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Engine Specific Info and Questions => IDI Engine => Topic started by: BoostedOne on December 22, 2012, 01:37:26 am
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Ok, short version..
HISTORY
Got my caddy on the road in October using a used 1.6L ME code engine of pretty much unknown history. I got it from a guy who was going to use it in Samurai project that never took off.. It sat for several years...
Had a leaky injector pump, oil light comes on when warm idling, and a good amount of blow by... I'm just using for a few months until I can rebuild my other engine.
JUST PRIOR TO PROBLEM:
End of November, I was driving it and it overheated. Thought maybe the fan switch went out. Real long story short, even though it ran(just built moderate pressure in the cooling system), I decided to do a quick job to get the headgasket repaired..
So, I cleaned up the deck of the head and block. Didnt want to get the head surfaced because i didnt want to put a bunch of money into this head since the bottom end is so worn.. But while it was apart I decided to knock the pistons out from the bottom and re-ring it. Slapped in some new standard size grant rings and KS rod bearings, figuring maybe I could cut down on the blow by and low oil pressure for a few bucks and a few extra hours work.
Not sure that it matters for this discussion but reused the headbolts even though its a no-no..
PROBLEM:
Got the truck back together on a Saturday afternoon.. No pressure in the coolant, figured things were a success. We drove the truck almost 200 miles Saturday night, not a single issue.
Sunday, wouldnt start.. I left the lights on when we got home Saturday night..
Monday morning, go to drive the truck to work. Temperature was about 60 degrees. Finally get the truck to fire off, and shortly after(I didnt even move yet), the oil light comes on. Open the hood, find oil blown all over the drivers side fender well. The filter blew out at the seam between the flange and the canister.
I figured this was just because it was an "american" filter from napa, and maybe they just sold the V8 application as a VW filter.. So I drive my other car across town to get a couple of MANN filters. One for now, one for "later" I figured..
I put the new filter on, fresh oil, clean it up. I'm happy, think I got it licked. Drive it to work the next day, everything is fine. After work, as I am walking to the truck I run into a friend in the parking lot. After I get into the truck to leave, he's still walking so I think to be funny I will floor it when I go by and black smoke him...
Well, I make it about 200 feet and the oil light comes on.. Imagine my embarrassment when I had to have him ride me to the parts store for a new filter.. But I found the local Advance carries Mann filters, yay!
So replaced the filter in the parking lot at work, more fresh oil. Babied the ever loving crap out of it to get it home, figuring the high RPM when cold spikes the pressure and burst the filter.
Two days later I blew that filter too, again, right after startup...
A friend of mine whose into V8s keep saying pressure releif.. Which, while i admit I never really looked at the VW pump that close, I didnt remember seeing one, and the Bentley doesn't mention them, and i remember from my younger days with 8v gassers breaking mechanical oil pressure gauges due to the super high pressure these things run when they are cold, so they didnt have one.. I went and looked at a pump out of my core motor, sure enough, they do..
So I limp the truck into the shop the following Friday after noon. Jack it up, pull the pan, pull the pump.. Disassemble pump. Nothing seems out of the ordinary internally, but I hit the oil releif passage in the cover plate of the pump with an air line, its locked up solid. I ground the peens from the spring cap and removed the cap and spring, and the releif still won't move..
So for some reason which still leaves me at a loss, is somehow the releif valve in the pump locked up..
So I have 3 other pumps. One is out of a low mile ABA, but I can't use that because the drive shaft is shorter. Another out of an old 11mm engine, and one out of a hydro ME code motor. I checked all of the releif valves, and they all blew open under pressure from the air compressor.
So I decided to install the pump out of the ME hydro motor since it had the bigger gears, and the mk2 Bentley even says you can put a hydro motor pump in to attempt to cure a low oil pressure problem on the early motor(my oil light still comes on with the new bearings when it warms up). I also added the oil baffle from the ABA motor.
