[Vwdiesel] Clogged fuel return line

[MLightner]

Dear Volks-folks,

Just scratching my head over the last problem I had with my Jetta, which 
is now apparently resolved.  The IP started
leaking quite a bit one morning while it was warming up at idle (3 or 4 
drops a second, made quite a puddle before I noticed it), and it turned 
out that the fuel return line was clogged - I tried blowing it out 
w/native lung power (no air on site at present), which seemed to result 
in slightly less restriction, but fuel was still leaking from the IP.  I 
figured (wrongly, I hope) that a seal was breached due to the clogged 
return line.

I took the check valve that's on the return line near the fuel tank and 
found that it had a slight amount of restriction going either 
direction.  That didn't seem right, so I tried filling the short section 
of hose and attached check-valve with diesel and shook vigorously a few 
times and the check-valve finally went back to operating more like a 
check-valve - you can still blow through it in the reverse direction, 
but with considerable resistance encountered, and there's very little 
resistance in the forward direction.

I next tried pushing a wire through the blue plastic return line in both 
directions, but didn't have stiff-enough wire to make it all the way 
through in either direction.  At this point, it seemed that every thing 
was clear from the front of the car to the fuel tank ( I pulled the 
pick-up assy. out of the tank, which all looked clean), I never did see 
anything come out at any point that looked to be the culprit.

Put everything back together, primed the pump, and everything seems OK 
now - no more fuel dripping from the IP, starts right up, etc.  Just 
wondering if anyone else had effected the same sort of repair without 
ever finding the actual cause of obstruction.

Mike in NC