TDI Runaway help?

hi so new to the forums, this is my first post!

So as the title says my tdi ran away, i was giving it some down a quite lane and all of a sudden my turbo cluckned, white smoked poured out the back, i turned the car off and it still ran managed to dip the clutch and it it died with another puff of white smoke. this runaway lasted about 4-5 seconds in all and dont believe it went over 3k RPM.

so what ive done is striped the car of its turbo, inlet, inter cooler, oil , and piping to see what damage is done.
the turbo is knackerd i need a new one, this ones all chewed up.
inter cooler was full of oil (engine only had 500-700ml left in it when drained)
and there was oil in the inlet manifold aswell.

now my question is what do i next? their is no oil left in the engine however when i turn the ignition on (not turning it over now..) i dont get a low oil light so should i take the sump off or would i need to start it to find out?

should i clean the back of the engine? so fill with oil take glow plugs out take injector wire off and turn it over?

and should i upgrade whilst im in there?

thanks in advance

just for refrence my car is a 2002 1.9 TDI golf 100pd and has 145000 miles on it

Also i tried turning the engine by puting one wheel on the floor and the other up and putting it in gear and turning it but no luck, is this ment to happen? is it usually quite hard to do?

anyway thanks again!

It's a high compression engine, you're not gonna turn it over from the wheels by hand. If it were me I would pull the pan and inspect the low end hearings for oil starvation damage, then plastigauge the bearings to check oil clearances. Having only run up to 3k wouldn't have hurt anything, your biggest concern is gonna be damage from oil starvation or damage caused by sucking in so much oil thru the intake to cause damage from hydrolocking. At this point don't try to start it until you know what damage has been done, you don't want to start breaking things that aren't already broken. Hope this helps and sorry to hear of your troubles.

there's probably still oil in the sump, it's just over 1.5l low, so you can't see it on the dipstick.

I'd do a comp test first. Fill the oil, block the oil supply line on the turbo, and comp test it. Bent rods are more typical than all out oil starvation after an ALH runaway.

thanks for the advice, im going to take the sump off tomorrow and check it for bits and il give you an update, as for doing a compression test will the turbo have to be fitted along with the inlet manifold? ive taken it off as the turbo has snapped on the inside and don't want to risk it .

also ive drained the sump of oil now and there doesn't seam to be a warning light coming up still, is the oil sensor broken too?

aNUT makes a very good point, checking compression first would be easier and probably more telling.

Don't need the TC or inlet in place for compression test.

You do need to remove the plugs and turn the motor over by hand to push any oil out then spin for a while with the starter to blow what's left in the pistons out.

Oil left in the pistons will give a false high reading.

Throw a blanket over it while spinning the engine or you'll blow oil all over.

Do PD's have a low oil LEVEL light or is it pressure like older engines.

If cranking by starter wouldn't it be advisable to remove the fuel cutoff solenoid wire to keep the pump from pushing fuel?

OOPS! Did it again, stumbled into a PD domain/issue (fuel cutoff solenoid not applicable)! Sorry.

KLXD said:

Do PD's have a low oil LEVEL light or is it pressure like older engines.

Click to expand...

No, only oil pressure.

On my A5, when I turn the key on and not to start, the oil pressure light comes on for about 2 seconds to do a bulb test and then goes back out, so what you are seeing with the light might be normal function. I would not remove the pan until I was sure there actually is no oil pressure.

If it didn't go over 3000 rpms and didn't stop suddenly, I would have remove the charge air pipes going to the ASV and the charge air pipe going to the turbo, removed the glow plugs and cranked to get any oil out of the cylinders.

Then I would have put the glow plugs back in and leaving the charge air pipes off, started it to see if it would start and idle normally. You will get a CEL because the MAP sensor does not see any boost and the MAF does not see any airflow.

With the charge air pipes off, you not ingest any more oil or throw any more shrapnel into your I/C and if the engine wasn't damaged it should at least idle normally.

