I am new to the vw diesels, I have a 1982 pickup that is getting harder and harder to start, been having to drag it to get it going. I have a considerable amout of oil in intake??Why?? also it tends to run away on its own every once in a while?? Whats up with that? Other wise once its running it great runs pretty smooth. Just wondering where to go with this.
Thanks for any input.
Your engine has very worn rings and probably valve guides as well, causing the engine to run on its own oil. Rebuild time.
Search here for "runaway" or such and you'll find lots of discussion.
Vince
if you do decide to keep driving it and it ever starts running on it's own, stalling it is your only hope of saving your engine, don't let it rev to infinity
Have you checked to make sure that your glow plugs work?
My 81 caddy was the same way untill I replaced the glow plugs.
Of coursse there were other issuses. See posts under somolovitch3 in this and othe forums for details.
Cheap fix for runaway, sort of, wire in a normaly closed momentery action push button switch in series with the fuel valve. When the engine starts to runaway, hit the switch, cutting off the fuel.
As mentioned above, be ready to stall the engine if the switch does not help. I ran my 79 Rabitt with a swich set up for several years, would still be doing that, but the poor thing got smushed one day.
If you're getting the engine rebuilt, get the injector pump and injectors rebuilt also. When I got my pump rebuilt, it solved my runaway problem.
Cheap fix for runaway, sort of, wire in a normaly closed momentery action push button switch in series with the fuel valve. When the engine starts to runaway, hit the switch, cutting off the fuel.
Yo bro, it aint the fuel thats making it run away so shuttin the fuel off won't do ***, the engine is running on the oil thats being dumped into inlet manifold. I'm pickin you have a large amount of blowby (check by removeing oil filler cap with the engine runnning or the dipstick and see how bad ly it fumes from there). Best bet mate is to either rebuild your engine or fit a catch can to catch the oil from the engine breather and not let it into the inlet manifold, I have one on a shagged out RD28 Nissan diesel, if fills the can so fast with oil I had to tee the oil drain on the catch can into the oil return on the vacum pump so it could drain back with the engine running, still get over 600Ks from a tank of diesel and 160KPH from the car so reluctant at this stage to repair it, it got overheated and must have picked a piston and smudged the rings - good luck
Vince's got it...
The engine's blowby is mixing with crankcase oil vapors. The glorious ventilation hose feeds the intake manifold with this "fuel" and things really get going.
I'd be willing to bet when it runs away it's got more power than it's ever had and you can see nothing but smoke in your rearview.
You really shouldn't drive it and (as was suggested) you should start sourcing parts and labour for a quality rebuild, or find another engine.
My '82 did this to me on the freeway on a rather humid day. I couldn't stop it, so I smoked the brakes out to get the car down to about 50mph. Then, I popped the hood. It's a good thing A1s don't have the latch problems A3s do
That trick scooped in enough cool air to cool the engine down a spot so it would die.
I did as others had: Fashioned a nice wire hook onto a coffee can and let the blowby and oil into a coffee can. It worked well enough until I rebuilt the engine.
Good luck!
-p