ZD30 engine shut down at cruising speed.

G'day,

I'll try to paint the picture as best i can, so bare with me.

I bought my '03 patrol wagon zd30 manual, about 3 weeks ago. Did a fairly good check over before buying and the test drive went well. Plenty of oil on the stick. So I drove it home 5 and a half hours from Dubbo, and it didn't miss a beat.

A couple of days later it sounded a bit different, so I checked the oil and it was very low, so I topped it up and it was fine for the next week and a half just doing the school run and shopping. However, now the first start up of the day was rough, as though the glow plugs weren't working properly.

I then drove it to Albury and back, roughly 1100 km's, and apart from the rough start up, it was running strong.

The following day is when it all went pear shaped. I was cruising along at 100 km/h, running perfect, then dropped it back to 4th as i began to climb a hill when the engine lost all power and shut down. Now the engine just cranks over with no sign of firing. It didn't get hot and oil light never came on, neither did the check engine light.

The engine oil was low again, it took 5 litres. I checked all the fuses, which were ok. I've checked the fuel filter and fuel lines for blockages and they're fine as well. The immobiliser seems to be working properly, if the little red light is anything to go off.

I checked for fault codes and i got a code for the fuel pump link. I'm guessing this refers to the wiring harness to the injector pump.

My wagon also has a shitty after market cruise control fitted.My next move is to replace the engine management relays.


Please help! I'm regretting buying this bloody hand grenade.

Cheers.

Hi mate. Welcome to the forum.
I hope you're wrong, because if it is correct, that is a heck of a lot of oil it is using, in a very short time.
Stupid question, but are you sure it isn't pissing out somewhere?

I cant see how you could use that much oil, as Hodge states I think you have a savage leak somewhere.
IMO you need to NADS your Patrol asap , fitting a provent 200 catch can as well.
First up change the oil and fit a new oil filter, then clean the MAF,
did you buy it from a car yard?, if private talk to previous owner he may have stitched you up

Are you sure that you have not over filled with Oil.
I would drain out the Engine Oil and measure how much you get.
Unless you have a bloody great puddle of Oil where you are parked I cant see how you used that much Oil.
If you are burning that much Oil I would hate to be following you.

I bought the car privately and the bloke was very genuine. He had already replaced the intercooler with a heavy duty tigged item and fixed a few other things as well, as he had planned on keeping it for a while.

It is possibly slightly over full. I topped it up just to see if it would wind up oil pressure, and it did.

It doesn't drop any oil on the ground and the bottom of the car is fairly clean. I have been watching the exhaust output carefully to see if i could see oil smoke but it seems clean. My old man and a mate of mine (we're all mechanics)followed me home from Albury and they both said it seems to run pretty clean. It does have a strong fumey smell at idle though. It was probably closer to 2000 kays between checking the oil.

I feel as though something electrical has failed, that is causing it to not start. It made no noises when it stopped, it was just like someone turned off the key.

Threedogs, what do you mean by NADS my patrol. I'm pretty new to this forum stuff so i don't know all the lingo yet.

Thanks.

NADS it a system where you fit a manual boost control valve,needle valve, catch can, boost and EGT gauge.
mainly for the early 2000- 2003 models. It takes the thinking away from the ECU preventing any over boost issues

if you overfilled it you may have fouled your MAF sensor, but thats easy to clean with some MAF sensor clear
from Super Cheap or JayCar
Dis connect your battery for half an hour as well

Thanks for clearing that up. I had planned to go through the whole car and address some the problems I've read about, it just decided to crap out before I got the chance.

Rechecked the oil again today and it wasn't overfull. The maf sensor was filthy so i gave it a clean and the engine actually kicked a few times but wouldn't fire up. Also disconnected the battery for a half hour but still no joy.

I'm going to do a compression test tomorrow and see what I come up with. When these thing blow head gaskets, do they tend to blow between the cylinders or through to the water jacket.

They don't seem to blow head gaskets very often. More likely to crack the head unfortunately than blow the gasket as I've found out .