Driving down motorway yesterday when vehicle started loosing power, pulled into hard shoulder. vehicle was hard to start and when it did start black reek and running with a cylinder down.
recovered back to garage
on inspection it was found that one of the plastic swirl flaps had broken free inside the plastic inlet manifold. The manifold had melted at the offending cylinder causing the escaping heat to burn through the glow plug loom.
replaced the inlet manifold and wiring loom, had the injector checked which was fine, but still running rough.Looks like the pin that holds the swirl flap in place has jammed a valve open and this is what has caused the manifold to melt. will be doing a compression test today to confirm this before pulling the head of. car has only covered 71000 miles

Your not the first Stuart, but your outcome is the worst.
http://www.freel2.com/forum/topic14843.html? p****d off with a Digital Keyboard Warrior

goodness me , by now i would of thought manufactures would of learnt their lesson.

BMW & Merc went through hell with blessed swirl flaps breaking & at one time manifold were in short supply but for Landrover to have this issue appearing is rather disheartening when you add it to all their other potential issue's

Not to worry as newer models (MY2010 and later) don't have swirl flaps anymore...

How do you know which engines have these plastic swirl flaps? Black MY2013 SD4 GS Auto, Wood Company Armrest, Freel2 sticker.
Gone MY2010 Freelander 2 Manual TD4.e S, Alaska White.

By looking if they have the actuator and its electrovalve...
The actuator is on the left side of the intake manifold, on the left of the cyl4 air duct and the valve is on the right side, below the cyl1 air duct.

pin from swirl flat has went across 3 cylinders and damaged one of the valve seats. also a lot of play in one of the cylinders and crown is covered in oil
damn

the suggestion with the BMW problem was just remove the swirl flap, many did this without noticable problems.

alex_pescaru wrote:

By looking if they have the actuator and its electrovalve...
The actuator is on the left side of the intake manifold, on the left of the cyl4 air duct and the valve is on the right side, below the cyl1 air duct.

Don't suppose you or anyone else has a picture or diagram of what that looks like? I wouldn't know an actuator from a horses a e to be honest

Question
Does anybody know what benefit the swirl flaps really have?
My replacement engine came with the non swirl manifold yet I exchanged it and fitted the swirl manifold to keep my car all original.
If the swirl has no significant job or fuel saving then I'm thinking of refitting the later manifold and blanking the vacuum pipe.
Any comments and thoughts from others particularly Alex would be most welcome.
Kind regards from Fred 2010GS Auto ex Celeb, Santorini Black, 2011 facelift , spoiler, spats, mudflaps, LED footwell lamps, Witter detach,
Other cars:-
1958 & 1959 Austin J40 Pedal Cars under restoration (I make many J40 parts)
If you have an Austin J40 or Pathfinder Pedal Car looking for a new home pls PM me.
2009 Meriva

Reeventu wrote:

the suggestion with the BMW problem was just remove the swirl flap, many did this without noticable problems.

THANK YOU Alex that is really helpful to folk like me (mechanically inept!).

fredastaire wrote:

Question
Does anybody know what benefit the swirl flaps really have?

So if you replace the air intake with the one without the flaps is there an ECU reflash needed ? In my opinion the flapless one will allow the engine to breathe better and the worry about flaps in the pistons will be gone. Also maybe a bit more performance will be squeezed from the engine with this "mod".

Thank you