leak-off pipes!

We even tried directly connecting glow plugs (and also pulled them out and confirmed they are glowing), even though they are not needed on a day like this, just to give a bit of extra help, didn't make a difference.

I think even though fuel seems to be coming out, injector pump must have an issue though not quite sure why EML does not come on (and I know the bulb works as it came on when the battery got drained after rigorous cranking). I must have done 15-20 times 30-sec cranking with varying tests/waits in between. Apart from when spraying easy-start, engine did not show any signs of life.

Looks like it's heading for the scrap heap unless someone has another idea I haven't tried yet.

crankshaft sensor maybe ?

Funnily enough i'm having same issue viewtopic.php?f=18&t=60138 got a few things to try just need the time to do it.

Thanks fogman, didn't think crankshaft sensor was involved during start but worth checking. Where is the crankshaft sensor located? Is it by any chance nearside of the engine, near the fuel lines? I'm just thinking may be I knocked the harness off or something whilst connecting/disconnecting fuel lines. Otherwise it would be a big coincidence for it to fail at this moment as engine was running fine before I replaced the leak-off pipes.

Stretch, hope you have better luck than I am having at the moment.

It will be a shame to scrap it, it had a new clutch last year and a new alternator the year before. And tyres have lots of life left in them as well.

I couldn't get to the crankshaft sensor from the top but checked the engine revs using OBD reader whilst cranking and it shows ~200, it shows 0 when not cranking. ECU/rev counter gets it from crankshaft sensor and this confirms that crankshaft sensor is working, right? Are there any other checks I can do?