Ready for some carnage?

I hate PhotoBucket.

Ahhhh yes. I forgot about those pics..

Turbo is locked up.

Is there a way to remove the oil pump without removing the front cover? Just so I can pull the #1 main cap?

Yes pull the oil pan, oil pick up tube and its in plain sight.

csstevej said:

Yes pull the oil pan, oil pick up tube and its in plain sight.

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Sorry, I was unclear. I could see that I could unbolt it but I was worried about the chain and tension and what-not and getting it back together.

However, after talking to a few mechanics and showing them my main bearings, most of them basically said "Yeah they don't look great but we've seen a lot worse."

So the decision was made to just throw it back together. If the car was nicer, less miles, worth more, other steps would've been taken. I'm not going to try to sell it anytime soon, I'm not that kind of guy.

So I got the new pan on and fired it up. Sounded just like normal. Besides the turbo whistle of course.

I'll probably change the oil here right directly and maybe on the next change get an analysis.

As always, time will tell.

Rod bearings usually seem to go first. Then the cam bearing nearest the timing belt, then mains.

If it sounds fine, then yeah, just drive it. Either find a stock take-off turbo, or pull yours apart and use some emory cloth to make the bearing surfaces nice again. Try and clock the compressor, turbine, and nut the same as they were when you took them out and the balance will be unaffected. Chinese bearing kits are like $20.

Not expert with internals, but when my main and rod bearings spun from lack of oil, I got the low oil pressure warning.

Thanks guys. We've since put a little over 100 miles on it and it seems to be doing fine. I did put a used turbo I bought from a guy on Craigslist, usually a pretty cool guy, but this turbo was already leaking oil and had more shaft play (mainly in and out) than I'm comfortable with but I didn't have a choice so it's what's on it now. So it still smokes and leaks oil from every intake joint there is but now at least it's running and I feel somewhat comfortable putting a better turbo on it.

I just may have dodged a bullet this time. I'm sure I took some life out of the engine but if it lasts even 10k more miles, I'll be happy.

Actually in the meantime while the car was down I was halfway searching for a replacement and came on a CLEAN 2007 Mazda CX-7 with a blown turbo (of course) for $1250. So if all goes as planned I'll be in it for less than $1500. It books for $4500ish. There's a pretty clean Touareg V10 TDI at a used car dealership... Hmm...

Baxter'sTDI said:

There's a pretty clean Touareg V10 TDI at a used car dealership... Hmm...

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That's what I would love to have.
New they were out of my cost range.

If you keep the car, you might want to look into a panzar pan.

Good luck

Yeah, I put one on mine when it was new and from that point until I gave the car to my kid it saved it from at least one oil pan disaster from debris in the road. Those pans are bomb-proof and IMHO well-worth the money.

I'd love to buy one, just always too cheap. Story of my life!

She's loving the CX-7, mainly because of the extra space, so I may have to quit driving the Rabbit and give new life to the Jetta. Or drive both.

"Panzer Plate," just installed my third one; went on our "spare" Golf. Especially a good idea if a car has tired suspension (drooping). The marks I've seen on the plates on the original installs is plenty convincing as to why these are a good idea. I think that some folks have said that they're also a good idea if you're in big snow country (plastic shields will give way).

eh

I've dropped my subframe on tree stumps HARD, run over tire alligators that ripped my aluminum sidepipe off twice now, and koolaid-manned through plenty of plow banks at 30+
only started running the plastic one once rockauto had them for like $20 delivered to keep snow from packing between the rack and my atmospheric turbo