1991 1.6TD, severe starting issues

[8v-of-fury]

For anyone that helped me on the "Ye old cold start thread", this is a different car we are trying to diagnose. It does not seem to be a cold start issue, just a starting issues all together.

Alright then, so it is a 91 TD motor swapped in to an 84 Jetta in place of what once was the 1.7 CIS motor.. It has been in this current configuration since we swapped it in last January.



The glow plugs are fully manual, the fuel lines are clear, and the battery is fully charged plus a jump from a running F-150. I literally had to mess around with it for over a half an hour last night to get it to fire.. crank crank crank crank on and off for a few minutes, It was smoking. Started off grey, then turned to black smoke while cranking. Soo close to starting. Feathering the throttle did not do a thing towards it. Pulling the cold start made the crank slow down, as I knew it would, I have this thing timed to over 1.00mm.

He gets fuel at the same stations I do, and my car is finally starting better.. fires right up, but runs rough afterwards. Would a bad fuel filter cause this extended cranking issue? If the engine is smoking up a storm, then it would almost seem that a fuel starvation issue may be probable.

He's been having these issues for a while, usually its just a drain on the battery causes it to not turn fast enough.. and then a jump would fire right up.. but last night it was just not starting at all. Same with this morning too after spending the night on the charger and the block heater.. so it is not a cold related issue, unfortunately.

[guy plain]

 how are those cone air filters in winter weather? that one looks loke it has a fair amount of snow packed in it...just wondering IF it  may have packed with snow ...then melted and froze....plugging i up some what...thats if the car started in warmer weather..
   just a quick thought ....the old no air no fire thing...lol
 

[R.O.R-2.0]

that much snow, that wont make it not start..

[guy plain]

i was thinking more along the line that snow melted into the filter and frove...iceing it ......warm under hood when parked and melts the snow.....freezes there by morning and has the thing plugged up....i dont think you would be able to see the ice....like i said...i was just a thought....go for the simple things first...right? lol

[8v-of-fury]

That picture was from last January. This is a recent problem.

Went out, took the air filter off, took the fuel lines and put them in to a jug of fresh diesel. Clear lines, the pump was pulling fuel through no problem. It was not starting any better. Took more than 15 minutes to get it started still.

Must be a dead GP.. That is all that is left right.. As soon as i got it running i let it sit for like 4 minutes. Shut it down and put the lines in to a jug of pure ATF. it started right back up no glowplugs. because it was warm enough to do so.. so I think that its pointing me towards gp's.

Stupid, we didnt do the individual wiring for the gp's on this one. Probably because it was -30c when we were doing the swap .

[8v-of-fury]

Did another diagnostic test. Went out after letting it sit for 5 hours, so it had time to cool off completely.

And thinking that it was smoking like a crazy bastard, that there must be at least 1 or 2 good plugs left. It would crank and in the revolution you could hear a combustion.. one or more cylinders were trying to fire off.

So we let the glow plug(s) go for 1 minute and thirty seconds to have great heat soak in the head to the pre-chamber. Still started like a bag of hammers, but it did start in considerably less time. Maybe 30 seconds of cranking compared to 30 minutes.

[8v-of-fury]

And thinking that it was smoking like a crazy bastard, that there must be at least 1 or 2 good plugs left. It would crank and in the revolution you could hear a combustion.. one or more cylinders were trying to fire off.

Bingo, 3 of the 4 were DOA.. replaced all the plugs and pimped them in the process . Sat for over 24hours, and i had the fuel lines off to do the plugs. Started up like a warm summers day, and it was -8c!

[Baron VonZeppelin]

On the next Pimp Upgrade 2.0 Write Up
we need LED's on each one to indicate operation.

oooooo YEH baby