At last, I have got around to starting work on the Freelander engine. For those who have missed it, the engine had a “giddy fit” on the A1 a couple of months back when the whole truck was lost in a massive cloud of blue, white, and black smoke.

Turbo time

The engine kept running even when I turned the key off, and the rev counter was about to go off the clock when I managed to get it into top gear and stall it before the engine went bang. At the time, I thought it was the turbo and when I got home and dipped the oil, there was only a small black splodge on the bottom of the dipstick. This just about confirmed that indeed the bearings and the seals had suddenly packed up.

There was no forewarning that this was going to happen. The truck had always started the first time with no puff of smoke at the exhaust. It had always passed the MOT emission test with no advisories, so it was a shock when it happened, but the truck is 17 years old, and it would almost certainly be the original turbo fitted from new,