Saving a TDI

I picked up a 1998 beetle TDI from a customer that no longer wanted to put money into it. Came in to the shop with no compression on cyl 2. Ended up getting it for $200 seeing that i had no clue why there was no compression on that cyl since the customer did not want us to diag it any more. I figure for 200 if it need a engine or some thing like that i could part out or scrape it and brake even. So i pulled the valve cover and found the lifter for cyl2 had given up and taken out the cam and head.









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So off comes the head to check for any piston damage. Lucky the valves did touch of cylinder 2 but only just a bit. Here's a closer look at the carnage in the head.

Next off comes the oil pan to check for metal down there. Found a few peices but nothing in the pick up screen or in the oil filter so that's good news.



And all cleaned up



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ty for the pics and info. glad to see you taking the time to make it roadworthy again.

Awesome save

Bad previous TB job or lubrication issues lead to this?

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deejaaa said:

ty for the pics and info. glad to see you taking the time to make it roadworthy again.

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I agree. It's like an animal rescue.

Nicely done.

I am kind of doing the same for a 2003 Beetle. TB issue took it out. Running now with a new head and other fixes and now working on the interior plastic pieces.

More cleaning





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You say that a lifter took out the valve and head. How does that happen?
Does it extend and increase in length enough to cause valve/piston contact?
I'm not saying that's wrong but it seems likely that the timing might have
been off and caused everything including the damaged lifter.
Are you going to check the protrusion on the other pistons in case they, too,
are affected?
Btw, dealing with this myself...

The timing was correct that was one of the things I checked when I first looked at it. What I have seen over the years is the lifter is a hydraulic lifter and the hydolic parts fail and gets play causing the cam lobe to beat the top of the lifter causing it to fail. That's my guess on what happened to this one. I have also seen the part where the cam lobe sits on the lifter just ware a hole in it but not what happened to this one.

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Only that cyl had valves that touched the pistons. The bore that the lifter rides in most likely got some damage to it causing the lifter to get stuck down a bit so the valve could not seat all the way causing the valve to hit.

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I still don't get how the lifter gets longer causing this to happen.
Shorter, maybe, what with the hammering and all...

turboboost4me said:

Only that cyl had valves that touched the pistons. The bore that the lifter rides in most likely got some damage to it causing the lifter to get stuck down a bit so the valve could not seat all the way causing the valve to hit.
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Oh, ok.

Some new parts. Unfortunately I drop my phone in the toilet last week and lost all the picks on the new head but here's some new parts



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turboboost4me said:

..... drop my phone in the toilet last week and lost all the picks on the new head....

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that sounds $hitty.