Trouble on the road - part 2. Serious Runaway!

[diesel_fool]

Well it seems like this particular road trip has been cursed with car trouble. The first little issue was fixed with a new fuel filter, no problem... then I discovered two of my glow plugs were totally dead (half of the tips were broken/melted away). I replaced all four for good measure. Then today, the bomb dropped. Something happened that I didn't know how to deal with. Going down the interstate in Missouri and suddenly the rpm's start to climb and a huge cloud of blue smoke is pouring out the tailpipe. So I pull over really quickly and am able to make the engine stall by putting on the brakes while its in gear. But whenever I start it, it immediately starts to runaway and I have to shut it off.

So I have AAA and ended up getting a tow to the nearest town and ask around for a mechanic that can work on vw diesels and get referred to 'the best guy in town'. And he is closing shop just as I get there (its saturday and this is a small town) and won't be opening again until Monday. So I dropped the car off at the shop, and got a motel room for the night. Then I walked to the nearest truck stop and got online to search for solutions. Now I've gone through all the posts on this forum about runaway and am thinking I understand the problem better now. I'm hoping to get some clarification on my thoughts.

First thing is, my air filter is soaked with oil from the vent hose, so that seems like the obvious cause of the runaway. After reading posts, I realized that my valve cover doesn't have an oil baffle plate (ie. I can see the valves through the oil filler hole) I also have a ton of blowby, and I suspect that my rings are in bad shape. Unfortunately I am still 2,000 miles from home (and the possibility of a rebuild). It seems like I need to get a baffle plate, and possibly re-route the valve cover vent hose to the crankcase like I've seen in this post (viewtopic.php?t=7693&highlight=blow+runaway). I'm not sure that my valve cover even has a screen to clean. I've never noticed one in all the times its been off. I'm going to check on that tomorrow morning when I walk over to where the car is parked.

I'm concerned about having the shop work on it because the mechanic didn't seem familiar with VWs and didn't have a clue what I meant when I said runaway diesel. So I'm planning on trying some fixes tomorrow (sunday). Is it difficult to find an oil baffle plate? And is there anything I'm overlooking that should be checked out? Any quick fix to make it drivable if I can't get an oil baffle in this town?

Much appreciated.

-Jarek.

[Vincent Waldon]

Sounds like pretty bad blowby.... perhaps more than a baffle can handle.

If so you may have to consider venting the valve cover to some kind of external catch can rather than thru the PCV valve and back into the air filter.

Putting in the thickest oil you can find might seal things up a bit as well.

BTW, burnt glow plug tips are often the sign of malfunctioning injectors... if it's been going on for some time it may be that raw diesel is washing down the sides of the cylinders and watering down the oil... something to check when you can.

[CoolAirVw]

What part of missouri are you in?

And where are you from?

[hagar]

limping HOME is NO problem---- just pull the hose off VC ---then deal with baffles when you get home.

hagar.

[woodrat]

depending on how bad the blow by is, you may want to route that mess into a container under the hood somewhere, and keep a close eye on it.

My brother did that with a worn out 77 rabbit gasser, and while it did work, his problem was so bad that it would fill pretty frequently and he once had a small oil fire under the hood when it over flowed and splashed on the exhaust manifold.

[diesel_fool]

Richard - I'm in Sullivan MO. 70 miles out of St Louis on I-44. Born in Portland, OR but call Washington state home now. Trying to get home...

Vincent - Injectors are fairly new. About 8k miles on them. Could they be suspect already? I have had the injectors out recently (replacing glow plugs) and I did notice a lot of fluid in the pre-injection chamber. Not sure what is normal in there, but I did notice it. Is there an easy way to check for diesel in the oil or for malfunctioning injectors (ie. without pulling the injectors and having someone test them?).

I have 15W-40 in it now. What would you recommend? Should I be looking for 20W-40 or just straight up 30W or 40W. I am driving in moderately cold weather. I've only ever had 15W-40 in there.


As for a container to route the valve cover to.. is using some 5/8" coolant hose into a pop bottle or something plastic like that ok? Do I need to make holes in the container to relieve the blowby pressure? If I do this... is there anything else to be checking besides the container overflow and maintaining my crankcase oil level?

Thanks everyone. I'm relieved that I can temporarily fix this and get home. Then the real fixing begins...

[Vincent Waldon]

Is there an easy way to check for diesel in the oil or for malfunctioning injectors (ie. without pulling the injectors and having someone test them?).

Nah, pretty much gotta pop test them. If they are newish then it would strange if they were burning up your glowplugs.. but something must be causing it.

I have 15W-40 in it now. What would you recommend? Should I be looking for 20W-40 or just straight up 30W or 40W. I am driving in moderately cold weather. I've only ever had 15W-40 in there.

If you're headed thru cold weather 20W50 might be a bit hard on starting in the morning... so probably not worth it.

As for a container to route the valve cover to.. is using some 5/8" coolant hose into a pop bottle or something plastic like that ok? Do I need to make holes in the container to relieve the blowby pressure?

That should work well... some people just run a pipe to the ground but I figure there's enough crap on the ground as it is ??!!

[82vdub]

Removing the valve cover breather should eliminate a lot of this problem, and hopefully enough that your runaway isn't going to be an issue. I would get a 6' or 10' (don't know what size roll they come in) of heater hose as you suggested and try to run the hose somewhere, somewhere that's also sloping uphill as much as possible (I know there really isn't much room to do this) and as far away from the engine/exhaust as possible. If you can put a catch can to try to trap the oil, that's best, but otherwise, hopefully it wouldn't loose as much as a leaking valve cover could and run the car and see how your fix goes. You may have to stop and change the hose routing or something, but this should work pretty well.