Get the truck back together. New Mann filter. Fresh oil. I drove the truck 150 miles that Friday night. No problems. Ran errands in it Saturday to the tune of probably 100 miles. No problem. Saturday evening or Sunday morning, go to start it up, blew the filter off again!
I haven't had a chance to pull it apart yet to see if the releif is stuck all of a sudden on this pump too, but anyone have any ideas?
The headgasket is on with OBEN up.
Its a Victor Reinz headgasket.
Oil is 15-40 diesel oil.
Lowest the temps have gotten so far is low 50s.
My friend did alot of searching, and i did some.. Seems like alot of people post the problem but rarely share what the solution ended up being.
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Is the head gasket for a hydro engine or mechanical? Basically sounds like there is a blockage somewhere, whether the HG or in an oil passage.
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Hg is for hydro motor.
Im not sure how much oil it can have because when I retorqued the head after the first heat cycle it was wet up there.
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I agree with theman. It definitely sounds like the oil is being restricted somewhere. Can you get a mechanical pressure gauge and do some tests with it? If you see extremely high pressure at the oil filter flange and lousy pressure at the head it may at least point you in the right direction.
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On my ME engine it is not uncommon to see 80-100 at the head cold, pressure will fluctuate between 80-100 until warm (slowly drops to 80 then back into the 90's and drops back to 80 and repeat). Burst pressure on most filters has to be 200+ psi I would imagine. Running 15w40.
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You already eliminated the oil pump bypass being wrong by changing the pump. So that is why I was thinking the HG, if you are sure it is hydro then I would do as cyrus says and put a mech gauge in the head for testing purposes. It will either show you nothing at the head or something crazy like 150psi at the head. Either way something to go on at that point.
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I meant to say the head gasket was for a mechanical head. My mistake.
Since it is the last day before the holiday I am headed to the parts house to get another oil pump head gasket and head bolts.
I was thinking the same thing regarding the pressures. I will see if I have a couple of 200 pound gauges and I will tap 1 into the flange and the other into the head. If I find the pressure at the head is low how would I go about clearing the block?
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How clean was the oil pan and internal aspects of this engine each time you had it open? Did you see any metal chips in the bottom of the pan or on the oil pump screen? Did this engine sit exposed (opened up) on a work bench or in someone's back yard prior to you putting it into service?
The problem with this guy's story is that he takes the rig out and runs it (for up to (supposedly) 200 miles) and all is fine (giving it enough time to stir up the crap in this engine). Then, he shuts it off and problems emerge upon restart.
Is there a chance (he said unknown origin) that this engine was fun for long periods of time on gasoline engine oil?
My two cents worth.
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Also do these things not have any line up features in the deck for the head gasket? I think the 8 valve has 2 little pins sticking out of the block. On this engine I had nothing and it seemed like the head gasket was allowed to shift around a little until I got the head bolts in.
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Before I got it the engine was stored assembled however nothing was plugged or covered. So the only thing protecting the intake was the filter and so forth. When I first got it running there was actually so much crankcase pressure it was leaking out of the main seals. I found a mud dauber plug the crankcase vent in the intake manifold. The engine was stored indoors however it was an open air shop in South Florida. Mud daubers will plug up an exposed hole in a matter of days. In the summertime if I don't use my air tools once a month the inlet port will be plugged up with my daughters.
I am kind of baffled by the whole thing myself. I would have figured if Grit was causing the relief to lock up it would probably seize in the open position. Since the oil pump that was in it when I first got it running work for over 3000 miles for me since October and then mysteriously the relief blocked up I would not be amazed to find the pump i put in a week ago locked the releif too.
I honestly did not look at the bottom of the pan very closely when I had it apart. The inside of the engine was remarkably clean. I guess because of the diesel oil there was a black layer of soot that just wiped off. I really did not inspect things very closely other than that because I just figured it was an off the wall part failure.
