1999.5 TDI mk4 2dr Golf 1.9 ALH.
ODO: 293,xxx km of mostly highway driving.
Dealership'd it's whole life. 1 previous owner, my parents, until I bought it off them this past year.
Changes to the car from stock: Re-wired glow plugs to remove the bus bar as it was suspect. Replaced the springs and struts all around. Changed the sending unit in the tank immediately before its last trip. 2.5 inch exhaust from the turbo to the muffler - don't judge me! It was rusted to pieces and i had 2.5 inch pipe and bends handy. The check engine light has been on since I got the car from my parents. Suspected EGR clog so I blasted it out and in the intake as good as new. Light still came on. I was very angry at this and just decided to ignore it and use the car as it seemed to drive normally, start normally and continue to get great MPG for a car with almost entirely original internals (45-50mpg range).
Car drove fine to my parent's house about 75km away after many thousands of km of reliable use taking me to and from work. I had knee surgery and the car sat still for about 4 days. During my time in bed I ordered bearings all around as they were starting to howl and I thought in my recovery I may as well do something productive.
My mum tried to start it to drive it to the glass shop to replace the cracked wind-shield but it would not start.
Funny, I thought, but not totally ludicrous.
I charged the battery up along with a spare I keep with me and put it back in the Golf.
The following day it started after about 2 or 3 rotations and idled fine for a couple seconds. I'm just driving it into the garage from the driveway so I didn't waste any time. Very gently, as my knee is very stiff and sore, I tried to inch it into the garage and puttt puttt puttt dead.
Strange, I thought ... grabbed the multi-meter and the battery was dead already after only 24hrs. The manufacture date on the battery is May of 2011. I then replaced it with my spare battery of similar specification which was fully charged just to get it under cover and sort this issue out.
Crank, crank, crank, crank, crank... What the heck?! I stick my head around the pillar so I can look into the engine bay (with the engine cover removed and the hood up) to see if I can hear relays clicking (because the ding ding ding inside the car is not only the most annoying thing in my life but also very over powering when trying to trouble shoot things like relays). I also checked the timing bolts for the injection pump for slop and they haven't loosened. The timing belt was changed about 10,000km ago.
I see in the clear IN line going to the pump a small pebble sized bubble going back and forth about an inch at a time with every crank.
It's like something in the pump, or prior to the pump, is restricting the flow of diesel to the injectors. I quickly (as fast as my knee will allow as its only day 8 after the OR) moved to the back of the car to see if I found any white un-burnt diesel coming out its tail pipe. Nothing. Not even a lingering smell.
I've got lots of time and a nice camera handy if any other info would help.
My first guesses are gel'd/dirty fuel filter?
OH I almost forgot!!! I replaced the fuel level sending unit prior to driving to my parent's house!!! It was a pretty easy R&R so I'm not sure how I could have FUBAR'd it up? Perhaps I stirred some sediment in the tank that clogged the filter? I replaced it with a brimming fuel tank in an effort to reduce this effect. (added this to the initial list of changes above)
Topic: Curious Suspect Fueling problem 1.9 ALH (Read 3583 times)
