Noob: new diesel ranaway and shot loads of white smoke, died

thegimpster · Post by **thegimpster** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 11:05 am

I bought an 85 golf diesel friday. It ran good, plenty of power, nothing really wrong with it. I drove it to work the last couple days probably put 200 miles on it. I had a guy come and look at it that is into diesels and he showed me where i had a few leaks at and some hoses that needed to be replaced, i have had several vws, but this is my first diesel. The told me to degrease the engine and wash it down so i could better tell where the leaks were coming from. So i did, twice, dried it off w/ air so no water would set on it. I left the hood open over night too. This morning I started it up and let it sit and warm up. It ran just fine for about 20 mi when i was just about to go into the gate to get to work. I was going up hill and went down to 4th when it started revving like crazy. I pulled it over and shut it off and it kept going. It spewed huge clouds of white (maybe grey, it was dark) smoke causing everyone behind me to slow down (and 2 voulenteer firefighters to come in response to the 'fire'). I couldn't get it to start so i had it towed home for $110. I called a vw mechanic just north of me and he suggested using ether to see if i could start it. I sprayed some over the air intake but it wouldn't start. I gave up and came into work w/ my buddy.

I know i have an oil leak around the valve cover, and the oil pan. I have the oil pan gasket, but not the valve cover yet. I put 3 quarts of oil in it last night b/c it was pretty low. I just bought walmart brand 10w-30HD and put it in there. Something tells me that may have been a big mistake.

My question is did i seriously hose my engine up, or is there something i can do to maybe prime it and see if it will start or where do i go from here? I asked the mechanic and he said he could put a new head gasket on it for like $200. I didn't know if it needed new rings or not.

I found a decent looking 90 Jetta for $300 that has a new head, IP, injectors, glow plugs, starter, and some other stuff that doesn't run. It is in better shape than my golf body wise so i wondered if it would be better to pump the money i have left into that or what.

any help would be appreciated, because right now i'm not sure what to do to it.

82vdub · Post by **82vdub** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 12:53 pm

The run on is classic diesel runaway. It happens when there is too much oil passing the rings, through a turbo, or getting sucked back into the air intake through the valve cover breather hose. Oil is pretty much thick diesel fuel to a diesel engine, and they will run on oil.

I would start by checking to see if you have full fuel in the IP. Also, make sure you have clear fuel lines to and from the IP for troubleshooting ease. I would also do a compression check to see where the engine is at as far as wear goes. Report those numbers here for comment. You may have burned the tips off the glow plugs during the runaway, so that could be why it wouldn't start this am. BTW, don't use ether for starting a glow plug diesel engine, unless you really know what you're doing. You can break the rings very easily.

All these answers can be found by searching this forum and doing lots of reading. The've all been covered on here before. Search, read, investigate and post your findings here and we'll give you more pointers.

thegimpster · Post by **thegimpster** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 2:53 pm

i can pull start it and it will run but blow some smoke. I cant start it w/ the starter but the battery might be dead.....

82vdub · Post by **82vdub** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 3:24 pm

If the car won't crank over, you don't have a starting problem, you have a cranking problem. If you have a slow cranking engine, then you may have both problems.

thegimpster · Post by **thegimpster** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 5:25 pm

it burps like it kind of wants to start. if i plug in the block heater will that help it start?

kevin g · Post by **kevin g** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 7:40 pm

Maybe it jumped time?

davidpa28140 · Post by **davidpa28140** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 8:23 pm

If the glow plugs aren't working , the block heater would "help" If it isn't cranking fast enough , it is'nt going to start. Being that you pull started it I assume that's the case. Why isn't the Jetta runnning? I would be leaning towards buying it myself. This run away as mentioned above is very common for these engines when the rings are worn out. It is an eye opening event, I recommend you "stall" the car out by putting it in gear and holding the break next time it happens(it will happen again when you ask it for more power) I don't think theres any relationship between the wash down or the non diesel oil and your run away event. I think if you inspect your air filter you will find it soaked with oil. I would be willing to bet the former owner had this event as well. It also explains why you had to and 3 qts of oil. I think a compression test would give some enlightenment on both cars.

thegimpster · Post by **thegimpster** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 8:32 pm

the story on the jetta goes something like this: it was the guys car, he ran wvo on it at one time. He put new piston rings/bearings, head, injectors, glow plugs, IP, starter, master cylinder, and some other stuff. When he went to time it he had a wrench on something an the belt side and when he wen't to start it it flew off and messed something up. I don't know if he tried to fix it or just said screw it. the body looks good on it, better than mine, and the engine has enough new stuff on it that it is well worth $300 in parts alone. I figure between the 2 i can get at least one that works and keep the other one or sell it.

