[Vwdiesel] Decision time...

[Shawn Wright]

I went for the first longish drive with the new turbo tonight, and found a few things to 
give me concerns, so now I have to decide if I should take this van over the 
mountains 2 days from now, or take the '82 instead. None of the issues are related to 
the new turbo - it is working great. Here are my concerns:

1. Power is great up to 4000rpm and around the backroads, but on the highway, I 
couldn't get it beyond 105km/h (about 65mph). I probably could have gone faster, but 
it took forever to go from 95 to 105km/h. It didn't feel a lot different than my '82 
Vanagon NA at the same speed. Boost is a steady 11psi, and EGTs range from 700-
1000. At 100km/h, revs are around 3400 in 5th. I did turn the fuel screw another 1/8 
turn and it helped some, but also added smoke at WOT.

2. I have a bad vibration that could be a bad rear wheel bearing or CV, or even a 
loose CV. It's been there for a while now, but it seems to have gotten a lot worse, so 
unless it's just a loose CV, this worries me a bit. It's quite uncomfortable actually - the 
van really throbs at highway speeds.

3. The oil pressure is now not much better than before I rebuilt the engine - once fully 
hot (210-230F), I'm only seeing 30-35 psi at 3000rpm, 37-40psi at 4000rpm. This is 
probably the most disturbing one of all, as it suggests I screwed up on the rebuild by 
not plasti-gauging the bearings, or having the crank ground. (I just checked things, 
they were within spec, so I put new std size bearings in.) Or worse yet, I've already 
done something to cause low oil pressure, and the engine is just waiting to blow up 
on me. Adding to this uneasy feeling is a buzziness to the engine at 3600rpm that I 
just don't recall on earlier drives. I know this is a bad speed for the I-4s, but it is so 
buzzy it actually set things in the van rattling at that speed. I'm worried something is 
about to grenade on me. The more I think about it now, the more I want to pull the 
pan and look for something, although I'm not sure what. 

4. This is new as of today - cranking it hot takes 2 seconds to fire, along with a cloud 
of black smoke. I suspect this is a result of my pushing the cold start in and leaving it 
there (I have no cable attached, just a short wire). Since this means it won't start 
easily when hot without either timing advance or glowplugs or both, doesn't this 
mean a compression problem? Fuel system hasn't been touched, so I don't think I'm 
getting air in, but it's possible I guess. Pump timing was set to spec with CS in. 

Now I think #1 and #4 could also be related to my used injection pump of unknown 
origin - the fact that I've had to crank the fuelling so much for normal operation 
(about 3/4 turn now) suggests someone may have messed with it before. I may try 
swapping my old TD pump back on, at least I know how it used to run. 

Sorry for such a depressing post... but don't hold back in telling me your ideas, I'd 
rather suspect the worst and avoid it, than well... the other way of finding out...

Thanks guys.

Shawn Wright
http://zuiko.sls.bc.ca/~swright
'85 Jetta D 
'88 Westy 1.6TD 5 speed
 (see progress at http://members.shaw.ca/vwdiesels)
'82 Diesel Westy