Volkswagen TDI talk

[Greg]

Well I'm diving in head first I just ordered up a Diesel Geek deluxe timing kit, a MetalNerd tool kit and some other odds and ends. Should be here next week.

Hopefully 100k miles from now I can use my sweet timing tools again

I'm amazed it's already time!

I did a timing belt on a similar year gas Jetta and the timing belt layout is very similar. Read up on it, you have to totally remove the motor mount that's in front of the timing belt. It's a fight, you'll need to get the car up on jackstands then use floor jack (with a block of wood on the oil pan) to raise & lower the engine, twist the motor mount until it comes out. It's a fight, but can be done with a little patience. Everything else is pretty straight forward and not hard at all.

I did it without any special tools to lock the camshaft gear or crank. It wasn't easy to get the timing belt on, but with some swearing and effort I finally got it. A trick I heard about was using some binder clips to hold the timing belt onto the cam gear... it really helps.

 

[Rot Box]

Thanks Greg. I've used the clips on my Honda (those two cams fought me the whole way!) before and it works great. From the reading I've done and video's I've watched on the TDI TB I think the job will/should/should hopefully be pretty straight forward but we'll see.


I'm jumping the gun a little bit mostly for peace of mind. My wife's sister and family are moving to Phoenix and I have a feeling this car will get driven there a lot in the next year or so. Guess now is as good of time as any to do it. Hmm I wonder what the riding is like in AZ.. Might have to put that 'tow package' to use with a small trailer and haul the bike down there this winter

 

[YOUKNOW]

It's like the OP read my mind!! I've been looking for this type of info for a long time. Glad you guys posted it up.

:thumbs:

 

[Spork]

Swapped out my rear brakes today. Sitting at a around 248k miles.


Still running the original fronts (they look fine).

 

[Rot Box]

Welp.... I'm a nervous wreck :sick: I just finished up installing the new timing kit and the belt tracking is not the same as the old one. I've searched like crazy and couldn't find much. What I did find are people saying: a. completely normal--drive it. b. Big problems. Turn the injector pump mounting bracket (????) c. shim the affected pulleys outwards (probably not the best idea imo).

It is on the very edge of the injector pump pulley. With 100 miles so far it hasn't gotten worse but I'm going to stop driving it until I get this sorted out. It doesn't appear to be binding up or trying to fly off. It is not rubbing on any of the covers. I installed the highest quality kit money could buy and it included new everything including bolts. Torqued to spec and thoroughly cleaned/inspected everything. Tensioner marks are perfectly aligned. Install was straight forward and I double checked everything.

Any ideas?

 

[Rot Box]

Update: My brother had his belt changed a month or so ago. I went over and had a look. His is riding in the same place mine is.. Hmm I'm guessing it's probably nothing to worry about.

 

[Greg]

Update: My brother had his belt changed a month or so ago. I went over and had a look. His is riding in the same place mine is.. Hmm I'm guessing it's probably nothing to worry about.

I think you're right, as long as everything is lined up and the belt isn't rubbing on anything, you should be fine.

So how'd it go, was it as intimidating as you thought? Did you love that motor mount?

 

[Rot Box]

I think you're right, as long as everything is lined up and the belt isn't rubbing on anything, you should be fine.

So how'd it go, was it as intimidating as you thought? Did you love that motor mount?

Not nearly as bad as I was expecting. The motor mount was dumb! I fought both boost pipes going to and from the intercooler.. surprisingly that was the hardest part. All those 'stretch' bolts had me scratching my head though

 

[anderson750]

I have a friend with an 03 Passat that needs the motor rebuilt. Car has around 150K on it with an auto. He had it in for a new turbo and when he went to leave the mechanic shop, the oil light was on. They told him it was a bad sensor and about 15 minutes later, he lost the motor. I do not know many details beyond that. What would it cost rebuild a TDI?

 

[Greg]

He's probably better off finding a running engine out of a wrecked car, if he can. I would imagine a proper rebuild would cost more than the car is worth.

 

[anderson750]

He's probably better off finding a running engine out of a wrecked car, if he can. I would imagine a proper rebuild would cost more than the car is worth.

Where is a good place to look for a motor? He has the car for sale for cheap and I am thinking of grabbing if it could be done for a reasonable amount.

 

[Greg]

Where is a good place to look for a motor? He has the car for sale for cheap and I am thinking of grabbing if it could be done for a reasonable amount.

http://www.car-part.com/

Same system all auto-wreckers use...

 

[Spork]

Alright time for sanity check/stupid question time.

My Idler pulley died on me and here is New vs the one I pulled out.

