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Engine Specific Info and Questions => IDI Engine => Topic started by: tdorval on December 19, 2006, 06:19:56 am
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Hey guys,
I was just checking in to see if there are any tricks to cold weather starts. I just did the timing, and thats right on. The car seems to be running great. Now that its winter and I live in Northern NH where it gets pretty cold i need to figure out some ways to get her to start when its cold. In the morning its not bad because i can have it plugged in, but when i go to school and come back to the car 3 hours later between classes i need it to start. i just got a new battery so theres plenty of cranking power. It has new glow plugs(bought the car with new ones in it) and like i said its already timed well. Are there anythings i can do to get the car to start with out plugging it in. It started at 33*F yesterday with out being plugged in, but it was 22* this morning and i wanted to test it to see if it would start or not w/out beeing plugged in and it didn't. What temp should these start at w/out beeing plugged in? There must be some things i can do to get it to start right? Anyone have tips or tricks. What oil do u run in the winter? By the way its a 92 1.6 td jetta
Thanks in advance
TJ
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You should be able to start it at -20*C (-4*C).
Factors:
-timing
-glow plugs
-starter
-battery
-compression
If you have low compression, it will be awful to start nomatter what you do. With my old 87 NA jetta, it started beautifully, even after sitting overnight at -25*C, once I had a good battery, good starter and good glow plugs.
Another thing to check is your fuel filter
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andy2 helped me set my timing to 1.06 and let me tell you.. it fires up first crank in the cold, but when warm it takes a few cranks still. no biggie...
battery is huge. these cars should have 1000CCA battery to properly start in harsh conditions. In the summer you can get away with 600CCA and maybe lower.
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so it should start at 20 below F with out beeing plugged in or plugged in? I've got my pump at 1.04, i could try advancing it to 1.06. As far as compresion goes, it may be down a bit. Its got 220000 miles on it. And i'm not sure if its ever had rings done. How big of a job is it to do rings on these things? I don't have a compression tester that goes up high enough for this thing... but either way i'm not going to rebuild it anytime soon.
Thanks
TJ
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Last week we had a 16F morning, and I was worried it wouldnt start. But it did. Not plugged in either. Ran the glow plugs for a good 10 seconds or so, and it fired up. It misfired a couple of times immediately after startup, but otherwise lacked drama. I was impressed.
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As Libbypapa mentioned check your ground straps and think about upgrading battery cable size. These cables are too small at max current draw and I have upgraded mine with good results.
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i have a quick question about glow plugs, the guy i bought the car from said he had put fast glow plugs in, and i thought i read somewhere that the TD's need a slower glow plug. Could this be my problem or should it not matter? I still wait for the glow plug light to go out before cranking. I may have to look into the cables, but i'm hoping for some easy things, as i've already spent a decent amount of money on this car...
TJ
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I put an extra battery in the trunk. I used a 1000 cca like the ones used in semi trucks. I used welding cable with copper ends soldered on and ran tne cable under the carpet to the engine compartment where it connects with the other battery (880 cca) in parrallel. I used a plastic box for batterys sold at wal mart to keep it covered. I just ran a short cable to ground this battery to the chasis. On one of my cars I wired in a switch to the ground cable so I could turn it off and use it for a jumper battery if the front battery went dead. Which reminds me that I always carry a well charged jumper box in the trunk too. With this setup you should be able to start your car to -10F if it's been parked for three hours and it's not too windy.
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Buy the way, I use 5-40 Rottella synthetic. I know it isn't a true synthetic, but it does have a lower pour point than regular oil.
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Condition of your injectors can make a big difference. Car in my sig hasn't been an easy cold starter for a couple years. It recently developed grey/white smoke at idle. Suspecting a leaky injector I replaced 2 injectors with low mileage ones I had spare. That got rid of the smoke and it starts a lot easier now. I know for sure the old injectors have 200,000 on them and I would guess they are from factory.
I only replaced 2 as it was late, I was tired of standing in the cold and I was freaked out by how much force I had to use to get the 2nd injector out (everything I had on an 18" breaker bar while standing in the the snow) I'll do the other 2 on a nicer day with the engine hot and hope neither of them pulls the threads from head.
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the viscosity of the oil helps dramatically. switching from 15w40 to shell rotella 0w40 synthetic really really helped my car's cold starting. mix that with a powerful battery, and even a worn out diesel that has at least 320 psi in a couple of cyls should start at 0F or -20C without too much issues :)
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as far as goign synthetic, i thought this caused many oil leak problems so i was hoping not too. But if the oil will make that big of a difference i may have too. I like the idea of an jumper battery in the trunk wired into the other battery. I'll have to pick up an oil filter and some new oil and see if that helps for now. I sure hope it does.
Thanks
TJ
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everyone says synthetics leak... if you ask me they dont burn like regular oils do.
so its pretty much evened out, and plus they help cold start oil flow dramatically. very very worth it!
