New head, not starting

Made an account just to ask a few q's save face a bit helping my son on his zd30.

My young fella (15) has a 06 d22 zd30 that we picked up cheap for him to run around the paddock and learn to drive in, I came home one arvo to find he had tried to change the glow plugs himself and snapped 3 of them. We remove the head, and find the head is cracked anyway, we also found a nice crack in the main timing case, looks like he's hit a starpicket or something, but he reckons he never did. So it gets pushed into the barn for a few months and we move on.

About 2 months ago, my neighbour tells me he has new head sitting in his shed, still in box, had it for some time, but tells my son he can have it for some jobs around the farm. Young fella gets to work and earns himself a replacement head, so I purchased a secondhand timing case, and a few other bits and pieces for him and we pull it down.

My son has done most of the work, I have just supervised and been his assistant, this was supposed to be a learning experience for him. I have built a couple old 186 holden reds, but never a diesel. Now that it's all bolted back to together, she turns over fine, but wont kick, tried aerostart, but still no kick. Which leaves me thinking it has no compression, but we cant work out why.

cam clearances range from .23 to .35, book says they should be .30 to .40, but I'm not convinced this would be enough to stop her kicking over.

All timing marks matched up as per workshop manual.

Any ideas on what I should check next would be great. Young fella is a bit disheartened, thinks he's done all this work for nothing, and I' quickly losing my mantle as the all knowing dad.

did you pump the diesel primer on the diesel filter, pump it till its hard, if it still doesnt start try pumping while trying to start it

Welcome to the forum.

^^^ I'd try that first too. If the primer bulb (it will be near the fuel filter) is firm after a couple of squeezes then that's not it ... you COULD remove a glow plug to see if it's wet but I suspect that wouldn't be your first choice

These things are pretty simple. Get fuel into them and away they go.

I'm not sure (some others here know that engine better) but I think there's a camshaft position sensor and that may govern when the injectors are opened for each cylinder - that would need to be set correctly too.

Thanks for the responses guys, I cracked the nut at the injector pump and pumped the primer until fuel was coming out at the IP. After sitting for so long, the battery only had enough juice for a few minutes of diag/testing, so it went on the charger last night, should be good to try again by the time we each get home from work/school.

I assume you meant the crankshaft position sensor Old Tony? don't recall seeing a camshaft sensor anywhere in the workshop manual. CPS is plugged in, don't think it has any adjustment as such from there but I'll do some googling on the topic just to be sure.

Wrote a mental list to check later tonight.
-buzz bar voltage, should indicate if glowplugs are getting anything.
-I'll see if I can get remove an injector and set it upside down, make sure they are spraying, if not could be an issue at the IP.

you need to bleed the injectors. just crack open the nut (on top of the injector) a bit and crank until it squirts fuel out (put foot on full throttle).
then tighten up and try to start.

There is no nut on top of the injectors. But the fuel system did need to be bled.

So she's a goer. Had no juice to the buzz bar. Hit it with a bit of sand paper and she was all good. Took a few sprays of aerostart to kick her over then she was all fine, the injectors just pushed out any air they were holding and now she starts on fuel quick and easily now.

The sump is leaking both sides. Hoping we can seal it up without having to remove the whole sump, young fella just wants to drive it, don't really feel like dropping the diff right now after all this crap.

Young fella is happy as, and still thinks his old man can fix anything. Hopefully I get a few more years before he realises it always so.

sorry the nut isn't on top of the injection as they are side fed.