Bought a 2003 Jetta, with broken belt.

My daughter needs a new (er) car, I found a 2003 Jetta with a broken belt. In our area cars in good shape this old are hard to find, because we’re in the rust belt.

I often look at Craigslist just to see what’s out there and I spotted a green Jetta that had come from Colorado about 5 years ago. Unless someone knows otherwise the seller told me Colorado doesn’t use road salt just sand. I’ve been to Colorado but never in the winter so I’m going by what he told me. At any rate it’s in good shape body wise.

322k miles, 5spd, I told him I wouldn’t even have looked at it if it was an automatic.

It has a case of the disappearing timing belt. I have only pulled the top cover and even with a flashlight there is no belt to be found. I suspect it’s wrapped around the crank. The seller said it had 140k on that belt.

I have the engine out of my old Golf that I’m planning on transplanting. Never having delt with a broken belt before, I have a question, I was going to line the injection pump up this morning but it doesn’t want to turn more than an inch or so in either direction. I did not force it with any kind of wrench, I only used my hands and not a lot of pressure at that.

Should I just put a wrench on it and turn it ? Or do I have a more serious problem?

Matt, an injection pump does turn easily with just your hands because you're trying to turn against the pump mechanism. Use a wrench to get it where you need it.

dweisel

Yep -- no problem with using a wrench to get the lock hole to line up -- you're working against the compression of the fuel in the pump's cylinders, and it will be quite difficult if the pump is primed (full of fuel.) Stick a wrench on the big nut on the end; I always go clockwise although you SHOULDN'T be able to back that nut off going the other way (and you don't harm the pump doing so) while aligning it.

Tdijarhead said:

Unless someone knows otherwise the seller told me Colorado doesn’t use road salt just sand. I’ve been to Colorado but never in the winter so I’m going by what he told me.

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I think this is correct about Colorado. Although "sand" is sometimes a misnomer, it can be more like small pebbles.


My folks have been out there for over 20 years. No rust, but ask them how many windshields they've replaced...

If you could source a head for it you could possibly salvage what's in it.

I'll almost guarantee it's wrapped around the crank, I've done one like that...the lower cover us metal and most likely bent a little. You'll probably need to use a chisel to move the metal out of the way to get to the 10mm bolts...

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Looked at a Corvair out there that was a bit rusty from clay being stuck to the underside and holding humidity

If it's just head damage I'd fix it. Of course you won't know until you get the cylinder head off and check the piston crowns, bore condition and protrusion, but it's good odds that the block and components in it are fine.

Then again this assumes you're doing the work; I don't mind turning wrenches so that would be the way I'd roll on this.

Thanks guys for the advice. I'm planning on doing all the work myself. I think of it as building a car for my daughter, not to many Dad's get to do that or even can do that.
I may keep you all updated as I go along.


I'm planning on pulling the engine like Oilhammer and Dwiesel do, by taking off the front. In fact the front is completely removed right now. I can see this being the "easiest" engine swap using that method I've ever done. cough, cough

That's how I pull engines at the salvage yard, getting the bumper cover off is almost half the battle and that's simple. Yes you have to open the AC system but once the radiator support and crash bar are out of the way it's smooth sailing.

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So after almost two weeks in Florida (vacation). I’m back at this project.

I wheeled my old engine out of the barn and down to the garage. I had removed the ip off some time ago. Currently the ip is in Maryland on an 02 Beetle. When I removed the ip I put the engine roughly at TDC, I didn’t lock it.

I have also removed a few other parts, turbo..daughters beetle, egr..on the same Maryland beetle that the ip is. So my engine was not completely sealed. I put it on a stand and started stripping and cleaning it. When I removed the intake manifold I found that mice had filled it with nuts, some of which were sprouting.

So I pulled the head just to be sure that nothing had fallen down inside the piston bores. I wasn’t planning on that. Of note there is still some crosshatching on the cylinder walls and no lip or very little anyway around the top of the cylinder. The cam seems to be perfect, with chamfer on all the lobes. 331k . I’d say vw makes a pretty good engine.

