Dead pedal on the beetle.

skyking1

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2013
Location
Washington
TDI
2003 beetle 2002 beetle
It has 190k miles on the original pump. Recent filter change.
It's been at Malone stage 4 + with 764s and a 17/22 and the little bits for 20k. Great fun :)
I could get a hard vapor lock on it if I stood on it before it was completely warmed up.
Now it has a dead pedal when cold, that improves when it warms up. If I go light on it when warm, I can get 1 decent pull out of it.
Any thoughts? I'm leaning towards the injection pump.
 

AnotherPerson

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2015
Location
New Orleans
TDI
1999 Beetle
Being that all of the stock hoses aren't pressurized you may find some leaks with a lift pump. If some of the regular seals in the pump start to leak you can replace them pretty easy. Besides the main seal.


As far as your original question I've been watching this one to see what people say. No idea on that one.


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skyking1

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2013
Location
Washington
TDI
2003 beetle 2002 beetle
yes, hoping some folks check in. It's pretty dead, does not feel like a stuck VGT actuator at all. The whole " take it easy and get a good pull out of it" seems like fuel starvation. Maybe when I'm off it, the pump gets the air cleaned out and it can make that one pull.
I've never had a pump off or apart. Do I have to take the belt off to re-seal? It would seem so.
 

wonneber

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Oct 12, 2011
Location
Monroe, NY, USA
TDI
2014 Jetta Sportwagon,2003 Jetta 261K Sold but not forgotten
Being that all of the stock hoses aren't pressurized you may find some leaks with a lift pump. If some of the regular seals in the pump start to leak you can replace them pretty easy. Besides the main seal.
What seal is the 'main seal' ??

I may have minor air leaks getting sucked into my pump.
Is there a common one that could leak air in?
250K on the car.
Going to order injectors and the pump gasket set in the very near future.
 

Dieselmonkey02

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Joined
Dec 26, 2011
Location
Edinburg, Pa
TDI
02 jetta
Bad MAF maybe? They run like crap with a lazy MAF. Any air in the clear fuel line? Recent filter change, maybe bad oring seal on the tee. Or wrong clamps on the hoses on the filter.
Regular screw type clamps tend to not seal small hoses too well.
 

skyking1

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2013
Location
Washington
TDI
2003 beetle 2002 beetle
Thanks Monkey. The filter change was about 3K ago, so not likely an install problem. The pickup though, that is a possibility I had not really considered. I could unhook the line and blow back through it, then re-prime the line.
 

AnotherPerson

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2015
Location
New Orleans
TDI
1999 Beetle
What seal is the 'main seal' ??



I may have minor air leaks getting sucked into my pump.

Is there a common one that could leak air in?

250K on the car.

Going to order injectors and the pump gasket set in the very near future.


All the top seals can be replaced easily and are common. When I say main seal I'm referring to the shaft seal which is more involved if I remember reading correctly. I would say doing the seal kit from dieselgeek and if you haven't a new thermo T and the lines from the filter. See how that works out. Even if t doesn't solve it all if it's makes it better it can give you some more time without a pump rebuild.


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UhOh

Top Post Dawg
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Dec 24, 2014
Location
PNW
TDI
2000 & 2003 Golf GLS (2005 Mercedes E320 CDI)
If you log with VCDS you can see if you're getting all the fuel that you should be getting (assuming you know what that number ought to be). If your pump can deliver it then I wouldn't think that there's an issue with the fuel delivery, that it has to do with the sudden boost (air issue?), so perhaps, as noted above, it really could be the MAF. Easy enough to log the MAF to see.
 

skyking1

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Aug 10, 2013
Location
Washington
TDI
2003 beetle 2002 beetle
Bad MAF maybe? They run like crap with a lazy MAF. Any air in the clear fuel line? Recent filter change, maybe bad oring seal on the tee. Or wrong clamps on the hoses on the filter.
Regular screw type clamps tend to not seal small hoses too well.
Mine did not have a clear fuel line, so I spliced a temp one it right off the pump. No air showing at idle. Tomorrow I will start logging the MAF and whatever else I can figure out.
 

UhOh

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Dec 24, 2014
Location
PNW
TDI
2000 & 2003 Golf GLS (2005 Mercedes E320 CDI)
Mine did not have a clear fuel line, so I spliced a temp one it right off the pump. No air showing at idle. Tomorrow I will start logging the MAF and whatever else I can figure out.
If you go to Malone's site there's a good document on VCDS logging. All that's mentioned is good to go through as it pretty much will give one a good idea of the health of the engine and such.
 

skyking1

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Aug 10, 2013
Location
Washington
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2003 beetle 2002 beetle
So I ran some logs of the MAF requested and MAF actual, and the actual lags way behind when the pedal is flat. My issue is, why? It seems that my VNT actuator could cause this too. I can get an occasional good pull, and then everything tracks along. Do MAF sensors fail in that manner?
 

UhOh

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Dec 24, 2014
Location
PNW
TDI
2000 & 2003 Golf GLS (2005 Mercedes E320 CDI)
You've got two ALHs, right? Just try swapping MAFs? I do this from time to time as it's quicker than pulling out my laptop and plugging in VCDS.

MAFs are VERY important in the entire scheme of things. I've only replaced two so far (in 2 1/2 years). First one was in the daughter's wagon. I ran logs and saw that the MAF was just weak, not bad, but wasn't quite at the top: for many folks they probably would have run and not really noticed much. I was doing a bunch of work on the car which is why I was scrutinizing it closely: I wanted it running very well when it left/leave me. The other was a complete and nearly sudden failure. Car stumbled after starting up and never really seemed to recover. Wife took off down the driveway (it's pretty long) and wasn't comfortable heading off to work. Handed her the keys to my car. I took hers out on to the street and it was bucking and puking almost like the DMF was failing. Stopped the car, opened the hood and pulled the connector the MAF- instantly smoothed out. Dumped in a spare MAF (the weak one from the wagon) and ran it until a new MAF showed up on the doorstep.

Interestingly side note on the bad MAF on the wife's car is that her Ultragauge had recently started reading really low MPGs, but the car was running normally (or so all seemed- that is, anything that was wonky wasn't really very noticeable).

The point of my ramblings is that bad MAF behaviors tend to vary quite a bit. Bogus readings/signals will cause the ECU to react quite wildly, and the engine will be forced to try and operate amongst all this confusion!
 

burn_your_money

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Joined
Oct 16, 2012
Location
Missouri
TDI
99 Beetle, 96 B4V, 05 Passat wagon
What seal is the 'main seal' ??
Is there a common one that could leak air in?
Only one will let air in and that's the mainshaft seal, which is the hardest because you have the remove the hub pulley, or more accurately, put it back on correctly.
 

skyking1

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2013
Location
Washington
TDI
2003 beetle 2002 beetle
OK, I fixed my issue. As embarrassing as it is, I will tell you what it was..

When we did the clutch job, we pulled all sorts of parts out of the way. I had failed to properly install the engine end of the air intake duct. It had wiggled off and was replicating the same symptoms of a lazy MAF sensor. It would butt up tight now and again, and let me have that good pull. Then it would leak air and throw off the MAF output and cut fueling.
 
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