2 years in the making... blown head gasket

[voodoo]

2 years into this project and still havent driven the car once.  

found a junk yard 1.6 from an audi 4000  for $150 bought an 02a from a 92 passat transmission for $100 had to pull both motor and transmission from cars that were under other cars and in dirt fields.  had to make a clutch pedal that works with the hydraulic 02a transmission.  bought a car body just for the car, a 95 jettaIII that didnt come with a diesel and had a dead computerized automatic.  car did come with obd1 x flow 2.0  that may still work, never turned it on I dont know.  

car electrical system a has german gremlins head lights on all the time and none of the switches turn them off, tail lights dont work none of them.  

pulled all the injectors, one injector hole was filled with carbon carmel stuff like an hour of chipping it out with a screwdriver.. made a tool to pull the washers out without pulling the head.

all the glow plugs were bad, lots of trial and error showed me the even with 2 huge batteries inline 24 volts and starting rpm of 5000 it still wont start without glow plugs

now has one battery, 4 good glow plugs, and starts in 5 seconds after it gets glowed.

removing all the emissions junk and the catalytic converter felt good

rebuilt the injectors and tested them with homemade bottle jack poptester

first injection pump that came with the motor worked, but it leaked, replaced it and learned how to time a pump, built my own timing dial indicator toolthing

second pump would not start, tried for 3 days to get it to start, gave up and pulled it

having never owned a diesel I didnt know that it doesnt take 3 days to prime the pump

third pump worked.

motor hasnt left my garage and its on the 3rd pump.

second pump worked for 45 seconds the year before, but I left it full of biodiesel and I think that killed it.

motor came with no provision for alternator, no alternator mount, fabricated mount that uses chrysler alternator.

after I welded on the exhaust I think the engine has a death knock but it runs real smooth except for the real loud clang noise.  I know diesels are noisy but this sounds real bad.

spun bearing? broken piston? piston hitting head?  noise seems to go away with higher rpms

the death knock kinda makes me want to kick it to the curb and pay the $3.50 a gallon they want for gas.

[Black Smokin' Diesel]

Loud knocking can come from the injectors. Use a screwdriver as a stethoscope and try to see if it's an injector knocking. Could be a lifter too or anything else. Just start with the most obvious things.

[rabbid79]

Ya, start with the easy stuff on that knock.  I had a 1980 Porsche 924 Turbo.  Took it to the mechanic, and he said it had a knock when revved quickly from idle.  Aside from that it ran great.  Just to be safe, replaced the engine with another, and guess what?  It also had the same "knock".  In other words, neither engine had a knock.

[voodoo]

engine has 125k miles maybe valves need adjusted.

but the knock is real loud. I can hear klang klang noise many feet from car

2 times I tried to get it to go by pouring 1/2 gallon of diesel directly into the manifold, I think valve float was the rev limiter.  from not running at all to 4500 rpm on  a cold engine  maybe spun a bearing.  rod bearings are cheap I will pull pan and check.

also little bubbles come out of the leaking head gasket, I think it needs a new one.  gasket has 3 notches, I know it is the original.  

thank you for your responses

[saurkraut]

That 1/2 gallon of diesel down the intake sounds real scarry.  I wonder if you had an "almost" hydro lock and bent somthing or mashed a bearing.

[voodoo]

pulled oil pan and checked rods for excessive movement all were tightlike the 2-3 thousands they are supposed to have.   must have item a crank type speed wrench thing, makes the job an hour faster.

when I rebuilt the injectors one of them was 1850 psi opening and the other three were 1900-1925 I think it just has  too much fuel at low rpm  or idle in one cylinder because the noise goes away at high rpm and it always had that noise.  like a year ago after I built the injectors it had that noise.

just in case anyone is reading this NEVER TRY TO START A DIESEL BY ADDING FUEL INTO THE INTAKE.

the car is destined to be a veggie car Fcuk the oil companies I want to drive accross the country for free dammit

EDIT:

turned engine on for long enough to warm up, from start up to operating temperature white smoke cloud never goes away, but is a lttle less when warmer

clang klang noise sounds like valve hitting piiston, noise does not go away at any rpm and the head gasket leaks.water on the outside. the head needs fixed.

engine always sounded like it does and I dont feel I am responsible for its destruction.  

$3.50 a gallon makes me want it to work so I can run free veggie or used motor oil.

which leads me to my next post

anyone have a suggestion on the best place to get a 1.9L head?
does the cam pulley on a complete 1.9  head line up in the same place as a the pulley on a 1.6 head would with  a  1.6?

more EDIT:

local vw diesel guru says just pull the head the problem will be obvious when you pull the head.

so I pulled the head

#1 cylinder has blown head gasket, WHY? it looks to me as if the steel prechamber insert for #1 cylinder protrudes .001 " -.002 "  out of the head and the head gasket did not compensate or form to the height difference.

also explains the white smoke from the exhaust, maybe coolant in cylinder.

I really want to rebuild the motor, but for the same money I could get a better motor, I dont care if its huge and a diesel hog, I am only into diesels for the veggie factor. free fuel for eternity

original head gasket survived for 125k miles most of them probably blown.

 I dont trust the rest of the motor much either.  

im thinkin TDI.   M -TDI   tdi dont have prechambers

 or a cummins 4bt or 6bt

more more edit

I violated my motor rule.

rule is:  assume everything is fubared and be prepared to rebuild EVERYTHING.

I thought the motor would work without a rebuild ... no.

I should have torn the motor apart the day I bought it.  would have saved me sooooo much time and effort.  

electrical system in car no work, not even the lights.
bought a turbo IP,  it needs rebuilt
engine needs rebuilt
02a transmission is OK but came from a different car, just a note, although I never left the driveway with it the o2a shifts better than the o2o.  automatic tranmission that came from this car was dead.
on 3rd N/A used IP
rebuilt injectors had to make injector tester .... none of the original injectors were even close to good.
had to make alternator bracket
had to adapt exhaust, had to make $5 microwave oven tranformer welder to weld on exhaust.

 6bt cummins costs the same to rebuild but lots more available parts and INSANE POWER, milage? who cares?!  it runs on french fry grease.

[16vjohn]

The clank you specify sounds like the problem I had... my cam was 180 degrees out of time.  Engine still runs (very very rough) but it ran.  Don't think it was piston to valve contact, but could have been... Never pulled the head to find out.

[Cheesetoast]

how did you mod hte clutch pedal for the 02a hydralic? i'll be doing the same on mine.