By the way, there was nothing on top of the pistons.

Matt I just changed my head at 404,xxx miles due to a leaking head gasket, and I had busted a GP in it about 12 years ago.
It still has the original crosshatch marks, I too was amazed.

While you have the engine out I would highly check the hard coolant pipe on whichever engine is going to go in the car. I found that mine was severely corroded , I really can't complain it's been in the car for 17 winters in the north east.

Good advice, I just removed that hard pipe and ordered a new O ring for it. I noticed that both pipes seem to be in fairly good condition, however I’ve not removed that blown engine from the car yet. So I’ll check it more closely when I do.

So I removed the engine with the broken belt from the car tonight. The case of the disappearing timing belt has been solved.



Wrapped around the crank.

I found that all the pulleys and the water pump still turned. Albeit the top roller made lots of noise and the tensioner and water pump seemed to be very tight to turn by hand. I think on this car the belt just got weary and broke.

For those of you pulling an engine. Take the front bumper and assorted bits off. The half hour or so spent removing the front of the car will pay dividends as you work on your vehicle.

I put an engine hoist on it tonight, took the weight off the motor mounts and removed the mounts and lowered the engine very easily and pulled it right through the front of the car.

The last time I pulled an engine was on my Golf, I had the engine 4 to 5 feet in the air and had a fun time trying to shoehorn it back into the engine compartment. This was so much easier.

The engine I’m putting in the Jetta, the one from my old auto Golf is ready to go in. New timing belt (dayco) and water pump, rollers and tensioner. New serpentine belt and I swapped over the tensioner from the Golf because it had less than 10k miles on it.

New cam seal, new rear crank seal, new oil cooler seals, vacuum pump seal. New head gasket. It sure helps to have that engine on a stand in front of me.

I swapped the turbo and the intake. I got to clean the intake with the air/torch method, 15 minutes and it’s done, minimal mess. I remember the first time I cleaned an intake, four hours of the messiest job I’d ever done.

I had to reboot an inner cv joint. While I’ve done several outers, this was the first inner I’ve done. Once I figured it out it came right off, the hardest part was cleaning out the old grease, what a mess.

Steve, I checked that hard pipe it was good fortunately, I realized that the hard pipe is slightly different between the auto and the manual. Thanks for the heads up.

These cars are just so much fun to play with.

Honestly I would of pulled the cam to check the bucket height for a bent valve and see if the crank turns. If that was fine I would tdc, pin and throw a belt on to see. Lots of people will tell you that when that belt breaks you're done, 99% time they are right but in the last 10 years I've seen that 1% happen 4 times and the customer drove away.

I see you're in Lawrenceville, and I also see that your donor engine may be problematic considering how many parts have been cannibal-ized off of it.

There's a guy I found in Pittsburgh parting out a 2000 Jetta TDI. Car still runs and drives. 164k miles. You can test drive the car before pulling the motor. He's asking $600.
Just putting it out there

Actually with the parts that came with the Jetta I have almost everything I need. Which when I looked at it was one of the deciding factors in the purchase.

Did you know there are two Lawrencevilles in Pennsylvania? One near Pittsburgh. The other is a little town right on the New York border one hour north of Williamsport and about five hours from Pittsburgh. That’s the one I live in.

I appreciate the thought though, you can never have to many spare parts, just don’t let my wife hear that.

Wow I almost let this get by me.



I had the engine all buttoned up and waiting to attach the transmission when in the middle of the night it occurred to me that I had never checked the oil pickup tube. I thought about it off and on today, I really didn’t want to pull the oil pan because it didn’t leak.

However I finally decided I’d better do it. When the engine is out of the car things are so much easier to do. Even then I had to remove the ac compressor to get the stubborn corner bolt. I’m glad I pulled that pan, 331k and there was an accumulation of all kinds of crud. A lot of sealant pieces and some other gunk, it looks worse than it was.

Honestly I didn’t expect it to look like that, the extra time spent cleaning that up should yield a couple hundred thousand more miles.

