Trouble trying to start - can you help a newby please - video of problem

[TijuanaTom]

Hello

My 1.6 na VW rabbit truck started like a champ every time but this week I'm having some trouble firing her up.   I'm not sure what is wrong.   I'm a newby and appreciate any and all help / suggestions.


The 1st video shows my problem.   I had my girlfriend try and start her while I shot the video.   She waited until the glow light went away and this is the action I captured.   
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oeio62n4Yc


2nd video is after I pulled the choke lever to get her to fire up and me chasing the smoke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cne_1oQIwh8


3rd is her running - does she sound normal ? 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQVlxkxlzw0


they are each 15 seconds or less


Your guidance and suggestions are greatly appreciated. 


Thank you. 

[maxfax]

Did this happen all of a sudden, any differences in how it runs once it is started and warmed up?

First and foremost, make sure you glow plugs are working..   The light will come on even if there is no power to the glow plugs, or if they are burned out..  As test light will be a big help here..  IF you have no power the first place to check is the glow plug fuse on the firewall..  IF there is power the next thing to check is if the plugs themselves actually get warm..  Easiest method is to touch them after they have been cycled to see if they get warm..  A little more involved would be to remove the bus bar that goes between them all and check the resistance..

IF everything looks good on the glow plug route fuel would be the next place to look..  Could be the fuel draining back to the tank due to an air leak somewhere, or even just a crappy filter...

One other thing to check is to make sure the pump isn't loose..  It's rare, but if it did the timing would be off..

[TijuanaTom]

It happened all of a sudden.  My buggy runs like a champ.   It seems like she's not getting fuel when I'm trying to fire her up.   Once she gets going she seems to be doing all right.. but this problem is brand new and I wanna fix it ASAP.    Thanks for the suggestions.   

[vanbcguy]

I'd second the glowplugs as the first place to focus your efforts.

Does the white smoke go away after it's been running for a while?  It's not in any way unusual to have some white smoke at startup if you've had to crank the engine a bit - it is still spraying fuel every cycle so typically it'll burn off once the engine actually catches.

[maxfax]

Definitely sounds like a glow plug problem..  And that fuse on the firewall I mentioned will go poof in an instant..

[TijuanaTom]

Looks like I'm gonna be learning about glow plugs this weekend.   I'll post my results after I test / change them out.

Thank you guys! 

[damac]

Just curious with the stock wiring if anybody has ever found that the power delivery isn't as good as it could be or possibly intermittent so the plugs don't get as hot as they could?

Cold starts were my cars favorites and I pimped the glowplugs but left all the stock wiring in place.  Now I am having a wierd issue although not quite as bad as yours.

My solenoid has gone click crazy a few times since the issues started so it makes me wonder.  I plan on taking the stock wiring out of the loop and installing a push button and will glow the plugs for 10 seconds directly and see if this changes anything and I will report back.

[vanbcguy]

Just curious with the stock wiring if anybody has ever found that the power delivery isn't as good as it could be or possibly intermittent so the plugs don't get as hot as they could?

Cold starts were my cars favorites and I pimped the glowplugs but left all the stock wiring in place.  Now I am having a wierd issue although not quite as bad as yours.

My solenoid has gone click crazy a few times since the issues started so it makes me wonder.  I plan on taking the stock wiring out of the loop and installing a push button and will glow the plugs for 10 seconds directly and see if this changes anything and I will report back.

The stock wiring can definitely cause problems when it is still supplying the full current to the glowplugs.  That's pretty much what the 'pimping' is all about - giving the current a much shorter path to get to the plugs, eliminating the bulkhead connectors and removing that load from the GP relay itself.

That said, in your case you have already taken care of that.  The stock wiring is now only supplying enough power to trigger the solenoid, which should kick in as low as 10-11V.  There shouldn't be all that much current either, meaning almost no voltage drop through the stock harness.  How is the ground connection on your solenoid?  That's where I'd start looking myself.  Any chance you have water getting in to your fuse box?

