Fully serviced the car last week but forgot the fuel filter, did it on sunday and there is a marked loss in power.

I've re-fitted 3x, (it's the 2 pipes and 1 cup? arrangement) ensuring the butterfly clip is getting the filter but no difference.

The main hill to work that I could fly up in 5th doing 60 required 4th to do 50 (and I was tempted to drop to 3rd).

I'm hoping I've got a duff filter so I've got the missus getting a proper replacement for me but is there anything I might have missed?

I pre-primed the filter when I fitted it and the engine started straight away, runs very smooth and this morning with a hard frost it started much better than it had been (the old filter had been missed at the last service and was black when I took it off, reckon it wasn't stopping much water). No lights on the dashboard, nothing to indicate a problem.

I’m 99% sure I fitted the pipes correctly (they would get in each others way otherwise) but what would happen if I deliberately fitted them back to front as a test? Just run out of fuel or would it damage the engine. I couldn’t work out the indication on the filters, as the originally fitted bosch one had a greyed half circle and a clear half circle around the pipes, the replacement had arrows. So I fitted like for like positions using the cup/butterfly fitting as the base.

In for it’s MOT on Tuesday which I reckon it’ll pass (still revs to 4K, but takes forever under load) as the arse end blows very clean.

 

You haven't inadvertently disconnected the temp sensor on the intercooler?

 

Not that i'm aware of, where should I look for the sensor?

tried another filter and it's still the same...

 

What else did you do on the service?

Reason I mention the temp sensor is that disconnected it make it run with little power.

It is on the left hand side of the intercooler but is not that near the fuel filter.

 

new air and oil filter, engine flushed with wynn's to clear the gunk out and filled with cheap ford spec, then reflushed and filled with premium ford spec 5w-30.

did 80 miles with no loss of power on saturday, swopped out the fuel filter on sunday and straight away low power as above.

just checked the temp sensor and it's looking untouched and giving it a wiggle it looks/feels fully home too.

it's a puzzler...

 

what would happen if i fitted the pipes the other way around, anything terminal?

 

Don't know.

I've just been out and taken these of the Wifies car. They might help, might not...

 

is it a genuine ford filter? i have had problems with non genuine filters

 

cheers for the photos, mine looks the same.

i'm nearly 90 mins drive from a ford garage out in the sticks, i'm half tempted to put the original filter on as a test.

 

you should, if you refit the old filter (as black as it is) and its ok then you have found your fault ive always used genuine filters on these since having problems with 3 different cars after non genuine filters were installed

 

It passed the MOT - so that's a relief.

It drives like a Rover 220sdi I had where the turbo/intercooler pipes had split, happy at low revs and will pull cleanly to 4k revs and hold but just no turbo kick/power.

I wonder if I've leant against/banged a pipe in there somewhere? I can't hear the air escaping as I did with the rover.

The car has the EGR blanked and I did notice that the vacuum pipe (the long thin one) is broken and has a bit of black oily liquid is in there. Is this a problem as it's blanked off anyways? There were some worries back in the day of the banked egr killing the turbo with the greater temperatures. But I would have thought if the turbo had died the engine wouldn't do jack.

Any other thoughts? I can't put the original filter back in as the missus throw it out on bin day

Was going to keep this car and get rid of the mondy tdci 130 that's riddled with minor bits that need doing as the wife is getting anew car, looks like I'll be selling this and keeping the mondy...