Carl Ulli
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2009
- Location
- Oshawa, Ontario
- TDI
- 2005 Jetta Wagon TDI (My Daughter's now); 2012 Highline Jetta TDI; 2012 Golf Wagon
Dear Friends in the TDIclub,
I am a newbie to the club. I met several of you at TDIfest 2009 and based on all the posts I have read and studied, I have to say, I am truly impressed at how helpful the TDI community is to one another. Now I would like to be helpful to my new friends at TDI.
History:
My father-in-law has a PD TDI in a 2005 Jetta Wagon since it was new. He has had his car in the shop (dealership) many times to try to isolate the starting issues he has had with it. Now the warranty is expired and so he asked me if I could find some advice from my new friends at the TDI club. I read many of your posts and threads, learned a lot about both his PD and my older ALH, and now I want to share how we finally fixed his starting problem.
Symptoms:
Your fuel tank is about ¼ full, you get in the car in the morning to start it for the first time in the day. It fires up and immediately tries to stall and, and unless you hit the accelerator pedal you may or may not be able to keep it running. If it does stall, you crank and crank and crank it forever, it seems, till it finally starts. When it finally does start you could turn it off, even after about 5 seconds and it would start perfectly every time, all day – provided you don’t let it sit too long; like for 2-4 hours, or so. Then after sitting all night it will be the same problem all over again.
Do This Test:
Take a needle nosed vice-grip and when you have parked your car at the end of its’ driving day pinch off the fuel supply line between the fuel filter and the tandem pump. Try not to over pinch the hose so as not to do permanent damage to it, but you need to completely stop the flow. Tomorrow morning, be sure to remove the vise-grip pliers before trying to start the engine. If it starts, and stays running without a hitch, then you need to install a check valve as shown below.
I suggest you clamp your vise-grips right there where the check valve is, since the hose will be cut there anyway.
(At this point I think I should insert an interruption to the thought line of this post. I have read several posts from others who have had starting problems and found a totally and unexpected diagnosis. It seems, therefore, to be wise to do this test several times to verify that the problem is consistently and always occuring on the first start of the day, as the title specifies. ie: suppose you simulate a check valve with the vise-grip several times, and sometimes the engine still doesn't start, and it happened to be wet out that day, or whatever, - then you may be interested in this link http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=213503.)
Now back to this post.
Let me explain why this works. The tandem pump is driven by the camshaft and has seals in it to separate two independent pumps stacked together and using a common shaft. The left side of the pump develops vacuum for your power brakes and all the vacuum servos such as the EGR valve and Turbo controls. On the right side of the tandem pump (as seen in the photo below, not actual as in the car) is the fuel pump section. So when you let your car sit overnight the little seal between the vacuum chamber and the fuel chamber lets tiny amounts of air in. The weight of the fuel in the fuel line wants to fall back into the tank, and as the air slowly, ever so slowly, creeps in the fuel flows backwards – back towards the tank. If the tank is full and the rear end of the car happens to be much higher than the front of the car this problem doesn’t show. If however, the tank is only ¼ full, and the front end is higher than the rear, the problem is magnified. In this case the engine would certainly stall after initial start-up. Why does it start at all? There is still some fuel in each injector pump jet and the fuel supply line between the mechanical pump and the individual injector pump jets. The engine starts, uses up that little bit of fuel, and when no more new fuel follows due to the air lock, which had all night to develop, it stalls.
In this picture just imagine the shaft seal lets in air from the vacuum side to the fuel side.
Having the check valve in this line prevents the fuel’s weight to “pull” air past the seal causing the airlock. I would have preferred to have the check valve right there in that short bent hose to get it closer to the problem area, but space looked like an issue, and secondly, with the valve next to the filter, it will make filter changes easier in the future. The next photo is the valve and its’ package so you can recognize it easily.
(9/16" clamps not supplied)
The next thing is where to find this baby! I have done some research and so far this is what I have come up with. You will have to look around a bit in the world, depending on where you are. The following is an e-mail reply to me from the factory in Italy.
Dear Mr. Fulda
We thank you for your reply and are pleased that you have solved your problem with one of our products.
Our distributor in Canada is;
ADP DISTRIBUTORS INC.
18940 94TH AVENUE
SURREY, BRITISH COLUMBIA jld@adpdistributors.com
THEY ALSO HAVE A BRANCH IN ONTARIO
ADP DISTRIBUTORS INC.
398 CANARCTIC DRIVE
NORTH YORK, ONTARIO
For North America our Distributors are
U.S. DIESEL INC.
4243-A ROAD TO THE MALL
FORT WORTH - TEXAS
USA UNITED STATES bradg@usdiesel.com
or
KENDIESEL INC. / KENPARTS CO.
