What did this in the combustion chamber?

[745 turbogreasel]

Car is an 02 Golf, ate Tbelt.
180K on the car, belt didn't look too old, but lost a bunch of teeth. Stalled  going uphill, and did restart briefly, so she's got some bendies.

When I got the head off,I was surprised to see light surface rust in #3 bore....HG seeping, or condensation because it was parked a week with that valve open?  
She got the car from the local VW dealer, and it has needed a trans and IP already.  Apparently  they felt bad enough about this to offer her parts at wholesale or something
She of course got no history with the car, but It looks to me like something happened, and its been open before.
#3

#2

here you can see in addition to the pitting something is transfered on to the head surface.  those two pistons look about the same, but with more  projecting deposits.

A shot of both for good luck---also, one valve has a swirled finish.


So, I see pitting by debris, also melted  looking craters, and the melted buildup.
Is this a broken glow tip?
Burning carbon from the EGR?
2 separate events?

Don't have a plan yet, input welcome.

Looking in the turbo, I see wear maybe a tad high for 170K? but seems to operate well enough, and the vanes move freely.


I have higher res pics  if you need to see em.

[veedubcanuck]

Looks like whatever it was went through more than just one cylinder... I'd say it was previous damage, but from what? Who knows what was done to the car in the past... something serious.. how do the pistons look??

[745 turbogreasel]

The same...
Light coat of normal soot, debris scars mirroring the one s in the head.
I can see hone marks in the bores, and little scoring if any.
looked like a substantial  bit of carbon  at the back of the valves, I hope to get the manifolds off and do a leak check tomorrow. Also going to meet with the owner and go through her stack of receipts, see what we can learn.

maybe I should take one of these pics by the dealership, and see if they have any record of that

[wolf_walker]

I'd have reservations about using that head.  At a minimum myself I think I'd replace the head and try to emry cloth down any piston spots that could get overly hot due to angles and such(craters).  Don't seriously ill spraying injectors do that?

[burn_your_money]

I would suspect that the turbo exploded.

Check the intercooler, it might be full of bits. Even if you can't see them there could be some lodged in there just waiting to break free and cause some more damage.

[Doug]

It is pretty tough to tell but I have seen a valve guide break off at the nose travelling through the combustion chamber and then out the exhaust with little damage (similar to your pictures) on a NA diesel. That was not because of a timing issue but more likely bad fitment of valve to guide clearance. On a turbo diesel that would not be a good picture as the pieces would have to pass the exhaust turbine wheel. You probably should take a close look at that turbo. Pull the valves out to see the condition of the guides especially as you suspect a valve/piston collision.

[745 turbogreasel]

What we are seeing here  predates the current valve&piston incident by at least a year.
  Unless one or more valves were replaced for yet another reason,  and the shop that changed the glow plugs broke one off...
The IC is still in the car, in the IC pipes, all I saw was clean oil.
The valve guides  are a  concern, and at this age, I'd think they wold be due for work even if there hadn't been problem.
A fresh head is an option on the table, maybe from Frank?  His pictures looked like good work, and comments seemed solid.

[rallydiesel]

Maybe it's not shrapnel damage at all. Could be from extremely high egt's melting the aluminum or bad nozzles causing hot spots.

[rabbitman]

I'm so stupid, took me forever to figure out what thos two big holes in the middle were.....I'm not used to tdi's .

Looks to me like something bounced around in there, what do the pistons look like?

[745 turbogreasel]

pistons are  mirror image of the combustion chamber for all practical purposes.

Got some interesting info today..
in late 04, at 95K, #4 lifter broke, taking valve , piston, cam, and injector with it.(not sure I'd phrase it like that, but its how the receipt reads)
VW installed a VW reman engine and a new cat for $6K.
One year later, my friend bought it  for $12K with 120K on it.

Now I am pretty sure the VW reman did not come with the  damage to #2 and #3  we see in the pics,
but even if it did, the timing belt didn't make 80K

since late 05, my friend has $11000  in receipts for  non scheduled maintenance...not including tows, or anything to do with the current episode!

[veedubcanuck]

Interesting, sounds like when they put a reman engine in some of the busted parts were still in the intake tract and found their way into the new engine.... They likely never checked for broken bits anywhere else..... $11k in work OTHER than what happened here??  OMG something up there! Maybe a shady dealer?

[745 turbogreasel]

Got in touch withe the previous owner...  she was happy to hand me a book with every receipt

3 months before  the reman engine went in,  the timing belt broke, and was replaced by a VW dealer under warrantee.
yep, new belt and an "It's all good"

Then one of the bent valves in #4 broke and grenaded it all, but due to milage, VW denied the claim. $6200 for the dealer to install a VW reman, and they probably didn't clean the intake. Whatever they did, they billed 14 hours.

a few months later, Dealer inspection inspection showed the timing belt sticking to idler roller.  Customer declined repairs.
there was an elecrical fault and code on #3 glow plug...The tag says connection and grounds cleaned, and good to go, but I have to wonder if they pulled the plug and it broke inside...it was transferred from the old engine....the dealer may have eaten the cost of a new plug and hoped for the best?

Shortly after that,  the car was traded in, and sold to  my friend with a TB known by VW to be failing, and here it is dead before replacement interval.  3 valves leaking for sure, maybe 2 thou bend in the cam.

also it had been in 3 times for intermittent tranny trouble that led to a really expensive replacement,  and the PO also had it in at least half a dozen times for anamolous MIL (with low power on hills, and4 wastegate repairs) that my friend since spent another grand on.

Lemonaide anyone?

[diesel smoke]

I'll take a stab at it. Previous turbo grenaded and left chunks in the IC. New engine installed and chunks left in IC got sucked into nice new engine. 

[smutts]

Another great example of why I do all the work on my own cars.  

Yup.

(Despite my embarrassing air hose error. )

[the caveman]

Hey smutts, you need to animate your avatar with him screaming -WHISKEY !