I called a vw place north of me and he said that he would do rings and a head gasket for about $500, is that a good price or too high?

It ran good when i pull started it, but smoked a bit. Does that mean that it couldn't have jumped time or not?

Will the cheap ebay compression tester work on the car?

It sounds like the engine is spinning fast enough, it doesn't seem to be turning over slow.

davidpa28140 · Post by **davidpa28140** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 9:43 pm

There is at least one method to test if the glow plugs are working or not, I can't remember it right now but I would think it's on this site. I'm pretty sure it's in the bentley. Mine will not start if more than one gp is inop(it has 50000 mi on it) I had mine one tooth out of time once and there was a huge increase in the noise in the car, so I would think you would notice it. To me $500 would be interesting. I paid $250 to have my short block reasembeled and bored .040 over so if I could save myself the frustration for another $250 I would give it some thought. You will have $50-100 in gaskets/rings alone. I have never driven a jetta but have heard they are less noisy, this in itself would send me to the jetta, after driving my rabbit pickup for over two years I have to say the noise gets old, even with sound deadning installed.

82vdub · Post by **82vdub** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 10:19 pm

thegimpster wrote:Will the cheap ebay compression tester work on the car?

There are two general types of compression testers for diesels - glow plug and injector style. Any cheap diesel compression tester will work, if it has the right adaptor to fit in the glow plug hole or injector hole. It must be a diesel compression tester, as a gas tester will not read high enough on the gauge to work in the diesel.

Plugging in a working block heater will certainly help start a diesel if the glow plugs are inop. However, at some time, you're going to need to determine if your glow plugs are shot, what your compression numbers are and why it had runaway. Have you searched the forum for information on what you're looking for yet? There's tons of information here on the forum, and only you will be the one that will be able to determine what information fits your problem and what does not. We can help, but the fact is that you need to start ruling out some issues that aren't the problem and providing information on what is the problem.

Yes, it could have jumped a tooth on the timing belt. To check time, it takes some special tools, to set it up to factory specs. However, you can check the basics of if it didn't skip a tooth without using these tools. Once again, search the posts and read. If you are going to pull the timing belt off, then you're going to have to learn how to properly time a diesel before you can put it back together.

If this were me, I would step back and search the forum and read. I would do the following:

- check for glow plug power and proper glow plug operation
- determine what the compression is on each cylinder and post the results here
- verify that your timing is pretty darn close to how it should be.

Once those are known and any issues fixed with these areas, then proceed with working on why it won't start. If you continue to start it, you may get it running and cause further damage. Figure out where you stand first, then use that to determine what to do next.

surfcam · Post by **surfcam** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 10:24 pm

You have to take the wires off the GP's. Then you can use a multimeter and check the resistance of each one. They should read around 1 ohm.

Post by **Fatmobile** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 12:12 am

You cleaned the engine,... so the injection pump accelerator lever began to stick when you revved it,... happens to me all the time. It wasn't a runaway or you'd have been crying about how you had to slam on the brakes to get it to stop,... and it did it again when you started it back up the first few times.

My guess:
The sudden high revs caused the timing to jump a couple teeth on the injection pump sprocket.
Easy fix. Set the crank timing mark on TDC and see if the injection pump sprocket is lined up right. If not; loosen the tensioner, mark the sprocket/belt, slide the belt off the injection pump sprocket and move it over to the right tooth.

Dakotakid · Post by **Dakotakid** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 1:10 am

Or, did his valves make light contact with the tops of the pistons and cause the cam sprocket to s-l-i-p a bit. Now it is out of time, but out of time less than the full value of a tooth. It will pull start.

Time to break the piggy bank and overhaul one or the other.

thegimpster · Post by **thegimpster** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 5:01 am

I have been looking around for the last few days at stuff on here the vortex and vwdiesel.net.

I found this in the how to tell if i have a blown headgasket stickie
"Leakage between a cylinder and an oil return passage will result in vast increase in blowby. A gale of wind will blow out the oil filler when the engine is running. It will also often result in oil being blown out the dipstick hole in the oil filler on steep uphill grades. On engines equipped with a rotary vacuum pump it can result in a loss of braking ability due to the rotary pumps inability to overcome the crankcase pressure. Finally it will cause oil to leak from the crankcase everywhere possible."

I have that problem and might have the loss of brake problem too. I put new pads and rotors on it and blead the lines a few times just to make sure they were good. The brakes work, but they are ok, just not great.

I will try to check the timing tonight if i can. I head about testing the glow plugs yesterday, but will go back and read it again.

Quantum-man · Post by **Quantum-man** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 1:06 pm

The ill wind is usually from bad rings rather than gasket.
Mostly gasket failure is towards coolant.

What is the state of the coolant? Check pressurising under cranking and for oil slicks