I'm pretty sure new is what the old used to be.
I am attempting to route the serpentine belt like this diagram:

And I swear the belt shrunk or something. I can't get it over the AC with the tensioner fully pushed to the back. I think I'm about an inch off. Belt is a CONTITECH Part # 6K1660 which when I look it up says Length: 65.35 inches which is kind of strange because I could have swore the last one I bought when I replaced the tensioner was from Checker (Oreilly) and when I look there they have 2 listed one at 65.52 and one at 65.92. I guess the stupid question of the night is would a half inch on the belt make enough of a difference to get it over the pulley?

one more bit of trivia, I just had the water pump/timing belt replaced a couple weeks ago, could they have swapped my belt and ignored the idler pulley that was about ready to puke?

Thanks

 

[Cascadia]

Can I join this thread? I picked my wife up a 2015 q5 tdi today. Headed to California for the maiden road trip and so far to St. George were getting 34 mpg. Pretty good compared to my Denali driving down here.

 

[Rot Box]

one more bit of trivia, I just had the water pump/timing belt replaced a couple weeks ago, could they have swapped my belt and ignored the idler pulley that was about ready to puke?

Weird.. I just changed all that stuff on mine so I could measure my old belt and pulley diameter tomorrow if you'd like.

To answer that question: Yes. In this day and age it would not surprise me at all. That pulley doesn't need to be removed in order to replace the timing belt however it should have been inspected/replaced long before the accessory belt was reinstalled.

 

[Rot Box]

Can I join this thread? I picked my wife up a 2015 q5 tdi today. Headed to California for the maiden road trip and so far to St. George were getting 34 mpg. Pretty good compared to my Denali driving down here.

Congrats

 

[Spork]

Weird.. I just changed all that stuff on mine so I could measure my old belt and pulley diameter tomorrow if you'd like.

To answer that question: Yes. In this day and age it would not surprise me at all. That pulley doesn't need to be removed in order to replace the timing belt however it should have been inspected/replaced long before the accessory belt was reinstalled.

I picked up a new belt and had it on in 5 minutes.


I'm starting to get some squeaks and noise from the front end so I'm thinking about new shocks/struts/springs. I little more height would be nice also. Anyone have shock recommendations?

Found this thread and I'm really thinking about swapping the springs.
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=313121

 

[Rot Box]

I'm starting to get some squeaks and noise from the front end

Did you get it figured out? I was getting lots of squeaks, clunks and torque steer on mine which ended up being the front control arms and sway bar bushings.

If you do the front control arm bushings you'll notice the rearward bushings are kinda flimsy. I replaced mine with Moog.... they're already starting to crack :-\ Going to put these in next time: http://store.blackforestindustries.com/r32ttrecoarm.html (black forest has all kinds of suspension upgrades as well)

 

[Spork]

Did you get it figured out? I was getting lots of squeaks, clunks and torque steer on mine which ended up being the front control arms and sway bar bushings.

If you do the front control arm bushings you'll notice the rearward bushings are kinda flimsy. I replaced mine with Moog.... they're already starting to crack :-\ Going to put these in next time: http://store.blackforestindustries.com/r32ttrecoarm.html (black forest has all kinds of suspension upgrades as well)

I haven't done it yet. It's one of those future things I think I need to do but haven't got around to yet.

 

[Greg]

I finally turned up my TDI Jetta!! :greg: I've been wanting to mod the engine for quite sometime, I choose a tune from Malone Tuning and went for their Stage 1.5, which they claim nets 130hp/239lb-ft! They only sell their tunes to dealers, so I went to Berg Performance in Denver for the work. I shipped them my ECU, they added the tune, deleted the EGR cooler so there will be no check engine light (I removed the EGR cooler, no more soot buildup!) and they added a dynamic idle which will help it warm up quicker now that the EGR cooler is gone. I got it back today and put it back in.

I went for a drive and the change is very nice! The power in 1st thru 3rd is awesome... it'll spin the front tires pretty easy. The added boost and fuel comes on very strong on the bottom-end, makes the car very fun to drive. If you open the throttle all the way, it'll roll coal... It's a light haze and not something I really wanted, but it makes me laugh... a little white VW rolling coal. :freak: I took it on the freeway and decided to see what the passing power looked like at speed and, well.... I may have seen close to 1X0 MPH indicated. :guilty: The redline comes on at 4,400 RPM and I was over 4k, you could tell the engine didn't like sustained high-revs and well, that was too fast... so I slowed down pretty quick.

I'm loving it... perhaps a few more years down the road I'll upgrade the turbo and injectors.