1999 1.9 TDI AFN

[johnbuz]

Hi
Bit of a long story:
Bought a 1999 Alhambra that had been diagnosed with 'headgasket failure', anyway turned out the the head of exhaust valve 3 had come off and generally played havoc with the engine internals.
Bought another 'Alhambra' AFN engine from a breaker - 'nice runner mate' and all that cr*p.
Stripped and cleaned the turbo, plus associated plumbing to remove all traces of shrapnel.
Plonked the 'new' engine into the car and after priming it, it fired up.......so far so good.
But it had a horrible knocking/loud ticking from the timing belt end of the engine, sounded worse when you stood by the wheel arch.

Any way, i replaced the following to try and shut this up:
New hydraulic cam followers, swapped cams from other engine, swapped injectors, varied timing of cam shaft advanced and retarded, varied injection timing - using VAGCOM to verify pump timing.
ALL of the above had absolutely NO affect on the noise.

So I pulled the head off, found that bore 1 had some light marks, and bore 3 had some very light marks. So I dropped the sump and pulled pistons 1 and 3. Piston 1 had heavy scouring and piston 3 had very light galling. Replaced piston 1 and cleaned up piston 3. Checked small end bearings - all OK.
Bores on both pot 1 and 3 OK
Reassembled the engine  - and guess what - I thought all was OK, but no, still the same noise.
I have dropped the belts off with the engine running so its not the water pump, alternator or A/C compressor.
I have placed a feeler gauge under the running camshaft to try and change the noise - nope no change.

Its driving me mad!

Drives perfectly well, no smoke reves cleanly and is perfect apart from this bl**dy noise.
Defo coming from the pot 1 end as you can hear it thro' an engine stethascope. No noise from the injection pump as far as I can tell.

John