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It's quite common for the Bosch VE fuel injection pump to leak from the throttle spindle on a 300Tdi (or leak from any other seal for that matter). The telltale sign for me was a very damp injection pump, along with the right hand side of the engine, including the timing case. Eventually it started dripping from the pump onto the front diff and splashing back onto the oil filter.
I planned on removing the top cover, replacing the o-ring and bush. Job done. BUT it was bit more complicated than that! The kit can be bought from places like eBay quite readily, with the o-ring (
1 460 210 008), bush and spindle (1 463 161 849) together, as well as
complete seal/gasket kits.
Taking the top cover off was fairly straightforward - just undoing the nuts and bolts. The idle threaded bar needs backing off so you can get to one of the four cover bolts with a long, ball-allen key. I marked the throttle spindle position to the lever arm and checked it was correct by using a mirror to view it directly from above. The spring tension can be relieved with some wire to unclip it. The spindle was loose slightly in the bush, as the video on the right shows.
To disconnect the return pipe, I caught the excess diesel in an ice cream tub and then measured the max power screw on the back with some digital calipers to ensure the screw would go back in at exactly the same position. This needs to be removed to allow the top cover to come off. I removed the accelerator cable and once everything was clear I prised off the top cover. There was a kind of *TWANG* but I thought nothing of it.
With the top cover removed, I used a 9mm socket and lump hammer to drift out the old bush. I pressed in the new bush with a bolt, some washers and a 30mm nut. The photo on the right shows how this was mocked up by using the old bush. The throttle shaft did show some a slight wear so it may have been prudent to replace this part also. I fitted the new o-ring and lubricated it and the shaft with some red rubber grease. It started to get tricky when trying to refit everything. The pump leaks some diesel whilst the cover is removed because of its angle on the timing case. I noticed that the "T shaft" had an ear missing. Whilst trying to refit I realised that this had actually broken off and the spring wasn't holding onto the throttle spindle bracket. ARGH.
The part had to be replaced. The lack of visibility up under the top cover when fitting it was making it difficult, and this was the reason I had broken the part in the first place. I also couldn't find where the snapped off piece of metal was, so I suspected it had fallen into the pump. These two reasons meant I had to remove the pump from the engine. Luckily I had a 300tdi timing kit for just this purpose.
A few days later the new "T.shaft" part arrived (1 463 163 150) for circa £70. What I found was that in that time whilst the pump was disconnected, the fuel tank had been siphoning down the return line as the vehicle was on a slope and approximately 14 litres had filled the oil pan and gone everywhere on the drive. Diesel melts tarmac by the way!
Anyway, I set about removing the pump and upturned it with some vigorous shaking to get any bits out. I was sure the piece of metal was inside, so I spent a long while on every angle, flushing with diesel, trying to get something to come out - but it didn't. I figured either it wasn't in there or the pump would self-destruct some time in the first 50 miles. I had to take the chance. It's quite hard working on a pump from an old vehicle because it's caked in crud and nothing is allowed to enter inside when you're working on it.
By this point I had also ordered a full seal replacement kit, as I was taking te pump off anyway. Most of the o-rings that I removed were very square and would probably have started leaking in the not-too-distant future anyway, so that was a good move. It was all straightforward. Some of the bolts are a funny shape but you can get them out without too much hassle. I also replaced the copper washers in the outlet tubes. I couldn't find a torque specification so I nipped them up. A few months later I would find that one of them was leaking and had dropped my MPG by 3... So nipping it up a bit more cured that. I checked the boost diaphragm as well to make sure it wasn't ripped.
The new T-shaft was fitted and the top cover gently replaced after a lot of manipulation. Fitting the lid is incredibly tricky on the EGR pumps due to the extra lever protruding in. I found removing the stop solenoid gave some extra room for manoeuvre. The seal kit was generally very good, except that the gasket to the timing case didn't fit, so I just used the old gasket as a template and cut the hole larger.