Almost forgot, try turning the engine over in the direction of rotation by hand with a socket on the center crank bolt.

Remove glow plugs and rotate engine clockwise with a wrench on the crankshaft bolt. Almost guaranteed you hydrolockdd on oil. He oil should come out the glow plug holes. Very possible youll have bent rods.

Hi so thanks for the advice all! i went ahead and removed the glow plugs and turned the engine over (couldent do it by hand to weak ), loads of oil came out cylinder 3 so going to do a compression test when the kit arrives later today, as its a pd how would i stop the fuel coming through i cant seam to find much.. would i just remove the relay?

also a picture of the turbo , snapped the shaft in the center..oops

dnedwards said:

Hi so thanks for the advice all! i went ahead and removed the glow plugs and turned the engine over (couldent do it by hand to weak ), loads of oil came out cylinder 3 so going to do a compression test when the kit arrives later today, as its a pd how would i stop the fuel coming through i cant seam to find much.. would i just remove the relay?

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Never rotate any engine with a wrench with spark plugs or glow plugs installed. I got lazy once and did this on a gasser truck, came to the top of the compression stroke and went to let off the socket, kicked back like a spring and jammed my fingers between the wrench handle and the fan blade, broke 3 fingers and sliced them to the bone, never done it since Number 3 probably has a bent rod based on your description of lots of oil coming out of the hole. You may need to pull the head and measure how high up each piston is in the bore of each cylinder at TDC.

If you couldn't turn it by hand with the plugs out it's a bad sign.

If you turned it with the starter even with the plugs out without doing it by hand first it could cause damage if there's enough oil in there to lock it up. The piston moves faster than the oil can get out.

Hi again thanks for the help! so did the compression test today on it,
so results are...
from right to left (as if you looking at the engine)
1-500
2-300
3-500
4-500

so looking at it piston 2 is bent what would the next steps be?

Not being able to turn it over by hand with the glow plugs out is very telling. It should have turned over without much force.

At that point, I would not have not turned it over with the starter and done a compression test because of the possibility of doing more damage. I would have just started pulling the head.

dnedwards said:

so looking at it piston 2 is bent what would the next steps be?

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Off comes the head and out comes the dial indicator to confirm that #3 (third from the left) has a bent rod. With the head off you'll also be able to see if there's any damage to the cylinder walls etc.

If everything else looks good you can find a matching rod (you'll need to pull at least one other rod to have it measured for length as they are sold in matched sets of 4) and rebuild... new headgasket and head bolts etc. And of course a new turbo.

Sometimes the heat of the oil burning causes other damage... in which case it may be easier and cheaper to find a used engine.

In any event... inspecting things with the head off is the next step.

well ****, i had a runaway in the driveway in nuetrel. black smoke everywhere. I turned car off asv didnt stop it so I put it in 5th and let the clutch up. stopped dead. no loud metal sounds

after: checked oil, down 1/2 qrt. tried to start, just a click from the starter. so I took off hose to egr, good bit off oil in there so I am thinking it was running on the blowby.
I pulled glow plugs and tried to turn the cam shaft nut, but nothing moved. should it move?(I might have been in gear). after that put in 3rd gear and tried rocking the car with a straw down the highest set piston and I feel like it was moving a bit (hoping not seezed). since then I took the battery out and have been beating on the starter. any thoughts what to do next to see if its seezed?

"Runaway"is the right search term to use... you'll find hundreds of great threads on the subject that should help.

The TL;DR would be to not hammer the engine any further with the starter, as it can just bend things even more.

Instead, a 19mm socket on the crankshaft bolt is the way to go, with the glow plugs removed.

If any substantial amount of oil comes of the glowplug holes the engine most likely hydrolocked on liquid oil and the head will need to be pulled to investigate damaged valves and bent rods.

The turbo should be checked as well, by pulling the intake boot and then attempting to rotate the impeller fan by hand, looking for excessive free play.