start and die question....sory, long post

[audiman21]

Long story.... my old Jetta, 250k miles, 5 speed, fantastic car that never let me down. Handed down to my brother 5 years ago. He has since bought my "old" 2000 Jetta TDI and the '85 sat for about a year at my parents house. He was running B100 (let's not get into a bio pro/con issue...but this may play a role?) My father started it every week and took it around the block just to get SOME fluids moving. Sooner or later, it would not start. Crank but not start. So he hauls it to my house for me to fix (lucky me  ). Hooked it up to a fresh can of diesel purge, put a good jumper on it to get some rev's, bled the fuel lines at the injectors and cranked. Fires up and rev's to about 2k then dies. Checked the shutdown soleniod; battery voltage- ok. Checked pump timing; ok (although now that I think of it, the "choke" was pulled out...). Removed fuel lines at pump and cranked only getting fuel from cyl's 1 and 3. Removed check valves from back of pump, cleaned, assembled and then checked again, fuel from all 4 cyl. ports, although just a dribble (normal?). Assembled again and same thing; fires then dies. Any help? Should I remove the shut down solenoid and bypass the plunger? No air bubbles in my remote fuel system that I can see. Has the pump taken a ****e? BTW, glow plug system seems to be funcitoning as it draws good Amps. Thanks in advance-

[jtanguay]

well to rule out fuel tank issues run it from a can of diesel.

it ran okay with the diesel purge right?  so that would mean somewhere between the tank & filter something is wrong...  biodiesel can loosen up crap buildup in the tank and send it through clogging up the in tank screen.  do a search on here and you might find burn_your_money's thread.   pretty nasty stuff stuck in there  :lol:

[audiman21]

The IP is connected to a clean supply of diesel purge in a can, so no fuel tank/filter is in this scenario. Sorry if I wasn't clear about that, and thank you for the reply/help! -  :mrgreen:

edit- it starts, rev's once and then dies on the diesel purge.

[jtanguay]

hmmm odd... does it crank slow?

when you say it revs, are you revving it to keep it running?  can you keep it running with your foot down?  so more than likely 2 cyl's aren't firing properly.  (it should still idle with only 3.. but will have a harsh idle)

should even rev with just one cyl running.  might be time to check the glow plugs, and battery connections etc.  old battery?  might not have enough juice

also remember that it may take around a minute to purge any air in the lines if there was ever a leak.  it will run like crap and you'll need to hold the revs for it to clear out.

[audiman21]

I have a jump box attached to the battery and it cranks fast/normal. It will rev once to about 2,000/2,500 rpm on it's own and then it's like the fuel is being shut off. When bleeding the air from the fuel lines, I have fuel at all four injectors when cranking. The glow plugs are pulling good amperage, so I assume they are working ok.

[Doug]

Sounds like a fuel issue. Just because there is voltage at the fuel solenoid does not mean that it is opening. I had a 1.6 that sat for years similar to yours which I faithfully started to run for a couple of years until it failed to start. I made all the other assumptions till I pulled the solenoid and valve out of the IP. The valve portion was sticking in the IP body but the solenoid still had voltage trying to lift the valve. Check it again removing it completely to clean it up moving it up and down in the IP body till you are satisfied that it works smoothly. Now try for fuel leakage at loosened injector lines while cranking. It may even run!

[burn_your_money]

When you had the injector lines removed from the pump and you cranked the engine over was diesel fuel shooting out of each of the ports? There is a fair amount of diesel that should come out and it should shoot about 5 inches before loosing it's velocity. Don't touch the ends of the ports when it's cranking over whatever you do.

[audiman21]

Nope. with the injector lines off of the IP output (with the check valves still attached to the IP), the fuel would dribble out of the four ports. I wasn't sure if this was normal or not. I know diesel IP's produce a fair amount of pressure, but I wasn't sure where the pressure was. Thanks-

[burn_your_money]

Something might just be bunged up in the pump. I'd remove it from the engine and hook it up to a drill and a pail of ATF and just spin it over until it worked normally.