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And yes before the head gasket other than the excessive blow by and the low oil pressure the engine ran fine and I drove the hell out of it. Between October 13th and November 26th I put over 3000 miles on the truck. It was getting about 45 miles per gallon but that is probably kind of low because it is on 195 45 14 tires so it screams on the interstate.
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FWIW, my old 1.5 had lousy oil pressure, yet still pegged my autometer oil pressure gauge..
my filters are ALWAYS ballooned out on the bottom..
i dont run my diesel hard when its cold.. i know it will blow the filter apart.
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IIRC all ME code engines are hydraulic. If you put a mechanical head gasket on it I would start there.
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I dunno. I think all golf 2s were me code, and hydro started in 86? I know its a mechanical head and 12mm though.
I understand you don't want to beat the snot out of it when it is cold but on the other hand it would be nice to be able to rev over 2000 rpm without waiting 15 minutes.
I will be out in the shop beginning the investigation in a few hours. Keep y'all posted
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UPDATE.
So i just finished plumbing a 200 psi gauge to the head and a 300 psi gauge to the block. New mann filter and fresh fill of 15-40w diesel oil. Outside temp is about 45 to 50 degrees F.
Fired her up and never went above idle. As it ran i noticed the gauge for the flange around 250 psi, but it would oscillate a little up and down 10 psi. At first glance at my gauge for the head i thought it was reading 0, indicating total blockage, however a closer look revealed it was wrapped around to the peg(well over 200 psi obviously)....
Not 10 seconds later saw the pressure flutter and drop off like a rock. Blown filter in about 30 seconds idling....
My gauge setup consisted of braided line running to industrial liquid filled gauges placed side by side so i could see them both at the same time...
Since the pressure was well in excess pf gauge limits at the head, i don't know the pressure but it definitely has pressure. .
Thoughts?
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What the he77 are YOUR thoughts?
I'd say it appears as though oil ain't able to go south from the head. Only you know how you installed the head gasket.
Buy yourself some new bolts this time around.
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Im stumped and freezing like a popsicle in an open air shop... ok all joking aside..
My thought is the bypass in this pump is jammed too, for a reason i have no clue. My other thought is i probably don't have a blockage at the head gasket since i had excessive pressure at both locations.
Just got the pan off. Didn't see any crap in it. Fixing to pull the oil pump and take a looksee.
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If nothing is wrong with the pressure regulator and if you are certain all is well with the headgasket, I'd put in the cheapest sythetic oil you can buy (I wouldn't even buy diesel rated stuff unless it was cheaper) and see what the cold pressures are.
My understanding of the oil system is that there are no passages to block if the headgasket is installed correctly. Basically some pressure bleeds off at the mains, some at the rods, some in the lifters etc and then it trickles back into the pan.
The other thing I would check is to pull the injectors next to the oil feed passage and see if they are covered in oil. You might be pressurizing the oil system with combustion gasses.
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Post a pic of your head. I had an 85 built car ME that was hydro. VW never was one to do something simple.
I bet something amiss with the HG or Head itself. It maybe needing pressure tested.
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If nothing is wrong with the pressure regulator and if you are certain all is well with the headgasket, I'd put in the cheapest sythetic oil you can buy (I wouldn't even buy diesel rated stuff unless it was cheaper) and see what the cold pressures are.
The other thing I would check is to pull the injectors next to the oil feed passage and see if they are covered in oil. You might be pressurizing the oil system with combustion gasses.
Yeah i just double checked. Oben is up on the head gasket.
Jumping to your last idea... does this actually happen? And what would the leakage path be? Bad heat sheild?
I will say even with a professionally rebuilt pump from a reputable shop its hard as hell to get to start after its been sittijg for 8 to 12 hours. Ive been cheating and using a shot of brake cleaner to help it fire up. I was figuring one of my injectors was just leaking down and was going to replace them once i got the oil pressure figured out.
