406oc.co.uk

I have looked on your great website for some time now and have found it very useful, and sometimes amusing. anyway enough of all that rubbish and down to the problem!!!

I purchased a 406 about 2 yrs ago its a t(99) plate which has now done 97k, when i bought the car i was told it had had extensive engine work 3 years previous to me buying it, i saw plenty of receipts and it seemed to have been an electrical fire- anyways drove it 60 miles back home-no problems. did notice fuel consumption was down after driving it for the next 3 months. turns out a small rubber seal was the problem and that was easily put right. everything was fine until one morning completely out of the blue the car decided to do its best impression of hiroshima- big clouds of smoke no power oil and fuel all dissappeared. took advice off a local garage that the turbo had blown- so decided to replace it. bought a reconditioned turbo, as i am very poor, and fitted it myself. strapped everything back together it started first time and i thought everything was great. I put the car in reverse and as soon as it hit biting point there were clouds of smoke again( i did think that this could just be excess oil that was the result of turbo blowing so thought it would be ok) managed to reverse off the drive, select 1st gear then as soon as the engine got up to 2500-3000 revs it just died. again forcing children into their homes due to smoke inhalation. I did notice there is a butterfly valve attached to the vacuum on the turbo does anyone know if adjusting this could help the problem??!

Any help or advice would be gratefully recieved,
Andy.

hi there slug is it a 90 or 110 hdi ???

One thing I do know is that the HDi turbos never fail, i'm affraid.

Of course you may get some but I would be looking more towards head gasket maybe (white smoke?).

hi yeah sorry its a 110- as regards to head gasket, i had a head gasket go on an old rover i had, got the usual gunk in the engine from oil and water mixing, ater dropping the oil in the 406 this is not the case its just oil in there. i'm sure the smoke was dk blue but the oil had nearly all gone. its just got no power and if engine is revved above 3000 it dies. thanks for your advice so far.

if the turbo did go it may of filled the air pipes and intercooler with engine oil which its now burning off. did you check the lower pipes/intercooler for oil?

hi, yes i did clean out pipes and intercooler best that i could, i realised that it would burn off excess oil when i strapped it back together but the loss of power is the thing that is really bugging me, im gonna try to get her back in the air tonight and make sure everything is nice n tight!.

[quote][/did notice fuel consumption was down after driving it for the next 3 months. turns out a small rubber seal was the problem and that was easily put right.quote]
Hi, curious about the rubber seal that you mention? By the way is yor smoke white blue or black?

Loveslug wrote:i had a head gasket go on an old rover i had, got the usual gunk in the engine from oil and water mixing, ater dropping the oil in the 406 this is not the case its just oil in there.

It aint necessarily so, it depends where the head gasket's gone, it might be between an oil way and a cylinder, oil's being pumped in & burnt but not going into the coolant. There are horror stories of engines running on their sump oil until they self-destruct but I presume it turns off with the key. Gaskets don't usually "heal" for a while either.

Where/what was the small rubber seal?

yeah sorry the rubber thingy was off the accumulator rail, reason comsumption was down was cos diesel was leaking out of the seal, got a new one put it in and hey presto it was fine until this happened.

apologies the seal i was on about was a clutch seal nothing to do with fuel- that was the bleed plug on the accumulator.

Ah. I dunno, head gasket? Crankcase breather?? Fule pressure regulator?? French gremlins??? While we're all waiting for the guy with the best chance of knowing, what did you mean by "oil and fuel all dissappeared"? I take it it emptied the sump but did it empty the tank too?

fuel gage went to empty from about quarter tank and there was no oil in the sump but that could have just been some sort of electrical problem i guess, as i've just checked and the gage does now read about a quarter tank again.

well if the oil and fuel are down to other symptoms then the only thing i can
suggest is look at all the pipework to and from the turbo including the intercooler,
when a bottom pipe to the intercooler split on mine i had very similar symptoms.

puggy wrote:when a bottom pipe to the intercooler split on mine i had very similar symptoms.

When did that happen mate??? Oh yeah I remember

Git !!! about time i got some bloody royalties of those pictures