When you have your oil pan off don’t forget to clean that pickup tube, especially if you’ve replaced the pan several times.

She lives!

I got this thing all together and started it this past Saturday. This engine has sat for almost 3 years without starting. After bleeding the fuel lines and ip. I cracked the injector line nuts and she started right up after the fuel started flowing.

I drove it down the road a bit for the first time and it ran and handled fine. I adjusted the timing slightly but I’m going to have to wait till it can be driven far enough to get the engine up to temp. It’s getting colder here and idling in the driveway doesn’t get it hot enough.

I have a few small things left to do, most importantly a new dieselgeek skid plate and this car will be good to go.

I think that the previous owner had most if not all his maintenance done at a vw dealer. I found brand new pads and rotors on this thing and the pads have vw/Audi markings on them. Many other parts seem to be oem vw. Including the timing belt components. The water pump had a plastic impeller, I think that’s vw original unless someone knows otherwise.

Nice!

Things I have done to this car.


* Swapped engine.
* New Head gasket
* Swapped IP, Turbo and EGR from blown engine, new gaskets for each
* New braided turbo oil line (Cascadegerman)

* New oil cooler
* Cleaned oil pickup tube
* One new glow plug
* New timing belt and all related components
* New rear crank seal
* New Clutch, arm, throw out bearing, pivot pin, clip
* Rebooted right inner cv joint
* Rebooted left inner tie rod
* New left front wheel bearing
* New idparts complete fan assembly
* New wheel rim (from Florida) couldn't help myself while on vacation

* Fixed armrest
* Fixed glovebox
* New interior dash bulb
* New floor mats
* Undercoated front fenders, rockers, and rear wheel wells
* Removed rust causing foam block from fender



Still to do.


* Rebuild starter
* New Dieselgeek skid plate
* New fuel door switch



I'm sure I've forgotten a few things, but this has been a fun project.

Skid Plate - Look thru the Sale/Wanted forum, I saw a couple new in box from folks than bought them and didn't install.

I looked for a used skid plate but just couldn’t seem to find one so I ordered new. The fuel door switch is installed and a set of winter tires and a fresh inspection and she is on the road.

This car has been a fun project, I had a pesky glow plug code in the number one cylinder. Originally that cylinder had a bad plug so I replaced it, apparently it also had a bad harness connection. After I rolled up a small piece of aluminum and inserted into the harness the code has gone away and stayed away.

I have driven a Golf for over 10 years and driven a couple of beetles but this is the first time I have ever driven a Jetta and I gotta say I really like it.

Tdijarhead said:

This car has been a fun project, I had a pesky glow plug code in the number one cylinder. Originally that cylinder had a bad plug so I replaced it, apparently it also had a bad harness connection. After I rolled up a small piece of aluminum and inserted into the harness the code has gone away and stayed away.

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What exactly do you mean by “rolled up aluminum”. I just replaced my glow plugs with 7v ceramics (with extended glow time tune from Malone) but I’m still getting a code and wondering if it’s my harness. Did you just make a little ball of foil, drop it into the harness, and press back on like normal?

Cptcrnch said:

What exactly do you mean by “rolled up aluminum”. I just replaced my glow plugs with 7v ceramics (with extended glow time tune from Malone) but I’m still getting a code and wondering if it’s my harness. Did you just make a little ball of foil, drop it into the harness, and press back on like normal?

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That’s exactly what I did. I read about it on this forum a couple of years ago, I chuckled at the time, but it has worked for others and it worked in this case. I didn’t want to have to replace the whole harness for what I think was one bad connection in the #1 harness connector.

Cptcrnch said:

What exactly do you mean by “rolled up aluminum”. I just replaced my glow plugs with 7v ceramics (with extended glow time tune from Malone) but I’m still getting a code and wondering if it’s my harness. Did you just make a little ball of foil, drop it into the harness, and press back on like normal?

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I think you roll some aluminum foil around the tip of the GP and push the plug over it.

I might try heavy aluminum foil.

Make your own harness...I did this summer and after a few kinks it's great and never looked back...I soldered mine and I fixed my glow plug code...

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