Cold Start problems opinions needed!

[Smokey Eddy]

My aaz is being a real PAIN! lately with these *hardly* cold temps.
i re-wired and tested all my glow plugs with 10ga wire. They are working.
I advanced the timing until i could hear a decent CLACK with the advance lever out.
I replaced the fuel filter and lines/clamps. I added gas line antifreeze to my most recent tank of diesel (yesterday morning). 2 180ml bottles of methyl hydrate (im assuming thats what the stuff really was) for ~50 Litres of diesel.
Should I add much much more? like 1 Litre of Methyl Hydrate to evaporate any water in the system?

The description of the issue is as follows.

any day below +5C;
run the GPs for at least 15 seconds.
crank, fires almost straight away. Cold start pulled out.
idles for about 3-5 seconds.
putt putt putputput dead.
I try again.
Chug chug chug chug chug (not idling - chugging on the starter)
puff puff puff puff black poofs out the exhaust. (not much white which is important)

Leave the car for 10 minutes.
try again.
starts great then chugg chug chug chug put put put dead.

Leads me to believe the engine gets starved of fuel

HOWEVER!
in any situation other than when the engine is hot (up to temp or at least 45c), when i start the car i can't touch the go-pedal or else it will stop firing on 1 or 2 cylinders usually resulting in a stall but not before an enormous amount of smoke comes out of the exhaust.
The smoke looks like retarded timing smoke... white, unburnt ... stinky


My proposed causes are as follows:
1) head gasket lifted = low compression on 1 or more cylinders
2) water in the system somewhere be it lines, filter, pump, tank
3) there is excessive wear in the internal workings of the pump causing this bizarre and extremely irritating behaviour

[rabbitman]

Does it ever run good enough for you to drive it?

Have you tried pressurizing the fuel system to check for leaks?

when i start the car i can't touch the go-pedal or else it will stop firing on 1 or 2 cylinders usually resulting in a stall but not before an enormous amount of smoke comes out of the exhaust.
The smoke looks like retarded timing smoke... white, unburnt ... stinky

It sounds like something is messed up making lots of fuel get injected at the wrong time.

[Smokey Eddy]

Yes I agree. Once warm or it has idled for some time it drives well. 45 mph.

[Vincent Waldon]

Can't comment too much on your starting issue other than to recommend you don't use a gasoline anti-freeze agent (methyl hydrate) on a diesel engine... it's a lubricity killer big time.

I think you'd be better served by Stanadyne or Power Service (in the big white jug at Canadian Tire).. either are specifically designed for this task and for diesels...so it will protect your pump etc while removing water and lowering the gel point as well.. win win win!

It does sound a bit like fuel starvation to me as well... I'd be inclined to give 'er a good dose of Power Service to kill any low-lying water and then check fuel filter, air bubbles being sucked into the system etc.

One last thought... does your fuel filter have the thermostatic tee??

[the caveman]

To isolate the fuel system why don't you try to connect a jerry can of clean new diesel directly in and out of the IP. any leaks at the pump ?
and listen to Vincent about the gasoline fuel additive, it can kill a pump, i've seen it. Diesel specific only.

[franko007]

hi mate i know you mentioned you checked and fiddled with pump timing but have you checked your cam at TDC? isnt the cam pulley on a taper fit with no keyway on that engine? you may find it to have slipped.

[Smokey Eddy]

Thanks everyone ill try all of these things. I'll get some power service to dilute the gasline antifreeze and then check timing.
Yes the filter does have the T but its the original from my 1.6

[Vincent Waldon]

Yes the filter does have the T but its the original from my 1.6

Any chance maybe it's leaking air when the engine/fuel are cold and it's in bypass mode??  Bubbles in the lines?

[Smokey Eddy]

I replaced the lines with solid black ones

[damac]

I just went a little spell of something kind of like this the other day.  On my setup, if I had not installed check valves on each side after I yanked my stock water seperator, I don't even know if I could have driven my car.

I thought my fuel system was cool.  Blew all the lines out, installed the check valves with clear lines to the tank and under the hood and with a new fuel filter that I got when I brought my car home.  Looking back at my invoice I see it was a cheap noname china filter I bought to save $5

The car has always had big bubbles past the filter and varying degree of small bubbles from the tank since I installed all of these.  I had wanted to track it down on my list of to do things, but put it off because it took me months to get the car built back up again and we needed to drive it and save some $$$ on fuel.

I could start the car and drive it, when the bubbles would hit, you would see puffs of white smoke out of the tailpipe.  Situation got worse for me this past week when it was hard to start one day and the pump was hissing under the hood when you turned it off!

So I inspected the fuel system, blew all the lines out with air and all that good stuff and not until the end of the day did I finally run the car straight from a bucket of fuel with no car filter.(get a cheap one to run inline).

Bam, no more bubbles after I purged for a couple minutes.  Couldn't replicate it so my next step was I ordered a wix brand fuel filter from kragen, installed it the next day, and all the issues went away!  No more nasty bubbles or stress on the pump or sucking fuel back to the tank.

Besides that hissing of the pump, when I removed my check valves it also revealed how stressed out the fuel system was.  Fuel was shooting back to the tank causing a repurge rough restart.

Without that check valve in my system with the china filter the bubbles were constant and huge even at idle.  It never had a chance to run a long time at idle, let alone respond to the throttle.

Anyways skip straight to running you car from a bucket of fuel with an inline cheap filter and see how it runs.

[Smokey Eddy]

Alright ill try that.

[8v-of-fury]

Yes the bucket trick will eliminate all the fuel lines, filter and tank.. But having it run so close will not present if the problem is the pump shaft bushing.. Which I think it is, as I had this problem trying to get my 81 going after it sat in a barn.. It would suck a butt-ton of air... From nowhere, and wouldn't idle.. When run from a jerry can, it would run flawlessly up and down the road with great power..

Something to think about eh.

[Smokey Eddy]

For sure jer. Im going to check timing and get a proper Bosch filter on there.

[Smokey Eddy]

So i found one of the injectors was leaking like crazy from a return nipple (which later fell off when i tried to pull it up into the injector body further) and from what i can tell de-priming the system while the car sat.
I also suspect 1 or more injector was leaking.

The timing is definitely wrong though and i also had a terrible boost leak in my intercooler piping. I also know of at least two coolant pipes that have some bad wear on them.

My drive home from work yesterday averaged 20mpg... from a previous 48 i got driving to & from Banff, Alberta.

So I bought 4 reman'd bosch injectors at $40 each, bosch fuel filter, rad hoses and several meters of the return line because it was so cheap.
The VW shop here charged me over $20 for 1 meter and i got the same oem stuff for $7/meter. Anyone near me need the stuff let me know!

[8v-of-fury]

Droppin Mad Cash