[Vwdiesel] My '89 keeps stalling? UPDATE. Oil Pump?

[Bart Wineland]

Thanks again to all who offered suggestions about my stalling problem on my
89 Jetta 1.6 NA. I tried everything suggested with the exception of
checking the pump timing. I actually have the gauge to do it but have not
had time to set down and figure it out. Briefly again my problem was my car
would start great but as soon as I would rev it up to drive off it would
die and not start again for at least 10 minutes, this was in 60 degree
weather. If I let it warm up a few minutes first it would be fine. As the
temperature dropped recently (snow in NW PA yesterday) it got worse.  It
starts great and runs for 2 or 3 seconds and dies even if I don't touch the
throttle. When I try to start it again the starter free wheels. I thought
it was because it could not overcome the added compression of the cylinders
with the fuel in them and was disengaging from the flywheel. Eventually I
got it to start but it ran as if on 2 cylinders for 4 or 5 minutes then it
is as if the 3rd came to life, then it smooths out nicely and runs on all
4. From there it runs like a champ 75 mph down the interstate without
missing a beat.   I have a magnetic heater on the oil pan so I plugged it
in all day Wed. and wed. evening it started no problem and I got it to a
local 1 man VW shop.  Without looking at it and going by my description he
said it sounded like I was low on compression which was not what I wanted
to hear. The engine has 12k miles on a fresh "rebuild". My question to that
was that it does not use any oil between 3 k changes and does not smoke so
I was hopeful after he looked it over would find something else.  I called
him at the end of the day yesterday and he said he worked on it and
believes my Oil pump is the problem.  He said he has only seen it once
before but it looks like it is spiking a very high oil pressure after it
starts and after 2 or 3 seconds of running the hydraulic lifters are
actually not allowing the valves to close so it loses all compression and
dies. And when you try to restart it is turning the engine over but with 0
compression.  Eventually the lifters will bleed down allowing the cycle to
start over.  When the oil gets warmed up enough things work ok? Since
everything I have seen supports the idea that when the oil is warm it is ok
it makes sense to me but I would like to know if anyone else has ever seen
such a thing? I am not familiar with VW hydraulic lifters but really
thought the oil made them absorb the shock but can't picture in my head how
they would "grow" to keep the valves from closing?  FYI I am running
Rotella T 40w in it with a Mann oil filter.  He can't get back on it until
the first of the week so I thought in the meantime I would ask what you
guys thought?

Thanks much,

Bart


At 08:04 PM 8/17/2003 -0400, LBaird119 at aol.com wrote:
>--
>[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
>   Sounds like the timing is way off.  It could be a bad injector or more but
>it'd really be puffing out the white smoke at idle if one was THAT bad.  You
>may have a bad ground where the negative cable bolts to the transmission.
>The rotation of the engine causes a loss of current and the stop solenoid
>closes.  It could explain the starter too.  Not highly likely but a
>possibility.
>I'd suspect fairly retarded timing as most likely.  If an injector were that
>bad your glow plug will likely be missing the heating element prortion of it.
>      Loren
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