Intermittent Hard Starting D40

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Hi all, I have been reading everyone's posts for a few years but I am a newbie in terms of posting and asking for advice. I have a 2011 Thai built D40 Navara. Ive had it for a little over two years and it has always started real easy. Done some towing of a caravan long trips outback no issues.

A week ago I went to start it early one morning and it fired, ran for about 5 seconds and then died. I tried again, same thing. I would have tried 10 times and gave up. I had a major problem I thought, told work i was sick and organised a tow to my mechanic. I disconnected the battery and charged it up, as I thought i would have depleted the battery. Later that day it starts up fine. No issues. Towie was booked so it went on a truck to the Mechanic. mechanic also could not find anything wrong and it did not have any problem starting for him. He gave it back and took it home. Its done it twice in about 10 starts. So its intermittent. I have scan tool - no faults codes come up on the dash or the scan tool. Fuel filter is about a year old, maybe 8000 kms since replacement. Drives fine. Once is running it idles fine at about 750 rpm. My scan tool tells me the Calculated Engine Load value at idle is 20% at normal operating temperature and that this figure should be lower but I am not sure about this. Is this related to injector wear, so could this be an issue regards the hard start issue.

My thoughts are intermittent bad data from a sensor, but which one. Is it worth taking to a dealer for just a dealer level scan. I've been quoted a ferocious $308 for just the scan from a Nissan dealer. Any thoughts.

Appreciate any advice.

Tim

 

[Old.Tony]

The absolute very first thing I'd do is pop the bonnet and go give the fuel primer a bunch of squeezes (count them as you go). It's going to get firm at some point (make a note of how many squeezes before this) but keep going - you're trying to provoke a fuel leak. It's possible that it'll be the primer bulb itself and your fingers will be wet with diesel. Have had several instances of this recently.

 

[Black_Outlaw]

As Old Tony says - you'll have a slight leak in that fuel primer allowing it to flow back to the tank.
I know that happened on my old D40.. It turned out that they had not fully locked on the filter allowing it to suck air... Also check that fuel bulb to see if it's perished or showing signs.

 

[GunMentalGrey]

Sounds a little different to my fuel leak issues, but don’t rule it out.

When the fuel system has a leak mine stalls after starting normally, then it’ll take a long time cranking to get it going again unless I prime using the bulb in which case it fires straight away and runs normally.

Seems to seep back out of the system if I leave it for a while and the ambient temp is quite cold. Eg as the air cools in the tank it sucks fuel back into the tank out of the injectors trying to equalise the pressure.

 

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Thanks Tony, Outlaw and Gunmetal. One thing, mine doesn't have a bulb to prime. It has a very short hand plunger type arrangement on top of where the the fuel filter screws on. But I will try pumping the plunger and see what that does. I will also look closely around there for fuel leaks and if I understand correctly, signs of air leaks letting air into the lines allowing fuel to seep back to the tank. I will update with my progress. Thanks all.

 

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Ok so an update on this problem. I had changed the suction control valve myself a month before this problem started so I did not think it was the scv. So i had tried all the advice, but problem persisted, and I finally gave up trying to work out what it was to fix myself, and I took it to a diesel specialist in Darra Brisbane. He said the scv goes bad but there is also another one, the rail pressure valve, that he says is supposed to be changed at the same time. He took my new scv off and threw it away saying you can't trust something from ebay even though its sold as, and looks identical to a Denso! Anyway he changed those two items. I also paid to get a new set of Denso injectors as it does have 264k on the odo. $3100 all up. It does run perfectly well now, and that was about three weeks ago, problem is definitely gone. This info maybe of assistance to someone. If i had of changed both these valves, it probably would have kept me going for a fair bit longer, although the injectors were well and truly due to be done, just putting off that expense I guess. The previous owner never had them changed, guess he opted to sell to me before that was required. Anyway hoping i have many more trouble free miles ahead. Thanks again all who offered assistance to me in the diagnosis.