D4D loss of power, fuel filter fun?

[dave_plaza]

Hi folks,

Newbie here, so first off - nice to meet you :-)

I've a 2002 D4D Corolla, which has 80K - When I tried to accelerate it was just flat, power would kick in occasionally until eventually not at all - this was above about 2000 rpm.  So i went down the route of cleaning the EGR valve and all that stuff - but it didn't make a bit of difference.  Eventually I replaced the fuel filter - looking inside it, it was just like a big lump of jelly.  Put the new filter on and it worked a treat - for about 2 weeks - replaced the filter again (but this time it didn't look bad) - and again it worked a treat for a couple of weeks and then the fault came back - took it to the local garage and they read the engine management code which suggested a fuel fault.

Yesterday I had an idea to take off the filter again - i just removed the filter from the engine and popped it back in (i didn't replace it, its the same filter, it looked OK inside) - So after re-seating the same filter back in, it's working OK again - I really can't get my head around what is happening here and why removing the filter makes it work again - I imagine the loss of power issue will rear its ugly head again in a week or two.  Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

 

Dave :-)

[furtula]

Lump of "jelly" suggests your have/had nice amount of sludge in your tank, which is not that uncommon. I saw similar topics with sludge being mentioned.

I would use search to find those topics for any eventual ideas of how to get the tank cleaned. You might got some of it out, but there's probably more left which might cause issue in future.

[dave_plaza]

Cheers Dean, I appreciate the reply and will follow up on your suggestion.

My cars done 30 miles since I disconnected the fuel filter and then put it back together.  There was a moment on the way home from work today where powered dipped again for about 20 seconds - it then ran fine after that.  I suspect the loss of power issue to rear its ugly head more over the next week until eventually its a permanent isuue again.  I just can't get my head around why doing what I did to the fuel filter causes a brief remission of the problem, and given that the filter is clean.

No doubt I've had some sludge in there though.  Theres a guy on a thread futher down who had a similar problem by the looks of it and he cured it by cleaning the scv valves.  Ok, hands up i'm not too sure what they do, I'll need to swat upon it, but perhaps i'll give that a try first, as dropping the tank seems like a mighty task.

 

Thanks again

[dave_plaza]

Update:

Yesterday I cleaned out the SCV's - red and green.  There's a post a few pages back titled "Power Loss at 3000 RPM", that gives some good tips on this.

I'm one day in and the car is running sweet - Things to note if you're going to try this is:

Don't try and remove these with a normal allen key - I used a allen key bit from a screw driver set and then connected it into a socket and a socket set wrench (but you can buy the proper tools for this if need be) - i'd also suggest blasting them with wd40.  Remove the water filling bottle/unit (it's just 2 screws, and tie it out of the way).  The SCV's have 2 different sized rubber o-rings on each of them - mine seemed a bit baggy when I got the valves out - when i re-fitted them they must have broke and fuel pi$$ed out when i started the engine - I'd suggest replacing these o-rings and when you push the scv'c back in, align it so the screw holes match and then tap it in with a small hammer.  I'd also recommend spraying a little bit of wd40 on the the scv's where the o-rings are, to help with sliding them back in.

When I cleaned them I just squirted carb cleaner in the holes - I did it in a small glass jar, so i could see the small bits of black muck that came out - it wasn't much, just some specks, but that's enough to mess these up.

So, one day in - and I'm not saying this has fixed it as changing the fuel filter a while back brought me some respite - But right now, it's running great and hopefully this is the end of the matter.  I'll try and update further down the line, but if I don't post back then it's all sorted.

Hope this helps someone.  There's some vids on youtube regarding this too that are worth a watch if you're planning on doing this - just search d-4d scv's.