E39 525 TDS fuel leak

[Chris_525TDS]

Hi everyone, today when I started up my beemer there was a smell of diesel coming into the cabin.  

Investigation revealed that no.2 injector was leaking  The leak seems to be coming from one of the flexi braided fuel hoses which run between each injector in a daisy-chain pattern. Specifically it seems to leak from where the flexi is connected to the injector. Now, these pipes have no clips or anything which stops them from being pulled off and replaced but I would like to run it by you all before I go and remove the defective piece of tubing. Are these simply a push-to-fit part?

BMW technical information shows the injector has a mushroomed head where the pipe is fixed on which obviously requires the pipe to stretch somewhat. Any advice you can give me would be appreciated!!

[Steveo10]

I think you have a dodgy 'leak off pipe'.  The pipe is readily available and should'nt be hard to replace.  You might need to warm the pipe in a cup of hot water first to make it easier to slide onto the injector.  

KEEP US POSTED!!!

[jhob]

I had exactly the same problem on my e34 tds and it failed it's MOT on it last week.  Got it fixed for about £40 although its now started leaking again so going to have to take it back to the garage.

I'm pretty sure the e34 and e39 have the same tds engine.

[Chris_525TDS]

...Thanks for your advice guys, I'm going to check with euro car parts in the morning to see if they keep this tubing in stock - thankfully they're only 20 mins away. Failing that, a trip to the stealers!!

It's worth mentioning that I do have a tuning unit fitted to my car (amongst other performance enhancing trickery) which raises the fuel pressure considerably. I'm not sure if this affects the pressure of the fuel in these flexi's though, it's a possibility that maybe the excessive fuel pressure has caused the leak in the first place.

I'll let you know how I get on.

Cheers

CHRIS

[Chris_525TDS]

...phoned Euro Car Parts this morning, they don't keep diesel leak-off kits so I phoned the stealers and they wanted £14.99 per metre of tubing!!!

I called my local car parts store and they had the tubing in stock (£4.99.) BMW technical information says that the tubing is 3mm bore so I phoned my local Bosch fuel injection specialist and he explained to me that there is virtually no pressure in the leak-off system and they had done plenty of repairs using the standard 3.2mm tubing which included BMW's.

Reassured by this information I went outside and removed the centre plastic covering from the engine. No.2 injector was pretty fouled up with diesel so it was difficult to see which piece of tubing was at fault, i.e. tubing from No.1 injector which connects to No.2 or from No.2 to No.3. After cleaning up as much as I could I started the engine and watched the injector. The tubing from No.1 to No.2 was leaking away through the braiding.

I tried pulling the tubing off but it is extremely tight, I ended up having to carefully cut each end with a craft knife to get it off and at this point I thought I was going to have real problems getting the new stuff on but after cutting the new piece of tubing to the correct length it pushed onto each injector without any fuss, the only slight problem was that on No.2 injector the hex nut fitting which holds the main fuel line to the injector gets in the way slightly so a bit of wiggling was required to get it past!

Inspected the tubing again while the car was running and there was no leakage to be seen - perfect!!

It's worth noting that although the braided hose which was leaking looked visually perfect, it was infact perished inside - the braiding was merely hiding the problem. The whole job from start to finish took 15-20 mins and £4.99, although the Bosch fuel injection specialist sold the pipe at £1.50 per foot.

Hope you diesel owners find this helpful !!

Cheers
-CHRIS

[jhob]

That is useful, I'll have to do the same with mine.  Where did you get the tubing from?  Halfords?

Annoyed that I paid £40 to get it (not) fixed now, I thought that it was the injector itself that was leaking as the diesel all collected around the base of the injector.

[Chris_525TDS]

...I bought the tubing from a car parts store just down the road from me, y'know a small local shop that sells everything from sponges to clutches! I think probably everyone has one of these close-by.

The kit I used was bagged as a Vauxhall Vectra Diesel Spill-Off Kit which has about a metre of braided tubing and also has the rubber blanking caps which are fitted to the last injector on the line (No.6 in our case.)

Which injector is leaking on yours? I was recommended to replace all the tubing by the guy at the parts store but I personally disagree, the original tubing is such a tight fit that unless it is showing signs of leaking it is best to leave well alone!

Let me know how you get on.

Cheers

CHRIS

[pgg525D]

My 2000' 525D has developed a fuel leak which I suspect is also one of the spill off pipes having perished.  

Would like to rectify it myself as it seems like a fairly straight forward repair however I am having some difficulty removing the plastic engine cover.  Have removed/loosened what seems to be all of the hex screws holding the covers on but can only remove the lower part succesfully.  I do not want to use undue force so can anyone advise on how to correctly remove the covers in order to expose the spill off pipes?

Nothing mentioned in the instruction manual unfortunately.

Any help appreciated.

[Macca]

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Hi
I had the very same thing on the M6 a couple of weeks ago and I called out the resuce guy and he changed all the 'drain off' pipes just in case. So if you change them I would change them all.
Smile

Hope this helps?
Macca