If you are seeing enough of a voltage drop to cause your solenoid to stutter, something is causing it and that something is more than likely going to affect other functions of your car, such as charging your battery or supplying power to your starter.  If it were my car, I'd start by checking for voltage drops and cleaning up grounds before I ditched the factory GP controls.

[damac]

I hear ya on trying to get things fixed but I have found that I just can't trust old wiring.  I have that issue with my old f250 as well.  So aftermarket gages for me.

90% of the time my gages read ok but once in a while the car will be cursed until its turned off.  I have seen the coolant level and temp light go crazy.  The oil pressure buzzer go off at the wrong time, etc.

I put a push button in my old ford and it works much better so I am wondering why not for the vw as well?  Does anybody have any published times for acceptable glowplug burn time?

10 seconds vs. the 7 it goes for on a given day might be the difference between a good start.

Plus my new wiring and a simple switch lets me be in control since I have already seen the car spaz out.  My old truck did that once I got it home and burnt out all the glowplugs right before my eyes before I could do anything about it and its just not worth getting stuck.


I have found multiple internal wire breaks in the stock vw loom in the engine bay thus far where you would never know by looking on the outside.  Age and too many heat cycles I guess? 

[Toby]

Why go to all of that trouble when you can just cycle the GPs twice, instead?

You can also test your glow plugs by current draw by just clamping an inductive ammeter on the wire. After the initial inrush they should draw 9 amps each +/-.  If the draw is ~27 amps you have a bad one.  It is all explained in the Bentley manual.

If you are going to take the injectors out, say to do a compression test, cycle the GPs and look for curls of smoke out the injector holes.

I do not know if this is common knowledge here but removing the GPs and wire brushing all of the carbon off the tips makes these cars start better.

[vanbcguy]

I think the nasty bit about his symptoms is that the solenoid he's used to pimp his glowplugs is chattering for some reason.  IE it isn't even getting enough current on the solendoid's terminal to keep it engaged. A solenoid like that will probably be drawing less than 1A, versus the GP's drawing 40ishA, so he's got something wrong that's worse than just a GP or two that's bad.

I TOTALLY understand trying to deal with a f***ed wiring harness, and the challenges that presents.  I had a '77 Dodge pickup for a while that had a wire that burned out its insulation in the middle of the harness.  Had all kinds of fun stuff, like the speakers wouldn't work if the passenger door was open.  My first Jetta had a bad engine ground, once in a while if you hit the clutch all the non-engine power would die, including the instrument cluster - no tach, no speedo, no fuel gauge, no temp gauge.  Once a harness is shot, it's not really worth trying to "fix" - pretty much you replace the whole thing and spend some coin, or you start to improvise.

[Toby]

The initial inrush current for Bosch GPs is pretty high. Near 100 amps for 4 of them that very quickly drops to ~9 amps each as the GP heats up, so it would not take much of a high resistance joint to make the relay chatter. Especially if the relay coil is fed from the hot side of the relay.

[mtrans]

Near 100 amps for 4 of them that very quickly drops to ~9 amps each as the GP heats up

X2, mine 98 A

[damac]

Is it normal for the car to keep power to the glowplugs while you are cranking?

I just saw my car do this yesterday and it kept doing it when I turned the key off so then I yanked the key.  Then I heard the clunk of the solenoid.  I wonder if my hard starts now are from glowplugs being burnt out.

Mine is a brat now to since these wierd things started happening, I will have to wait until next week until I can get to the bottom of it.  Mine is doing like yours, basically let it do its thing then try and start and it just turns over like it doesn't want to catch.

[Toby]

Some diesels do use "afterglow". To see if all of the GPs are bad just use a test light from the hot side of the battery (+) to the buss bar. If it lights they are not all burned out. If it lights you will need to check GP current or yank the buss bar off of the GPs and check each one. In any case you need to be sure that all GPs are working before going any further with a no start/hard start problems. Jerking the buss bar is not nearly as big a PITA as some guys make out. Takes 5 minutes on an N/A motor. (Remember you only have to lift it off of 3 GPs to check all 4.)