Glow plug broke in chamber....now what?

So I've had my TDI for about 2 months. Saturday morning I was on my way to work and it stumbled then died. Tried starting it again while waiting for my tow and got nothing but some smoke from the starter. After spending a day searching the forum I saw a few people wit the same issue and started trouble shooting. First thing i did was try to hand turn the crank which it moved about 90* each way before stopping. I pulled the glow plugs next and found one broken. I took a bore scope to the plug well and can see something obviously metallic. The PO said the shop he purchased the car from did the normal TB service, replaced the tension, the water pump and the valves. I took a peek at each one (mind you I'm on the clock) and can see that cylinder 1 and 4 ( I dont actually know if those are the correct numbers but going from left to right looking at the motor) are the only ones with any type of reflection material 1 being the cylinder with the broken glow plug. My non diesel knowing conclusion is the shiny bits on 4 is probably just a single valve that was replaced as well as maybe one valve on cyl 1 since 2 and 3 appeared to have nothing in it. Now do I just try to vacuum and blow out the cylinders and replace the glow plugs and harness (mine fell apart in my hands when I pulled it off) or do I need to dedicate two or three days to pull the head. (I've only pulled a head once on a car I was trying to make a project before I realized the body was riddled with rust.)


TL;DR
My car stopped while driving highway speeds and I found a broke glow plug clean it with a vacuum and send it or pull the head?

If you can only turn it manually 90* it's time for the head to come off.
You need to see what is stopping it spinning.

I kinda figured the broken tip was contacting the valve which would be the most obvious answer but once again condition of the other valves and push rods is questionable. I put a line out in the appropriate regional forum hoping someone is close by and can help me as all the gurus in the area are more than 2 hours away.

There are no pushrods in this engine, the overhead cam acts directly on bucket lifters.
If you don't have any experience with these engines, getting experienced help is never a bad idea. If noone is available you need to take your time and be careful. Mark, bag-and-tag, and take plenty of pictures

Noted. I'm really hoping someone might reach out I've seen post for the Richmond,Va area. Are there write ups for the BEW head removal or is it the same as the ALH?

A big help would be to know more about your car. Year would be useful amongst other things.

Its an 04. What else do you want to know?

Thanks for updating your profile
Golf and 04 should be enough to be helpful.
See if you can move forward with the troubleshooting (pull the head) and keep us in the loop.
Pictures of what you find may help in suggestions of what to measure, what will absolutely need doing, or what may need doing.

Keep us posted!

O4 should be BEW engine. 03 was the last year for the ALH, as I recall.

If you can retrieve the broken bits, do that, then examine the bits to see if it's all there. If it is I might just motor on. If there are any pieces missing, best get inside for a look.
Also confused about being able to only rotate 90 now, but when occurrence happened it cranked O.K. If the running engine halted due to any inference you definitely want the head off.

I will keep you guys updated. From what I've read its best to pull the injectors to access the combustion chamber, correct. Also side note the morning this happened I did think it was a little chattier then normal but I'm also missing bits for the engine cover and have been chalking it up to that. Anyone have links to a how to head removal for the BEW?

I'm just thinking out loud, but I wonder if you could pull the injector and blow compressed air in the injector hole, to blow the chunks out. That's assuming the glow plug hole isn't blocked.

Its not. the glow plug came out as it should just missing the 1/8 and inch or something on the tip.

If the engine is physically locked to the point it won't turn beyond a 180* arc and is sufficiently locked to "let the smoke out" of the starter, no amount of blowing air in an injector hole will resolve the problem.
Are you turning the crank gear with a ratchet/bar? When it stops 90* to either side does it "thunk" or just get stiff?
You can't see the backs of the valves normally through a glow plug hole. Unless they were fully open and you could see the edges, I don't think that will be the case.
Reflective, shiny material, depending on where it is, could be a cylinder wall reflection or damaged piston surface. Diesel pistons get a grey to black haze on their crowns, you typically won't see a reflection off a piston unless it has been cleaned by a coolant leak, has had the piss beat out of the top of it exposing fresh metal, or it was just rebuilt and hasn't driven yet.

Unless you find something in the valvetrain locked up, something in the flywheel end locked up, or in some very strange occurrence the timing drive system bound up, the issue will be inside.

Strange things can happen when glow plugs break off. Sometimes the piece blows harmlessly out the exhaust, sometimes it beats the piston and head to hell, sometimes it wedges between the piston and cylinder wall, sometimes it gets stuck between a valve and seat allowing piston contact.

