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Engine Specific Info and Questions => TDI Engine -General Info => Topic started by: Smoker on July 02, 2014, 02:11:31 am
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Ok, here goes... I'm stumped. This HAS to be something simple, but I keep going around in circles. I'll try to keep it concise.
The car:
drove into my shop under its own power today, but I've never had it on the road. This one: http://www.vwdiesel.net/forum/index.php?topic=34882.0 (http://www.vwdiesel.net/forum/index.php?topic=34882.0)
I did eventually put a new pulley on it, and it fired right up... but ran poorly. I was losing compression around the #4 injector, even after a new washer, and I suspect it has internal problems as well. I replaced the pump because of evidence that some yahoo had been inside it, but it made no difference. I had a good motor and trans sitting here so I figured I'd be better off just swapping it out.
The motor:
came out of a wrecked mk3 that I drove daily up until the day I pulled the motor and trans. It would sometimes take a while to start, but I suspected that the timing was off, and my original plan was to swap it into my caddy with a rover pump, blah blah blah... in any case, once it was started, it ran great. No issues.
So I swapped motors, no problem. I go to start it and notice weird stuff going on in the gauge cluster... the fuel is reading empty (it showed 3/4 of a tank before the swap) and the clock and odo seem dim, and the clock resets to 12:00 every time I try to start it. The starter is spinning plenty fast. I have fuel coming out of the lines when I crack them at the injectors (though maybe not as much as I would normally expect?). But it doesn't even pretend to think about firing. Nothing at all.
I've quadruple checked all my connections. My first thought was a ground problem, but the only ground I messed with was the main one on the bellhousing bolt, and it's back where it belongs. I pulled the battery tray to make sure I didn't somehow pull that one from the battery to the body out, but it looks fine.
The first thing I'll do in the morning is swap the fuel filter, I guess, but really only because I have no idea when it was done last. It was getting plenty of fuel earlier today...
I'm at a loss. Anyone?
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Probably a timing issue. Keep in mind, the reason these cars get 50 mpg, is because they use hardly any fuel. You need to connect it to vag com and check the timing. I could see how if you used different ecms, it would not be set right.
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Not sure about your other problems though, the clock restarting to 12 in my mind tells me something is shorting out somewhere.
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Ive read abt resetting clock before.... Its some fuse... Also think it powers comp too... Sent ya text
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Got your text. I checked all my fuses and everything looks good. I'm trying to upload a vid now of what's going on. I'm 99.9% sure this electrical and not fuel. Weird stuff...
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Does anyone know of any difference in the engine harness between 98 and 99? I doubt it, just trying to think of every possibility.
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Just had some weird issues on the ALH car I have. Fuses looked good, but I wire brushed them and bam, CEL gone.
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This is what I have. You're hearing my other car running in the background. I didn't try to crank it here, just trying to show what's going on with the cluster when I turn the key on.
http://vimeo.com/99737425
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So, is this an alh or an ahu motor? 98 saw the last year of the ahu in the jettas, and the first year of alh in the new beetles. 99 saw the first year of alh in the jettas and golfs.
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Ahu. The car is a 98 jetta, and the motor came out of a 99 mk3 jetta.
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Earlier today I had power at the shutoff solenoid. Now I don't. So I ran a wire straight to the battery and it will run for a few seconds. Still nothing on the cluster. It's been a long time since I've been this angry at an inanimate object.
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Check / replace the 109 relay. They can go bad quite suddenly. VW came out with a revised version as the original ones had problems.
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I am such a noob. The problem was the connection for the engine harness. I checked and rechecked it multiple times, I checked for (and had) power coming out of it on the engine side, but apparently it wasn't pressed in completely, and it was a weak enough connection that it failed under a certain load. I got it connected right and all problems disappeared. Lesson learned!
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I think we all have BTDT so don't kick yourself. Sometimes laying on your back with your neck in a bind with you hand up over your head in an unnatural position, it is hard to feel or hear the little click on some of those connectors when they come together. All you can do is reprocess and double/triple check till you find it. They don't turn all purple and green so you can find them easily if they aren't right.