04 PD loss of power

Dear All,
Looking for the best way to troubleshoot my way through my issue.

Picked up me 2004 Jetta BEW from a friend after it was sitting for awhile. He wasn’t using it and I really wanted my own little TDI for all the driving I tend to do around the SoCal area.
I had to replace the front bumper and intercooler. His daughter was the last to drive it and smashed the right front corner. New fender, bumper, and intercooler and she was ready to run.
I then found that the crankcase had almost 4 quarts too much oil. I literally drained about a gallon to much from the oil pan.
I found that due to the air intake having a lot of oil in it starting from the vent connection off the valve cover. This put oil in the new intercooler and turbo. I tried to clean, but I doubt I got it all.
When all that was going on the car would not rev over 1500 RPM.
Now I have inspected the EGR and anti shudder valve. Both aren’t great, but not that bad. When I had the pipes off I did not fully inspect the turbo because I figured it was only going to be the oil issue.
Now the car starts and idles ok, but will not rev over 2000 RPM. It will also smoke grey until it gets warm.
I do not have access to VCDS unless someone is local in the SoCal area is willing to help.
This is my first diesel so I am learning from years of gassers.

My question is where to start elimating issues.
Also, how much easier is VCDS going to make this solution?
It looks like it is $200 for a shade tree guy like me.
Is it worth the investment?
I really like the Jetta and the TDI, but don’t want to spend the rest of my life paying for repairs either.

Any advice that doesn’t involve telling me how dumb I was to start this would be appreciated.

VCDS is nearly essential if you hope to repair problems yourself. It will easily pay for itself when you don’t have to throw unnecessary parts at problems, or have a dealer work on it.

One thing to consider, with regard to all that oil, is there’s a possibility that the seals around the injectors could have leaked and started filling the crankcase with diesel fuel. The tandem pump can also leak fuel into the crankcase. Did the oil seem thin, or smell like diesel at all?

Someone may simply have put in too much oil, but fuel contamination is a possibility worth considering, as it has been known to happen on the Pumpe Duse engine. I believe there was a recall many years ago because of the tandem pump leak.

If it was simply overfilled, you just need to correct the level, and get excess oil out of places where it doesn’t belong, and hope nothing was seriously damaged. If the level was high due to fuel contamination, then you need to find how fuel is getting into the oil.

I dug up a post explaining the fuel contamination issue: http://forums.tdiclub.com/showpost.php?p=3976028&postcount=7

VCDS is a requirement when you own one of these cars.

A gallon of extra oil. Wow...someone got carried away. Did you drain ALL that old oil out and replace it with fresh? Did you change the oil filter also?

New air cleaner? And check the air box and pipes for animal nests and other garbage.

Clean the egr they do get a little sooty.

A failing turbo will dump oil into the intercooler, it sounds like you’ve already cleaned most of the oil out. You need to inspect the turbo wheel. Take the hose back off and put your finger on the wheel, does it spin easily? Is there movement? Back and forth and side to side? There should be almost none. What do the fins look like? A cell camera is handy for this part.

Did you change the fuel filter?

Do you hear a squish or humming noise from under the back seat when you turn the key to the glow position?

These are great cars especially rust free California specimens. With a little maintenance it will last a long time.

How many miles does your car have ? Is it a 5spd?

Mike and Tdijarhead,
Thanks for the quick replies.

I did check the oil for smell and texture. I can’t be certain, but I wondered about the fuel into the crankcase myself.
Since I can’t be sure, I will check the level again when I have some run time on the engine to see what the level does.
I did drain all the oil and replace, but did not change the filter yet. Figured I needed to solve the running issues first.

It is has 185K miles on the clock, but I told that dash is not original. Except the items I noted in the OP, the car is in good shape. I really like the Jetta TDI and have wanted one for awhile. It is an automatic, but other than that I am happen with it. Just would like to get the issues resolved.

I will get the hoses back off and inspect the turbo. May even pull it to inspect it closer.

I did inspect the EGR and there was some soot, but it wasn’t that bad. I was thinking the low RPM was related to the EGR, but that doesn’t seem to be the issue.

I have looked at the air take, but didn’t think to look at the air filter yet. The car didn’t sit anywhere that it had “critter issues” that I can find.

I think I will take a look at the VCDS again and figure what I need to do to get my copy. I guess I will have to be the one in SoCal to get one and help the next guy. There doesn’t seem to be many TDi folks around me that guys work on.

This is where you get VCDS from: https://www.ross-tech.com

Any other source is probably a knock off with no support.

There is VCDS lite that does almost all the major functions.
It's free but you need an OBD2 cable that works with VCDS and a windows laptop.
The web site listed above has the details.

Ok, it has been awhile, but I finally had time to get under the car again.

I am reviving this post only because there wasn’t any real resolution the last time.

I got the intake back off the turbo inlet. I was kinda hoping that the turbo was stuck and then I would have my issue. No such luck......
The turbo feels like it spins fine from the inlet side just fine so I decided not to pull it all the way off. I did notice that there was a lot of oil at the reduction boot joint from the intake to the smaller boot. To the point that I had oil dripping out on me when I put the boots back together.
So, I went pulled the CCV vent hose off the engine and started the car. Not only is it steady white/grey smoke, if I put my hand in front of it, my hand gets oil on it. There isn’t a lot of pressure on my hand, but some.
So I am thinking that I am building too much crankcase pressure. I would assume that that means bad valves or rings. Compression test should confirm or using VCDS. I think I saw somewhere that the full version detects the pressure somewhere.
Or, I am confusing all of this with regular petrol engines and you guys are going to point out what a newb I am.

Thanks for either..........

A Foxwell nt510 vag scanner would be a good lesser cost option for you. I have vcds and the foxwell and find it way easier and quicker to use the foxwell. It is my go to. It works the same as vagcom. Just throwing that out there.

You for sure need a scanner