6 KILMER COURT
EDISON,
USA UNITED STATES carol@kendiesel.com
For other locations contact the factory itself at info@rased.it.
I am a newbie to the club. I met several of you at TDIfest 2009 and based on all the posts I have read and studied, I have to say, I am truly impressed at how helpful the TDI community is to one another. Now I would like to be helpful to my new friends at TDI.
History:
My father-in-law has a PD TDI in a 2005 Jetta Wagon since it was new. He has had his car in the shop (dealership) many times to try to isolate the starting issues he has had with it. Now the warranty is expired and so he asked me if I could find some advice from my new friends at the TDI club. I read many of your posts and threads, learned a lot about both his PD and my older ALH, and now I want to share how we finally fixed his starting problem.
Symptoms:
Your fuel tank is about ¼ full, you get in the car in the morning to start it for the first time in the day. It fires up and immediately tries to stall and, and unless you hit the accelerator pedal you may or may not be able to keep it running. If it does stall, you crank and crank and crank it forever, it seems, till it finally starts. When it finally does start you could turn it off, even after about 5 seconds and it would start perfectly every time, all day – provided you don’t let it sit too long; like for 2-4 hours, or so. Then after sitting all night it will be the same problem all over again.
Do This Test:
Take a needle nosed vice-grip and when you have parked your car at the end of its’ driving day pinch off the fuel supply line between the fuel filter and the tandem pump. Try not to over pinch the hose so as not to do permanent damage to it, but you need to completely stop the flow. Tomorrow morning, be sure to remove the vise-grip pliers before trying to start the engine. If it starts, and stays running without a hitch, then you need to install a check valve as shown below.
I suggest you clamp your vise-grips right there where the check valve is, since the hose will be cut there anyway.
(At this point I think I should insert an interruption to the thought line of this post. I have read several posts from others who have had starting problems and found a totally and unexpected diagnosis. It seems, therefore, to be wise to do this test several times to verify that the problem is consistently and always occuring on the first start of the day, as the title specifies. ie: suppose you simulate a check valve with the vise-grip several times, and sometimes the engine still doesn't start, and it happened to be wet out that day, or whatever, - then you may be interested in this link http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=213503.)
Now back to this post.
Let me explain why this works. The tandem pump is driven by the camshaft and has seals in it to separate two independent pumps stacked together and using a common shaft. The left side of the pump develops vacuum for your power brakes and all the vacuum servos such as the EGR valve and Turbo controls. On the right side of the tandem pump (as seen in the photo below, not actual as in the car) is the fuel pump section. So when you let your car sit overnight the little seal between the vacuum chamber and the fuel chamber lets tiny amounts of air in. The weight of the fuel in the fuel line wants to fall back into the tank, and as the air slowly, ever so slowly, creeps in the fuel flows backwards – back towards the tank. If the tank is full and the rear end of the car happens to be much higher than the front of the car this problem doesn’t show. If however, the tank is only ¼ full, and the front end is higher than the rear, the problem is magnified. In this case the engine would certainly stall after initial start-up. Why does it start at all? There is still some fuel in each injector pump jet and the fuel supply line between the mechanical pump and the individual injector pump jets. The engine starts, uses up that little bit of fuel, and when no more new fuel follows due to the air lock, which had all night to develop, it stalls.
In this picture just imagine the shaft seal lets in air from the vacuum side to the fuel side.
Having the check valve in this line prevents the fuel’s weight to “pull” air past the seal causing the airlock. I would have preferred to have the check valve right there in that short bent hose to get it closer to the problem area, but space looked like an issue, and secondly, with the valve next to the filter, it will make filter changes easier in the future. The next photo is the valve and its’ package so you can recognize it easily.
The next thing is where to find this baby! I have done some research and so far this is what I have come up with. You will have to look around a bit in the world, depending on where you are. The following is an e-mail reply to me from the factory in Italy.
Dear Mr. Fulda
We thank you for your reply and are pleased that you have solved your problem with one of our products.
Our distributor in Canada is;
ADP DISTRIBUTORS INC.
18940 94TH AVENUE
SURREY, BRITISH COLUMBIA jld@adpdistributors.com
THEY ALSO HAVE A BRANCH IN ONTARIO
ADP DISTRIBUTORS INC.
398 CANARCTIC DRIVE
NORTH YORK, ONTARIO
For North America our Distributors are
U.S. DIESEL INC.
4243-A ROAD TO THE MALL
FORT WORTH - TEXAS
USA UNITED STATES bradg@usdiesel.com
or
KENDIESEL INC. / KENPARTS CO.
6 KILMER COURT
EDISON,
USA UNITED STATES carol@kendiesel.com
For other locations contact the factory itself at info@rased.it.
Last edited: