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I have the 1.9 turbo diesel Executive, on a 1996 plate, nearly 260,00 miles on the clock.

The car has been extremely difficult to start in the last two weeks.
It will take 20 attempts before it catches and starts up. It makes attempts to start but fails after a few seconds.
I have checked the feed to the glow plugs and it is ok. I have replaced the glow plugs. Two of plugs came out looking very clean, one a bit sooty but not excessively.
The air and fuel filters have been replaced.
There is quite a slap off the engine when it starts up, but there always has been and it is no worse than it was. It quietens down after a minute.
Once started, the engine runs fine, there seems to be plenty of power. It will restart easily, on first attempt, even if it has been left for a few hours. The problems seems to be after it has been left overnight.

Any ideas, please?

Regards,
Colin.

Have you checked that the glow plugs are staying on for the correct amount of time?

Failing that, I'd be thinking about having the injectors tested at that mileage.

Yes, I checked the feed and the feed was constant until the pre heat lamp on the dash went out and for another 15 seconds or so.

Is there a method I can check the injectors myself?

Regards,
Colin.

I've heard of these kind of symptoms being caused by the starter motor. I'm afraid I can't give you any robust way to check this, but have a search on here for similar threads.

to check the glow plugs you need to disconnect the power and put a multimeter set to ohm's on them one by one and check them that way, as a 12 feed will not tell you glow plug 1and 3 are blown

jonsowman; The starter throws over well and there seems to be good compression at the engine. I considered lack of compression from a weak started or poor valves but there are really no signs of that.
madmadmax; I replaced two of glow plugs with known good ones, from an old Citreon with the same engine. The other two I removed and checked they passed voltage. But I will double check resistance at the weekend with a meter.

Thanks for the response.

Regards,
Colin.

could it be air in the fuel lines as that would cause it to cut out after a second or two

Try cracking the union joint into the fuel pump and pumping the primer, should eliminate air in the lines and only takes 2 minutes.

I have tried hand priming the system until the squeeze ball is solid but it made no difference.
The squeeze ball has always went soft when the engine isn't running. There doesn't seem to be any difference now than from the past.
But I will remake all the connections at the weekend.

I think Ineed to eliminate any intermittent problem on the solenoid but it is tight under the fuel pump, so I will need to approach it carefully at the weekend. After that, look at the injectors. (hope it is dry on Saturday!)

Regards,
Colin.

The fuel couid be running back to the tank when left over night,
seen it happen on a few diesels,

I had a 306 1.9td similar to that, the one way valves in the priming bulb were the problem, it still worked but as lozz said it was letting the diesel drain back into the tank, I found out one day after I'd changed the filter and was priming it when after a good few pumps something crunched in the bulb and it stopped pumping, after I replaced it I never had any starting problems.

Shortly after that I ripped the engine out and left a 3.0 v6 in it's place!!

Well, it was dry on Saturday.
I went back to basics and rechecked the glow plugs, letting them heat up off the engine confirm they heated and cooled as they should. All ok.
I rechecked the air filter, all ok.
So, as far as I was concerned that meant fuel starvation.
I remade all the fuel line joints and fitted new jubilee clips.
I then removed the fuel solenoid, or tried to. It is a 24mm across the flats but you can't get a spanner onto it. So, I ground back the shoulder on the one I had, and got it in for 1/4 of a turn. Valve came out easily, possibly too easily. As per advice in Haynes, I removed the core and put the whole lot back together.

Started first time.

So all I need is a new solenoid valve off eBay.

Regards,
Colin.

Well done for persevering with it

No problem can defy painstaking logic indefinitely, (unless you count rap 'music').