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well i tried the oil change, 5-40 rotella synthetic... didn't help out at all, went to start it this afternoon at 32*F and nothin... need to figure out where to go from here now..
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ok, i did a couple electrical tests to see if power was getting to the glow plugs... and there was. So i figured i mine as well pull the easiest plug because they didn't look all that new like the guy had said. Well the glow plug was cut off at the tip. So i'm thinking i've found my problem. Ordered 4 new glows and will put them in tomorow. Now with the tips beeing gone where does that go, right down in the motor or what because the really scares me. Should i be checking my injectors to make sure their spraying right, because i believe thats another reason for the tips melting or cutting off right? How long would my new glows last with bad injectors? Well i'm goign to go pull the car in the garage because its supposed to rain tomorow.. hopefully this takes care of her...
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where do you get the injectors checked on these things? The motor seems to be running good, much better after i timed the injection pump. So i'm hopeful that nothing is wrong with the motor, i'm guessing the glow plugs were like this from before i bought it, but who knows. I'll see if there all like the one i pulled some time tonight if i can get it in the garage. I've only got a compression tester that goes up to 300psi, so i guess i'm hoping to max this out if i do get the injectors out. How do people like the rebuilt injectors from vwdieselparts.com. I'm thinking about some from there. Any other places that you can get them for a better price?
Thanks
TJ
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http://www.autopartsonlinecanada.com/ has cheap injectors, if you want turbo ones look under the 1984 diesel rabbit, they are listed there for some reason. I buy from that site all the time and their products, shipping time etc are all excellent. They won't ship to the states though but I could forward them to you for the cost of shipping if you'd like.
I always get a ground strap off a domestic at the j-yard (the braided ones) and run it directly from my negative battery terminal to underneath one of the starter bolts. I find that makes a huge difference.
Turbo diesels do require slow glow plugs, it's to help reduce smoke. You glows have to match your glow plug relay.
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the vwdieselparts.com site has rebuilt turbo injectors with heat sheilds for 43 a piece, that seems like a good price. Would come close in price minus the core charge as the autopartscanada place. I'm guna change the glow plugs and see where that gets me. My guess is the motor is a little down on compresion(i'll try and check that too) and it needs good glow plugs to run. Could running the motor with pour pump timing about .74 cause the glows to cut off? Just curious as the timing was at that for a bit.
TJ
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the vwdieselparts.com site has rebuilt turbo injectors with heat sheilds for 43 a piece, that seems like a good price. Would come close in price minus the core charge as the autopartscanada place. I'm guna change the glow plugs and see where that gets me. My guess is the motor is a little down on compresion(i'll try and check that too) and it needs good glow plugs to run. Could running the motor with pour pump timing about .74 cause the glows to cut off? Just curious as the timing was at that for a bit.
TJ
autopartsonlinecanada is great for us Canadians. if you live in the states you can't even order from them. ordering from the states into Canada is pretty bad... customs rapes us. i ordered some raceware studs from vwmike, and the customs a$$holes ripped open the package to let the studs bounce around and nick eachother... no serious damage but come on... what bastards!!!
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well i did the glow plugs today and she fired up but it wasn't all that cold out. I think it was definately the problem because all the glow plugs were screwed up. I also noticed that i had a line missing that goes from the pump to the turbo,(comes from the very top of the turbo) i hooked that up before i took my ride and wow what a difference that seemed to make. Pulls a lot harder when the rpm's come up. SO i'll test her in the moring. Now i have to go fix my snowmobile...
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I only have problems buying stuff from the states if it is shipped UPS. USPS is awesome.
If all 4 of your glowplugs are bad and they were recently replaced you may want to look into what caused that as previouslt mentioned.
That line is for the LDA; it tells the pump to inject more fuel according to boost. It certainly makes a huge differance
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i cant remember, but i think vwmike marked it as a 'gift'... maybe they just target 'gifts'... argh
UPS charges a minimum brokerage fee of ... $40 which is pretty much outrageous... imagine if customs charges you 50 bucks for something... that is an added $90 on top of shipping etc... pretty retarded. but i can buy something from germany with NO customs fee's or ANYTHING. really makes me mad
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the plugs didn't look new, so i'm thinking the guy was just pulling my chains saying they were...
TJ
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they were new at some point.. he just didn't tell you how long ago that they were new ;)
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You should probably make sure you don't have other problems first, but for faster, more efficient cold starts you could get these injection line heaters that are made for folks using biodiesel and svo:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Injection-Line-Heaters-for-Bio-Diesel-Vegi-WVO-SVO-300D_W0QQitemZ270075801467QQihZ017QQcategoryZ33553QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
(http://i23.ebayimg.com/05/i/08/6c/51/7b_1.JPG)