[Vwdiesel] 97 Passat Glow system

[lbaird119 at aol.com]

Not much to test when there's NO power getting to the harness.  :-(  Kinda leaves the relay or the fuse as the only other possibilities, other than a fried wire.  Don't think that happened and sure don't want it to be what happened!
    Loren



-----Original Message-----
From: Val Christian <val at mongo.mongobird.com>
To: lbaird119 <lbaird119 at aol.com>; vwdiesel <vwdiesel at vwfans.com>
Sent: Sun, Feb 9, 2014 5:26 am
Subject: Re: [Vwdiesel] 97 Passat Glow system


Loren, 
I don't have a Passat, but I can tell you that the relay is a PITA on the
LH TDI.  I have chased that goose, and consequently, have a spare working
elay.  The relays don't fail like they did on the early IDIs.
Before you do all that work...do you have a DC current probe?  Or could you
uzz out the harness with a helper cycling the GP form inside the car?
Individual plugs can be detected with an ohm meter, or even better yet, with 
 12V power supply (like a battery) with a current meter, to verify the 
raw.  Older GP had a habit of sometimes failing like a light bulb that gets 
ellow as it gets older with a small hot spot.  When they fail like that
he continuity will be good, but the current draw, and therefore heat output 
ill be low.
The TDI ALH plug harness has contact problems with corosion, and while I
ave bought a spare harness, I have managed to get all my ALHs to run OK
n their existing harness.
Back to the relay/fuse.  On the ALHs that I have, it is a knuckle cutting 
0 minute job, and I don't recommend it if you can rule out things with a 
eter.  The relay is in the wiper tray.  
Again, I cannot address the specifics of your 96 and 97, but I can encourage 
ou to use other methods.  Heck, once, I even sprinkled snow on the plugs 
hile cycling them, to see which one didn't melt snow so that I could 
ull it.  I am sure there are other ways to identify your issues before 
ou go digging.
Val
 
 
 
 Dad's car has been starting hard in this cold.  Starts but lots of cranking so 
e suspected all 3 glow plugs had failed (one's been broken off for years).  I 
igured that wasn't likely.  So far we found no power going to the glow plugs 
ut the plugs are good.  That leaves the GP relay or the fuse.
   As I understand it, both are burried up where the sun don't shine, behind 
he dash somewhere.  
   Anybody know WHERE they are in there before I start digging?  Descriptions 
ay being a contortionist helps and if you know right where it all is, it still 
akes a good 15 minutes to check/change and that's with dropping the knee bar 
hich I was able to move in the past, but not drop.
   I've seen a picture of  both but it was close in enough that you couldn't 
ell where it was.  Looked like a shot with the dash removed but obviously 
asn't.  Anybody done it that can shed some "light" on this?  Seems Dad's '97 is 
uch harder than my '96, as it has the relay on the fuse panel where his has a 
umper,  to power the relocated (where it's hard to find and get to).  Didn't 
ind anything saying if the fuse was relocated from '96 to '97.
    TIA
      Loren
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