[JRM]

yup, i had same issues before my rebuild- i used heater hose to vent the mess down to the road like a semi does. I purchaced the baffle and it did fix it quite well, i ended up rebuilding the car 6 months later due to the fuel prices not coming back down....ever.. I am now so pleased with my rebuild I plan to keep this car forever! Get this, it starts quicker than my 2002 honda civic! honestly, it does

[diesel_fool]

New Problem that I'm scratching my head over...

Went to the car this morning, changed air filter and mopped up the oil mess in the intake. Disconnected the vent hose and went to start the car. It doesn't start. Doesn't even sound like it is hitting at all. I checked everything I could think of.

Stop Solenoid Clicks on and off. Fuel is getting to the IP. It comes out the injector lines when I loosen them. Starter turns over quickly, but it doesn't sound like its firing at all... just crank crank crank. Glow plugs show good voltage (they should.. they're new). The cold start lever works. Its not even cold here... 46F. I must be forgetting something.. but what is it?? So frustrating...[/u]

EDIT: I'm gonna walk over to the car and take apart the stop solenoid and see if its sticking even though it's clicking... thats my best guess.

[Fatmobile]

First off, burnt glowplugs can be a sign of a bad spraying injector, in fact that's the only thing I know of that causes burned-off glowplugs.
During the runaway they might have burnt off again.... check your glowplugs.
If you are getting fuel to the injectors, the stop solenoid is working.

Does your car have the 1.5? Voted most likely to runaway.
That's engine had a recall and was fitted with another hose going from the valve cover to the block.
The oil return holes from the head to block were to small and the blowby rushing up from the block would not let oil return to the block,... so it was blown out the valve cover and intot he intake.
The cure is an additional hose from the block (where the vacuum pump returns to) to the valve cover. You could probably get by with a "T" in the valve cover hose and one in the vacuum pump return hose.
I had this happen to me in New Mexico. I had none of this knowledge then or would have made the drive home much easier.
Every time I got to 60mph it would run away.
Fix your glowplugs and injectors, you've done this before so you know any wrench monkey can do it.... just make sure he doesn't pull too hard to the side when removing injectors, and break the side of the head out. Pull them out and have them tested.
Run a hose from the valve cover to the block.
Check the coolant,... I've heard of bad injectors burning a hole into the head.

[diesel_fool]

Thanks for the info Fatmobile..

The 79' indeed had a 1.5 n/a stock from the factory, but sometime during my rabbit's history the engine was swapped for a 1.6 n/a. I don't know what year the engine is from though or when it was swapped in.

With the injectors being so recently rebuilt... I'll be bummed if they are already causing trouble like this. The glow plugs in cylinders #3 and #4 were burned out before. I'll pull the plugs again and check them next time I walk over to the car. I'm trying to do as much work on it as I can before the shop opens monday, so I can pay the mechanic to do less.

I'm wondering if any mechanic in this town can even test my injectors. No one seems to know anything about VW's, or foreign cars in general. Does that test require special equipment for diesel injectors? The shop that I'm parked at does work on ford powerstroke diesels..

I was able to get a big truck to give me a jump and it was spinning the starter good and fast and nothing was happening. Last time I looked at the coolant (right after the runaway incident) I did notice some spots of oil on the top surface of the coolant. I'll check on that again next time I'm over at the car. I'm wondering if the runaway caused the engine to overheat enough that the head warped, cracked and/or the head gasket was damaged. Could there be enough loss of compression to make it impossible to start? I'm stumped as to why it won't start.

When I pulled over after the runaway in the highway... smoke was billowing out from under the hood. It cleared quickly... but now I'm worried that it was coolant steam. I guess I should do a compression test when I pull the injectors.

[Vincent Waldon]

I guess I should do a compression test when I pull the injectors.

If you can, yup. You've got a long drive ahead... the more you know about what to expect the better.

Your injectors may be a red herring... perhaps the old injectors melted your glowplugs (can't quite tell the timing of the various replacements) ?

In any event, a compression test should be the quickest way to know how bad the issue is.

Sorry for your troubles, dude.


Vince

[diesel_fool]

Just got back from the car. Pulled all the glow plugs... all four melted. Definitely from the runaway... they were brand new three days ago. It's a bummer but I'll get over it. Especially if thats as far as the damage goes. Pulled the injectors too... figure I'll have them tested if I can tomorrow.

Sorry for the continuous stream of questions. I have a few more...

After pulling the plugs and injectors... I went to do a compression test. And there wasn't any compression. Do the glow plugs need to be installed for the compression test to work? Or do I really just have no compression...

Are the injectors the same for the 1.5 n/a and 1.6 n/a? Also, if I find out that my #3 and #4 injectors are leaking and I get new plugs and start driving again... how immediately are those plugs going to melt again. Will I make it home or should I just get new injectors and/or rebuild the old ones right away. I guess what I'm asking is... does it usually take a while to melt the plugs or does it happen right away? FYI, injectors have 8,000 miles on them and were installed in september. The old glow plugs were in when I got the car in september. Not sure when they melted..

BTW... this forum is a lifesaver. This is the first car I've ever worked on and I've only had it since september. This forum... the odd google search and the bentley have taught me more than I ever thought I'd know. Thanks to everyone here.

[mattbondy]

My condolences for all your troubles. Makes me look at my own car in a whole different light (im currently staring out the window into her beautiful headlights lost in their magnificence).

On a more serious note you need glowplugs to check compression.