Review: D-Jetronic Fuel Injection Trouble Shooting Manual

[pbanders]

People who know me know I'll buy any book that discusses D-Jetronic. I recently saw a manual by Jim Pennington sold on Ebay by the above title.

The manual costs $20, plus shipping. Not including the covers and the index page, it's 19 pages, with 3 pages of component photos. The manual is black and white on 8 1/2" x11" standard stock, edge bound with no plastic cover sheets, printed single-side with 1" margins all round. The first 3 pages are disclaimers and general info, leaving 16 pages for actual troubleshooting information, which will be reviewed below. Jim's page numbering is odd, for example, "page 8" is continued over four pages.

The first page discusses general prerequisites before troubleshooting the FI system. The following two pages list 15 troubleshooting conditions and possible causes. The following four pages are electrical diagrams of the wiring harness plug, general FI electrical components and expected values, MPS electrical equivalent and values, and throttle position sensor diagram and values.

Two pages of theory of operation follow, covering cold start and run, and warm start and warm run conditions. Four pages follow discussing testing of each component in the system. A page follows that lists the 12 components of the system with no additional information other than their name, followed by another page with the same 12 components listed, with a short description of each. A final page listing basic engine specifications preceeds the remaining three pages of system component photos.

As Jim says in the disclaimer, this manual is not meant to be the definitive answer to all D-Jetronic problems. Most of the troubleshooting issues and causes have very brief discussions. The electrical diagrams are very similar to material available here on the Pelican Parts web site. The theory of operation section is also quite terse, but fairly complete and generally accurate. The testing of components section is fairly basic, but complete enough for general testing.

Overall, I thought the manual would be best used by a person who had limited familiarity with D-Jetronic, who wanted to do very basic component testing and troubleshooting. There was no listing at all of correct parts for the various years of 1.7 and 2.0 L D-Jetronic systems, which is very often the root of problems with the system. There was no attempt to provide diagrams of the vacuum connections of the D-Jetronic system, another common problem area. Lastly, there was no list of useful web references, of which there are many to help the 914 D-Jetronic owner.

For $20 plus shipping, I thought the manual could have provided more information, and it would have been nice if it had new information that added to the collection of knowledge on the system. If you want a paper manual on the system, my recommendation is to purchase a copy of the Elfrink D-Jetronic guide, which shows up on Ebay fairly frequently.