Loud, smelly, and rough idling after IP replacement

[85golf]

Hi All,

The car is a 1985 Golf diesel 366k and we recently took out the injection pump and resealed it with the kit. Now we have it back in the car and the timing is .038" (on our dial guage). The problem is that the car starts and does okay for a couple seconds but quickly begins idling rough, sounding knock-y and louder than normal, and bogs down with throttle. Also it smells like kerosene or lighter fluid. We have added a little fuel pump before the IP and primed it til the cows came home.

* Followed the popular many-photo tutorial plus bought video on ebay for instructions
* "Flag" brand gasket kit
* Took apart and reassembled IP multiple times, timed again and again
* Car ran fine before but lost prime after sitting, our reason for resealing
* New fuel filter
* New inline fuel pump added
* Clear fuel lines, things look good
* Car has sat for ~6months through AZ summer, diesel added but old not removed

[82vdub]

Welcome to the forum. I've personally found that my cars ran horrible with the timing set to the dial gauge. When it's running, is there smoke coming out the exhaust and is it whitish/greyish? That's a sign of poor combustion. I would say to advance the timing a bit, which you can do by ear, and when it starts to sound like marbles on a plate, then back off a bit. See if that helps out with it a bit.

[damac]

If it worked fine before sounds like maybe the gage isn't being read right or did somebody mess with the timing belt? Is the cam and crank in time?

If I have to take an ip off I leave the sprocket/pin on and pin with clamps the belt to each area so that it doesn't jumps off the crank or cam, etc. Then you feed the snout of the ip on slowly with keyway and tighten it down and it will pull itself back into place.

[85golf]

Welcome to the forum. I've personally found that my cars ran horrible with the timing set to the dial gauge. When it's running, is there smoke coming out the exhaust and is it whitish/greyish? That's a sign of poor combustion. I would say to advance the timing a bit, which you can do by ear, and when it starts to sound like marbles on a plate, then back off a bit. See if that helps out with it a bit.

This is spot on... I should have mentioned that there was way more grey smoke than usual. Way more.

If it worked fine before sounds like maybe the gage isn't being read right or did somebody mess with the timing belt? Is the cam and crank in time?

If I have to take an ip off I leave the sprocket/pin on and pin with clamps the belt to each area so that it doesn't jumps off the crank or cam, etc. Then you feed the snout of the ip on slowly with keyway and tighten it down and it will pull itself back into place.

The timing belt is pretty old... probably seen at least 150k miles, and I plan to replace it and a whole bunch of other things once I get the car running and back on the road for a little bit. But you are right about being diligent with belt placement, and unfortunatley we messed up a little in this area by forgetting to mark a few things.

It sounds like we haven't got the timing yet, thanks guys for your help.

[82vdub]

Your original post said you removed the injector pump to reaseal it, but you left the old belt in place? I would change that belt out before you do much more, especially if it is that old and looks like it's old. These are interferrence engines, and if the belt breaks while it's running, you mash the valves and pistons together, likely causing lots more headaches for you.

Once you get a new belt and tensioner pully, replace those, and re-time everything (rotating the engine at least two revolutions with a wrench on the crank before using the key to make sure there's no interferrence). You can use the dial gauge, but when you're done, your likely to have to advance the timing a bit to get it to run right. At least that's been my experience. Whitish/grey/blue smoke is a sign of poor combustion, and retarded timing is one of those factors that cause poor combustion.

[Fatmobile]

Do you have clear fuel lines?
Any air bubbles?

[85golf]

Hey all, just wanted to update on this thread and the problem. It was a headscratcher!

We timed the car over and over again looking for the sweet spot, and disassembled & reassembled the IP at least 3 times. It was never right and it became maddening. In the end I am pretty sure it was our camshaft lock (this piece, not ours), which was damaged from some previous mechanic. We thought we had it rigged up tight but apparently it was moving ever so slightly (1/16"?) during the timing process. Took the advice here and got a new timing belt + tensioner which was definitely a little tighter than the old belt.

Once we were sure the cam wasn't going anywhere, we got it timed and running as good as ever. Just passed emissions with flying colors and I think the reading was lower than our previous years too.