A mouse or rat took to munching on the rubber of this part in the diesel supply line of my Dacia Sandero from 2010 (see images). I do not know:
a) what this part is called in English, and
b) how to best remove it to be able to replace it.
The tubes going to - and coming from this part are not made from rubber. It looks like it is a rather inflexible, hard kind of plastic tubing. I’m not sure whether to pull just a little bit harder or if there is another way to replace this part. (Maybe only the rubber part should be replaced? Is that the way to do it?)
I’d appreciate your advice, as I think this will solve the problems I have been experiencing, today.
Which are: This morning, the car had difficulty starting (which it normally never has). Then while driving and going up a small hill, I felt a little “shock” as if the car held back for a short moment, because of lack of diesel(?). The same thing happened in the afternoon. However, this time, less than a minute after the “holding back”-moment, the engine suddenly shut down altogether. (Luckily, I was going down hill and I could easily ease the car into a spacious parking space, when that happened). When I tried to restart it, it would not take. (No problem with the battery, lights keep on working, etc…).
I would think the cause is the damaged part that is shown in the picture, and replacing it should solve the problem.
Thanks J.T. Sanders!
I hadn’t realised that, but I have seen it on other brands of cars, as well.
I don’t think it is an inline fuel filter, though, as I have never seen a fuel filter that is made out of rubber. It looks more like something you would squeeze (and indeed, you can)…like some kind of hand fuel pump.
Hold on, let me look that up…
Yep, it looks to be a “diesel fuel hand primer pump”.
I found a couple of examples on the internet, this one from Nissan looks quite a bit like it:
But I also found one from Renault (Dacia = Renault), which is rather similar, but comes without the tubes connected to it.
So, I’m still not sure how to take out the damaged hand pump: do I try to take it off the inflexible, non-rubber tubes, or do I have to replace it with the tubes attached to it?
Also: how do I make sure the air is out of the fuel supply line once the damaged part is replaced…? Simple keep on trying to start the car until it starts? Or do I have to somehow “de-air” (<-- I don’t know the proper English wording) the supply line, first?
For those who are not used to diesel engines is important to know that the fuel system on diesel engines must never run out of fuel , always have in the fuel tank at least 1 (one) gallon of diesel or 5 liters to be certain that never happens. If the system runs out of diesel, air is drawn from the tank fuel gets into the system to the injection pump and then is a bit of a hassle (even if u top up after) to bleed out the air from the system and the fuel injection pump.
If this has happened already Dacia diesel engines are equipped with a small rubber kidney shaped manual pump in the engine bay from which u can manually drawn fuel through the system until the injection pump is full of diesel and the engine is able to start.
That is indeed a puzzling problem. No expert on rodent teeth mark ID, but I’d guess rodents not involved, the part failed b/c the rubber got old and inflexible.
Yeah changing filters on my Olds, until I learned to crack the line on the filter to purge the air, it would take forever to get the thing started again. Crank crank crank with a $300 starter (1982 dollars).
Since I got the name of the part, I did some looking around and found that apparently, “the fuel line is a hard plastic [that is shrink-rapped on the spigots] and is not designed to be unplugged from the primer bulb spigots. The primer is not a separate part but is permanently built into the fuel line which comes as one piece and only from Renault (Dacia = Renault).”
That means you have to replace the whole fuel line which might include dropping the fuel tank…which is an absurd design.
Even though I happened to have access to a Dacia Logan spare part car (which has exactly the same Renault engine as a Dacia Sandero, and it is also from 2010, I believe), it seems an absurd amount of work to just replace something simple as a primer bulb.
Therefor, I’m looking into this solution hat I found on another forum (I will post the link later, in case it is not allowed and this whole reply is held for forum-moderation) which comes down to just replacing the rubber “squeeze” part of the hand pump primer bulb.
Here’s an image from that other forum which shows that they have taken off the rubber part and are left with just the spigots (which are then inserted into the replacement rubber squeeze part):
Okay, I tried posting the link to the renault forum to show you more of the procedure and images posted there, but it does not seem to be allowed. Well, anyway. The idea is to simply just replace the rubber squeeze part and use some jubliee-clips or tie-rips to prevent potential leaking (although on the original part there are no clips or rips, so it might not even be necessary).
b.t.w. @George_San_Jose1 - It is defenitely due to rodent-activity…I found the chewed off bits underneath it, and also some droppings. The bastards.
Unless you think it happened where you don’t usually park, you’ll want to address the rodent issue as soon as you can. They don’t just chew, they nest and sometimes store food caches in inconvenient places. I once found a whole family of dead baby mice rotting on top of a fuel tank. I’d been wondering where the bad smell was coming from for quite some time, and the only reason I finally found them is that I discovered a leak in the fuel tank and, there they were when I dropped the tank to replace it.
Since this is mostly a US forum and your vehicle is not sold here post your link and results on a forum for your vehicle where it will reach people who have your vehicle.
I’m going to suggest that our automatic response to people asking questions about Euro cars might ought to be something other than “this is America, go away.”
They’re cars, guys. They work on the same principles as American cars.
The spare part that I had, unfortunately is cracked. I’ll be buying a new (universal) part (Renault is asking some €150 for the original part, which, even including the fuel lines, is an absurd price for something like this).
I hope this’ll work, too.
@shadowfax - I agree, and thanks. E.g. I believe Ford also has models with primer hand pumps.
It is not quite solved, as I’m not sure how to bleed the fuel system, once the hand pump is replaced. Suggestions are welcome!
Well sure, car guys or gals like to help other car guys and gals. The only problem is some of us have no idea what the car is let alone some of the terminology such as dizzy. Then if we point to sources in the US, it may be unhelpful to someone in the UK, but yeah bring them on. I can provide lousy information regardless of the continent.
Those critters display weird tastes indeed. One of them chewed the head-rest off of my car creeper. You know, that flat thing with wheels you lay on while you crawl under the car looking for why something isn’t working. I solved that problem by deciding I didn’t actually need a car creeper.
Careful where you lay your head. Rodents are rodents. I had a squirrel take up winter residence in my gas grill. Wouldn’t have been so bad except he took all the stuffing from a chair pad. Lighting the grill took care of it though.
I took the spigots off of the new primer that I bought (just a universal one, no valves in it) and replaced only the rubbery squeeze part of the primer hand pump. This saved me a lot of euros as the original primer hand pump is only sold including the complete fuel lines (coming from the fuel tank!) for the price of €150. After that, it would involve a couple of hours of work because likely, the fuel tank would have to be dropped to be able to replace the fuel line.
Anyway, I got some information that the air bleeding of the fuel system is automatic on a Dacia (= Renault) Sandero, so no need for opening and closing air bleeding nipples/screws, or anything.
It just took a really long time squeezing the diesel primer bulb (literally some 10 minutes).
Thank you all for helping me out. Really appreciated! (Now, hopefully, those bastards rodents do not decide to go under the hood, again, any time soon… ).