Im guessing my relief is probably stuck but am at a loss for how. Im pulling the pump next. If the releif is working what you say about combustion gasses is definately possible.
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I don't think it would have anything to do with the injectors. There are no oil passages right by the heatshields that I know of.
Basically rather than the head gasket leaking into the coolant it found it's way into the oil. I'd say it's highly unlikely as I've never heard of it happening before but you did reuse your head bolts so anythings fair.
You might want to consider installing a 30mm oil pump rather than the 36mm one you put in there last time.
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Post a pic of your head. I had an 85 built car ME that was hydro. VW never was one to do something simple.
I bet something amiss with the HG or Head itself. It maybe needing pressure tested.
Damn since gtd doesn't allow upload from tapatalk direct this was a pain but here it is
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/boostedone/2012-12-22_21-03-33_160.jpg)
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I meant to say the head gasket was for a mechanical head. My mistake.
Looking at your head, you have the correct gasket.
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Ok...
Problem kinda solved. Bypass was stuck again. On the last one i didn't try too hard to get the shuttle valve out this time i did.
Put pressure on the inlet side of the relief port, nothing passed... removed end cap and spring, drilled a hole in the elbow so i could drive the shuttle valve out. Found some *** in there, and some heavy scoring along the bottom of the bore...
So this crap is floating around in the oil, and getting trapped in the relief port...
And until i get all this crap out of there it will happen over and over due to the design of the port...this is because the releif is in the bottom of the pump, high pressure oil travels horizontal and the exhaust is on the top of the port meaning unless there is enough velocity to expel the crap it just sits there. Even if there is enough velocity it just circulates between pump inlet and relief port...
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/boostedone/2012-12-22_21-56-02_76.jpg)
I need to figure out a good way to clean this *** out. All i can think of is lots of brake cleaner up top and let it drain down as well as douch the hell out of it from the bottom.
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Diesel/gasoline from the top.
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You might want to check a bearing or two, the oil flying by at 200+ PSI can scour material off them.
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Top end and rotating assembly really doesn't look too bad compared to the pan...
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/boostedone/2012-12-22_22-43-06_908.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/boostedone/2012-12-22_22-45-47_8.jpg)
Pan... the glistening says all.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/boostedone/2012-12-22_22-46-39_984.jpg)
Didn't have any diesel so i dumped a couple quarts of gas in the top...
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/boostedone/2012-12-22_23-04-37_547.jpg)
Im going to clean out the valve cover, the pan, spray a can of brake clean up at the rods and pistons and put another used early pump in it and see how it does for a few days. Im going to leave the high pressure gauge connected but put it in the cab and keep an eye on an upward trend. I just bought a new pump today but would hate to ruin it too....
Im not going looking at the bearings... i only need to keep this engine together a few more months. Just long enough to rebuild one of my cores.
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YOU Painted it BLUE? Yikes!! I don't want to see the pink starter and transmission on this "bad boy".
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Blue paint, blue engine, blue interior too? ;)
Were you in Ontario today Dale? Swear I saw you in a crowd! lmao
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No... grey mk2 recaros and cabby dash swap. Its bmw leguna seca blue. While i was painting the truck figured the valve cover, intake and timing cover all looked aweful so i sprayed them with the same base/clear as the rest of the truck...
Got it back together. One of the gauges is jacked though because the one labeled f is the filter flange and the one labeled h is the head. Im guessing the head gauge got damaged when it was pegged. But i will keep an eye on the pressure the next few days and see what it does..
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/boostedone/2012-12-23_00-53-00_976.jpg)
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Seriously, over 100psi at the head?! What oil are you running? Is it 90w140 gear oil ;)
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Like i say i think that gauge got jacked earlier tonight when it got pegged so hard before teardown. No way the head should be higher than the flange
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Yeah I do believe pegging a mechanical guage severely does it in.
