Few questions. What is this?

I rarely do work on my van as it gets very little driving and is prety much trouble free, but as I was replacing my glow plugs today I noticed a few things that I would appreciate some of you that are more knowledgeable and spend more time in the engine bay.

First, some black gunk that seemed to be baked on as I could not wipe any of it.


Second, I occasionally notice fluid at this location "surrounding nut with black hose" when cold but then it would dry out after engine is hot.


Third, what is this hose for and where should it go?

1/ The black gunk around the injector is "Black Death" and it means the sealing ring for that injector is leaking some combustion gases and by products into the area around the injector seal!
2/ Which nut, the big one with the rubber w braid over hose... or the bog nut that retains the steel line.
The rubber hose/braid joint looks a bit sketchy to me, might be a good idea to replace the entire hose assembly.
3/That little hose would be the overflow for the coolant reservoir. It's supposed to go straight down so any overflow is directed down towards the road.
Roger

sailquik said:

snip.....
3/That little hose would be the overflow for the coolant reservoir. It's supposed to go straight down so any overflow is directed down towards the road.
Roger

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I don't think that is the coolant overflow hose, since that can be seen coming off the top of the coolant reservoir in the pic. BTW, on my engine, that hose coming offf the coolant reservoir is not directed down to the road, but is connected to the engine. After that ?????

I'm pretty sure that #3 is the fuel filter water drain hose that has become detached from the connection/valve located just behind the oil dipstick tube.

edit: FWIW, the location shown in pic #2 is bone dry on my van.

The small hose goes somewhere by the headlight.

What year is your van? This is in the NCV3 talk section. I thought black death was only a T1N issue.

pfflyer said:

... I thought black death was only a T1N issue.

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The NCV3 injector seal design, hold down claw, and bolt haven't changed. Given time...

Learn something new everyday. With my memory, things I forgot is like learning something new again.

pfflyer said:

Learn something new everyday. With my memory, things I forgot is like learning something new again.

Click to expand...

I hear you. It has always seemed that I only have so much RAM available in my pointy little head. As I get older it now seems that I need to forget something to make space for anything new. At the present loss rate I may end up a living example of the movie 50 First Dates. vic

HSS:
If your Sprinter is the same configuration as my 2012 NCV3 170" wb with the OM-642 3.0 V6 that little line is the vent/overflow on the fuel filter.
The line (on my 2012) plugs into a braid covered line that runs through the RH plastic valve cover and ends up at a 90 deg. fitting coming out the top of the fuel filter over in the center of the engine between the 2 valve covers.
It's clipped into 2 or 3 little plastic vac tube clips on the upper cross member and ends up pointing towards the back of the engine way over on the front top cross member above the headlight. It's either there as a high vent (to keep water out if you run through a deep ford in a stream) or it's there to take leaking fuel away from the hot engine parts, but it looks like it would spray all over the RH side of the engine anyway (as it's configured in my Sprinter) so the logical answer is it's where water would come out of the fuel/water separator.
You can trace it down and under the valve cover then see it come out of the valve cover pass through and go over to the fuel filter.
I will find out more about it at my next service. Seems like there is a clip in the top of the RH plastic valve cover that the line could be clipped into, but that would make removing the valve cover a lot more difficult.
I never realized that there is a "pass through" near the front of the RH valve cover, but if I pull on that braided hose that the black rubber hose connects to, it moves on both sides of the pass through in the valve cover.
Roger

Thanks Roger. I never noticed this hose until yesterday doing the glow plugs.

I went back and used my special purple degreaser on the injector and it cleaned up pretty quickly. It was definitely baked on and not wet. It looked like oil splatter rather a leak. Will check it again in a few months.

Will investigate this suspect hose again and see if it does go by the fuek filter.

Dan ☼

That second picture is a picture of a fuel line, and that fluid is most likely fuel, get some on you finger and smell it, should smell like diesel. First picture, need new injector seal ring. Third picure that hoss goes into the end of the plastic water drain line that comes from the center of the fuel filter.

Don't wait on fixing Black Death. Avoiding 30 min fix can cost you a head.

Well I decided to take another look after cleaning the oil splatter and went ahead and took johnsmiths advise to replace the O ring and hold down bolt just in case. So far all looks good.