05 Astra van Diesel question

[Egon]

Hey all.

Mate bought himself a new van to hoof around in and found himself a (!) bargain. He bought an '05 astra van "sportage" with the 4 seats and all the sillyness that goes with it.
However, it puffs a little blue smoke on startup in the morning, running like a bag o'shite for a few seconds, calms down then all is well, pulling like a train and running fine.
Temperature not high, although the expansion bottle was empty, so filled it to the line.
He was worried and took it to a "garage" who did a compression test and told him that (his words..not mine) 1,2 & 4 were 1000 low and 3 was 2000 low. Now i have no idea if its 2000 apples, but i'm assuming he means PSi...

Anyone got any ideas? its a 1.7tdi but not sure if its the isuzu or vx lump..

[sxbaz]

whats the mileage out of interest??

[scrapchallenge]

probably vx lump on an 05, the isuzu ones were mainly in the mk3 diesels, but don't quote me on that. Could need a head gasket & head skim, but tbh it is probably better to just drop a new engine in from a written off one instead, check out www.astraownersclub.com forums for more info (it's free to join unless you want premium membership) so you can just sign up as a free member and ask on the forums.

Kirsty

[bluedanny]

the isuzu lumps came in the mark 3 astra, cavaliers and the mark 1 corsa's, so it will be VX lump

if the pressues are low it might need a rebuild! may be easier and cheaper to get another engine

[longshanksS14]

If it's the 1.7 and has a black rocker cover (as in the pic) it's probably the Y17DT - an isuzu / vauxhall hybrid thing.

Blocks are pretty much bullet proof apparently, a few issues with heads going porous from what I remember when I was looking for my astravan.

Injection pumps and the 2 ecus were the biggest reported problems, might be worth getting a good diesel engineer to give it a look over to make sure it's not over fueling when cold due to a computer thingy before pulling the head off...

[Egon]

probably vx lump on an 05, the isuzu ones were mainly in the mk3 diesels, but don't quote me on that. Could need a head gasket & head skim, but tbh it is probably better to just drop a new engine in from a written off one instead, check out www.astraownersclub.com forums for more info (it's free to join unless you want premium membership) so you can just sign up as a free member and ask on the forums.

Kirsty

Cheers kirsty, been on AO for a while (since i had far tooooo many vauxhalls for my own good!).
Its done about 72k, but the cambelt looks on the history to have been done recently, along with a few pipes....methinks the head has gone along with the headgasket.
Where does one look for decent lumps these days? Every time i google it, it comes up with a load of tripe....

[sxbaz]

quite a few astras with 1.7cdti engines at work have had similar problems, all around 80-100k. Headgasket and coolant problems seem to be what kills them although being company cars theyve probably seen some abuse.

[piman2k]

Don't think you'll find an Izuzu engine in an '05 Astra Van. Send me your VIN number and I should be able to work some magic to tell you about your van to narrow your search

[scrapchallenge]

salvage auctions At least you usually know they were running when they were crashed, so you can usually get a good cheap low mileage engine out of one. Try HBC vehicle auctions - I've got cars from there before

[Egon]

Don't think you'll find an Izuzu engine in an '05 Astra Van. Send me your VIN number and I should be able to work some magic to tell you about your van to narrow your search

Thanks Pi, appreciate it.
Cant imagine that it'd be something daft like injector seals or glowplug seals, would it?
I just have images of it ending up at my house with a daft look on his face asking for me to de-head the car...

[piman2k]

Sorry Egon, it's a car before my time at Vauxhall and I'm not in a service department so my skills are limited But I can find out through the warranty guys if there are any regular faults. Sure we can help somehow

[Mark]

I would keep and eye on the coolant and get a sniffer test done. Check the oil as well.

It could be something simple like an injector dripping into the bore over night and flooding one cylinder. I would take it to a better garage as well