I would absolutely pull the head of I wanted to fix that engine. Otherwise, I'd be looking for another.
Best bet is to pull the head and look to see what damage there is, then assess the best move.
Could have extremely damaged cylinder walls, could be perfectly fine, only way to know is pull the head.
Best case pull head see nothing and reinstall after thoroughly and complete inspection of all parts. Next possible rebuild head and install; worst case, new engine.

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Typrus said:

If the engine is physically locked to the point it won't turn beyond a 180* arc and is sufficiently locked to "let the smoke out" of the starter, no amount of blowing air in an injector hole will resolve the problem.
Are you turning the crank gear with a ratchet/bar? When it stops 90* to either side does it "thunk" or just get stiff?
You can't see the backs of the valves normally through a glow plug hole. Unless they were fully open and you could see the edges, I don't think that will be the case.
Reflective, shiny material, depending on where it is, could be a cylinder wall reflection or damaged piston surface. Diesel pistons get a grey to black haze on their crowns, you typically won't see a reflection off a piston unless it has been cleaned by a coolant leak, has had the piss beat out of the top of it exposing fresh metal, or it was just rebuilt and hasn't driven yet.

Unless you find something in the valvetrain locked up, something in the flywheel end locked up, or in some very strange occurrence the timing drive system bound up, the issue will be inside.

Strange things can happen when glow plugs break off. Sometimes the piece blows harmlessly out the exhaust, sometimes it beats the piston and head to hell, sometimes it wedges between the piston and cylinder wall, sometimes it gets stuck between a valve and seat allowing piston contact.

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I did use a ratchet and an extension I dont remember it thunking just getting stuff. would I need to get a timing lock kit for this?

What glow plugs are installed in your '04 Golf; steel tipped or ceramic? There should be a part # on the GP.

This tool is very nice to have when you're pulling the head. It makes it easy to get the cam hub off. Part of the hub interferes with the plastic cover behind the timing belt making it impossible to remove the head with the hub still attached.

https://www.idparts.com/pd-cam-hub-puller-p-7210.html

This is the proper tool to use when loosening the large bolt in the center of the cam hub.

https://www.idparts.com/pd-cam-hub-ea288-hpfp-counterhold-tool-short-p-6547.html

Cool I get to buy new tools. I'll get the part number tomorrow as its still sitting at my job.

Okay got it towed back to house today. I'm going to have to wait until payday to order the right tools. Still dont know if I'm going to need a timing lock kit or not which I'll probably get anyway and re do the timing in case it jumped. The numbers on the gp is NGK CZ104 7V. VW AG N10591608 K117A.

OkiHero -- Yes, you will need at least a camlock and some way to lock the crank (a screwdriver jammed between the bellhousing and flywheel does work!) to put it back together.

OkiHero said:

Still dont know if I'm going to need a timing lock kit or not which I'll probably get anyway and re do the timing in case it jumped.

Click to expand...

At a minimum you need the cam and pump locks.

I made the cam gear holder back in the Rabbit diesel days.
Used a alternator adjusting bar (with the long slot) off a General Morons car, 2 bolts, nuts, washers, and 2 - 2 inch (or so) 1/2 inch plumbing pipe.
Still use it once in a while.

No pump, BEW.

Ahhh
Missed that.

You can rent the tools and get any BEW Parts from Frank06 on this forum. I've found he is the expert on heads / Cams / Injectors. A broken glow plug was cause for me to redo the head on my ALH.

Thanks for the info. This is gonna take some time I will update as I go along and take pictures of any damage. For future reference is there any way to prevent this from happening again?

Patience, experience, proper tools, I'll bet you'll never have this problem again after your experience.
Steel threads in aluminum block, metals expand/contract at different rates so temperature can be used to your advantage. Hit 'em twice a day for 2 days with PB Blaster or better, give a light tap each time.

I think the OP said the tip of the plug broke off. There's not a lot you can do about that sort of failure. It shouldn't happen but does. Even trying to ward it off with PM changes of the glow plugs is no guarantee because the likely cause of that failure is a latent fault in the plug itself, and changing them may well remove a perfectly good one and replace it with one that has an undetected manufacturing defect!

Yes, you're right, I ASSumed, had to go look at one of my spares, that's a potentially large piece of metal. I guess best practice would be not to leave them in there for long service, maybe 8-10 yrs, 200k mi. tops?

I just rolled 130 in mine the day before it broke. I think it just ran well long enough that no one did anything until something happened.