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Blue paint, blue engine, blue interior too? ;)
Were you in Ontario today Dale? Swear I saw you in a crowd! lmao
In a crowd when all alone actually. I get the best answers to my mumbled questions that way. Spent the afternoon over the Rabbit engine re-installing the head and the header. Under the car repairing the axle. So NoPe, Notta in the White North. Folks and some sibs live in MI but haven't been there in a couple of years.
Does it help that Grandpa was French Canadian? Got that universal face I guess. And bald head
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Yeah I do believe pegging a mechanical guage severely does it in.
yup, its toast.. you over-pressurize them once, and they are never accurate again..
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Well, the orifices in the head are quite small. A higher head pressure could now be legitimate evidence of upper blockage.
However, I am truly "impressed" at your's and many of these new guys who dismiss clear evidence of problems (chips) with the ol' "I only need it to run a while longer......." thing. That mentality would be really "cool" if there was still a glut of these engines out there to be easily found. But, the fact of the matter is that these engines are getting quite difficult to find down here in the states. Especially the heads.
I'm sort of old-fashioned, but, I would have an honest interest in determining where the said chips are coming from. At a minimum, I would have pulled the camshaft to see what those journals are doing up there.
Somewhere, along the way, taking back-water, uneducated short-cuts has become rather popular on this forum.....always was over there on the "hillbilly forum." As for me...I was never impressed with the emergence of this "banjo-pick" mentality.
Good habits and smart decisions tend to be life-long endeavors. Good luck with your next "rebuild."
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Ha! Please.. thanks for the post however...
Short cutting this motor was a calculated decision. Ive been down the road of "should do this while its apart and should do that"... following that metalilty theres no end until a full rebuild is done. Fact of the matter is, on a high milage motor if you go look for stuff you will find it...
And doing it that way im stuck with a truck down i cant use, and back to driving my Mustang everywhere i go to the tune of a few thousand miles a month.
Rebuilding a different motor does a few things
1) keeps the truck from being immobile in my shop taking space which can be used for other things.
2) gives me time to do it right and accept delays with parts and machine shop on the build motor.
3) i have a second caddy that was a diesel but someone swapped in a 2.0l 16v on rado digi 1. I just gave that caddy to my girlfriend for Christmas. Building a second motor for mine gives a donor motor for hers to convert it back to diesel.
Fact of the matter is, i would already be building the motor except over Thanksgiving i was tasked with redoing a civic for my niece to be done for Christmas . Much dent repair, some rust repair, some upgrades and a full respray. Just getting the halfass headgasket job done was a feat with everything else happening.
So if in your eyes Im an idiot goon for limping an engine along until I can switch gears and begin a proper rebuild after Christmas and leave the truck running so i can haul parts in it rather than in the trunk of a 35k dollar car or in the bed of a 18mpg dually(parts houses and machine shops are all over 50 miles each way from here) so be it...
I bought another motor from a dude in atlanta off the tex.. going to go pick it up in a week or so now that the caddy is together again. The oil pump, glow plugs, headbolts i just bought can go in that motor. It will get new pistons and a bore, crank cut if needed, head redone etc proper... hope to have it all done by mid Feb.
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Well, the orifices in the head are quite small. A higher head pressure could now be legitimate evidence of upper blockage.
Huh? How so UNLESS there is pressure leaking from the chamber into the oil galley?
The filter flange is the closest port to the pump. The pump will always have the highest pressure. As you go away from the pump pressures in the galleys will always decrease due to numerous losses present. Each elbow, each transition, each leakage path is a flow loss... unless something pressurizes the head the pressure at the head will always be lower...
Atleast thats what I got out of Fluid Mechanics and Thermo. I hated those classes but did learn some stuff...
Good habits and smart decisions tend to be life-long endeavors. Good luck with your next "rebuild."
Yep. Knowing the technical risks of your decisions is always a good starting point. And at some point in time you graduate to managing the practicality of the technical risks and weighing with the other needs, pressures of life etc.
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