air in line??

[cube1980]

Hi I was working on my 96 Golf that I just bought and noticed air bubbles going through the fuel line (going to the lower part of the engine) every once in a while. Is this normal? The lines going to the top of the engine have no bubbles in them.  The car idles fine and I didn't see any leaking diesel anywhere. I haven't had a chance to really test it out since I'm redoing all the brakes but should there be any air bubbles at all in the line?

[g-spec]

I dont have air bubbles in my car....but my sister has the same car '95 TD and there is air bubbles in her car. I tried getting rid of them....but I was not able to....so I jsut left it and the car runs great!

[burn_your_money]

Air bubbles are not normal.

I had them on my car so bad that is was smoking black EVERYWHERE and was idling really rough.

I added one of the Stanadyne fuel filters that we sell in place of the stock one and it fixed it all up. Still a bit of smoke which I am blaming on my injectors.

Try tightening all the clamps and possibly replacing the fuel filter if required

[jtanguay]

the fuel lines crack on the inside... so you won't even be able to really detect if the fuel line is bad just visually... you actually need to remove them.  this could be due to shrinkage by running the low sulphur diesel (non low sulphur diesel swells up lines etc)

[cube1980]

Well it doesn't seem to run bad. Starts fine, idles fine, no smoke.  It's not a bunch of bubbles, just a few every once in a while. I did change the fuel filter already and it didn't really do anything.

Question about the fuel.  At the shell Diesel pump it has two choices. Ultra Low Sulphur or regular diesel...which one should I be putting in my 96 golf?

[hairyhuevos]

Hi
new to this forum (in fact, to any)
here goes my problem
i also noticed more and more black smoke and some bubbles in those clear fuel lines between the pump and the filter as well....about 3 weeks of that and the car just doesn't want to start, it cranks but won't do anything else...got a new fuel filter and, following some net advice, filled it with ATF (auto tranny fluid) still wont start...a mechanic checked it and after some unsuccesful tries told me to get rid of that oil in the engine and filter and use some real fuel (diesel) and to stop playing with the car like that...so now i'm going to try it again....sans ATF...battery is dying though

[fatmobile]

Air in the fuel doesn't usually mean there is a leak.
 It commonly means there is a fuel line restriction.
 A vacuum gauge on the fuel line would let you know for sure but hooking a clear fuel line to the filter and trying to such fuel from the tank will give you an idea of how hard it is pulling.
 Could easily be a clogged in-tank screen.

 The injection pump pulls a vacuum and that makes the air in the fuel expand.

[burn_your_money]

Don't waste your time getting the ATF out of the car. It will run on it just fine.

What year is your car hairyhuevos? If it's a MK2 the under car POS might be clogged up.
Running Veg or Bio?

I live in Scar and if you can't get it going, send me an IM and I'll come over and fix it up for you

[hairyhuevos]

spent the weekend cooked up at home and getting cabin fever...so i just tried starting it again...fuel is now in the lines and spurting out the plugs but no go...so as the mechanic friend said next step is getting a boost and that should do it...by the way, same mechanic has a 97jetta for sale, at 2 grand i think i found my spare car.

[hairyhuevos]

I did manage to get the car going after a boost...lotta blue smoke instead of black this time....maybe from just sitting there...drove around to charge the battery...i think whatever little atf i couldn't remove is doing wonders to the engine....the diesel noise is not as loud...fuel lines were red for a few minutes...feels different (or is it just me?)...but now it's leaking more fuel than before and i suspect that as the main cause of the problems...empty pump and no combustion...not a mechanic at all here but very interested.