Hi to all. This is my first post on this great IDI-exclusive forum. I'm having some problems with my car, and also I have some questions of things in the engine that I don't know what they are. It's a Golf Mk3 GTD 1997 engine AAZ made in Mexico with A/C (oem from the factory) and 230.000kms on it.
I'll start posting my diesel-newbie questions and then I'll continue with my car's issues.
What are these electrical connectors that goes to the diesel pump?
What is this connector on the block? (I suspect is the oil pressure sensor)
Is it normal that my oil filter looks like this after 4000km? Is it loose or is it not mounted properly?
I have this hole in the intake manifold where I supose that something must go attached. What should go there? Or is that thing ment to be empty?
What is this electrical connection placed in the hose that goes from the crankase vent to the intake? It's really dirty with sticky burned oil. Is that normal?
What does this brown and green sensors do?
And now let's start with my car's issues:
My shift lever isn't well centered. The shifts enter OK, but it's got some play and if you want to put the fifth gear on you have to "draw" the movement way too much. Here are some pics of the lever:
first gear:
fifth gear:
neutral:
And here's the linkage:
How do I center the lever as it should be, eliminate the play and make sure that all gears enter smoothly?
And last but not less important, my wastegate valve is all oily. Should that be this way? I supose that if it's oily it can get stuck either closed or opened and cause a lot of damage or power loss. What should I check or do?
My car's symptoms:
-Awful cold start. I can only get it to start with the manual advance lever pulled, and still fails a little. If I don't pull the manual advance, fails a lot and stalls immediatly. (bad timing or crank pulley seized?) Here's a video of my car starting after being stopped for 2 hours in a summer day. Listen how the sound of the engine changes a lot when I pull the manual advance lever.
-High oil consumption (1 liter every 1500km). The oil gets black way too soon after I change it. I'm using 15W40 and I live in Argentina (winter not less than 0ºC and summer up to 35ºC). The car does not smoke at all, nor has oil leaks that are visible on the ground after parking the car. If I pull the oil metering stick out, it does not smoke from in there. But if I remove the cover of the oil filling deposit with the engine running, my engine compartment gets full of oily black stains all over it and vapour comes out.
-High fuel consumption (My right foot is surely the cause of that) 10 litres each 100 km, 50% on the city and 50% highway.
-Unsteady idling and varying power/boost. When it starts cold, idles at 850rpm. A few instants later climbs to 900rpm and then to 1000rpm. After driving 30 minutes or maybe an hour, it drops again to 850rpm. I've also noticed that my car's power or boost vary depending on the time it's been running. If I strongly step on the gas and it's been running for a while (let's say more than 10 minutes), I feel like is somewhat underpowered, it lacks power and response.
But if I've just started my engine (after 5 minutes of going slow for warm-up to 90ºC) it runs great, great boost and power.
-Overheats when is under heavy load at high speeds. At more than 150km/h the temperature starts rising until it reachs 100ºC or maybe a little more. Let me remind you that down here in the Southern Hemisphere is summer. I've changed the thermostat (opens at 87ºC) and filled with 2 liters of G11. When I'm in the city, it goes perfect at 90ºC.
As a sidenote, today I left the engine running for 10 or 15 minutes and the coolant temperature raised to 100ºC, but it dropped immediatly as I went down the street at 40km/h.
Well, that's all from this Argentinian diesel newbie, thanks for your help and I'm sorry for my poor english.
