Easy Fuel Pressure Regulator Replacement for Land Rover TD5 Engines

Hello. Welcome to the BritPart Workshop. My name's Danny Hopkins and I'm here in Shropshire with Paul Meyers, BritPart's, MD. Paul, when you are testing stuff that's gonna to be put on sale, new kit. You really put it through the mill, don't you? You test it to destruction. Why did you do that? Okay, really there's two elements that we're looking for, reliability but also safety factors. So, we're looking at, on a safety critical item, like a fuel system or steering system or braking system, that it's going to maintain the original specification of a vehicle and be as safe, if not safer than when it was made. Of course, you must do that because if stuff goes wrong it doesn't bear thinking about, does it? Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. So, the case in point here, Paul, is something from the fuel system. Tell us what vehicle is this from and what does it do? Sure. This is a, from a Discovery or a Defender fitted with a td5 engine, diesel engine. A very popular choice on the engine, but this is one of the known Achilles' heels of the engine, in that, if a fuel pressure regulator leaks, we can literally pump the contents of the fuel tank out at high pressure. Goodness me. So where does it usually fail? This is a fuel pressure regulator, which limits the amount of fuel going into the engine. If this fails, we will get a leak from here. The leak can either be a small leak, Yeah. which will be a dribble yeah or it could be a major leak, in which case, it will just pump out the fuel tank contents. Goodness, me. Right. Okay. So how, how do you know if this is happening? I suppose you can tell with your nose, can't ya? You can smell it and you will find a pool of diesel where you've parked. Great. So, it's really safety critical. Sure. Okay. In that case, let's go over to the workshop, meet up with Martin and Steve to see them fit this piece of kit to the vehicle. Right. So far, we've just removed the top of the engine cover, which is held on with the three 13 mill headed screws. And the next job is to remove the engine lifting bracket from the back of the cylinder head. Getting this out of the way, just makes the job a lot easier. It's a lot easier to get to the connections and see the fuel pressure regulator itself. When that's been removed, use a small screwdriver to depress the, the metal tang on the clip that holds the fuel temperature sensor in place and remove the connector from there. And from that moment you can then release the quick release connector on the fuel in pipe, which is, goes onto the front of the pressure regulator here. You will probably lose a little bit of diesel out of that but, so make sure you've got a tray underneath the vehicle ready to catch any spillage. From there, this pipe here connect onto the fuel cooler. This is the diesel return pipe. That has a quick release collet connector on the end there. Sometimes, it's necessary just to unbolt the fuel cooler from the side of the engine to access that, 'cause it can be a bit tricky. Once you've got that off, in order to reduce spillage and just make the unit a little bit compact, you can then take this and clip it onto the fuel in barb, like so. That just means it won't lash diesel everywhere and it just brings the thing, makes it a little bit smaller and easier to get out of the engine bay. You'll notice this pipe is still in place on our engine. That's because this very rarely gives problems. It, this connects onto the front of the cylinder head, on later models, later td5s. But because they never tend to leak and they're really fiddly to change, you can just loosen this 14 mill union on the front here, unscrew the pipe, from the side of the body of the pressure regulator. And that pipe will just sit in place, along the side of the engine, allowing you to undo the three 10 mill screws and remove the old regulator from the side of the cylinder head. Once you've got the old one off, the next step is to clean up the mating face on the side of the cylinder head before fitting the new unit and to do that you need to have all the bolts in place and the gasket. And obviously it's quite a confined space, so, it's quite fiddly. So, here's Fuzz with a top tip on how to achieve that. Now some jobs are an absolute swine to do, in situ. Now this might look like an easy components fit, fuel pressure regulator but you've got three bolts, one, two, and three and you've got a gasket, which goes on, oh, see I'm already losing stuff, for the gasket that goes on, like, so. Now, if I want to fit this assembly to the engine without the bolts falling out or without the gasket falling off, while I'm trying to start these, hard to get to bolts, this little rubber band is my friend. So what I do, is I place it around the bolts, like so, with the gasket already on, that leaves me with both hands then, to place the assembly in and start each of the bolts, remembering to start every one of them before getting a little hook in with your fingers, fingernails if you got any, I haven't and just snap the band off. Then you can just tighten them up. Job done. So, the new fuel pressure regulator's all fitted up and ready to go. The last job is to bleed the fuel system. It is really easy on a td5. Just have to turn the ignition on and pump the throttle pedal five times and that'll bleed itself. Engine light symbol'll flash on the dashboard and then it'll go off when it's finished. So, for more helpful tips on how to work on your Land Rover, check out the rest of the Britpart Workshop videos.