New BRM 'project'

banshee365

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2012
Location
FL
TDI
06 Jetta
Hey fellas. I've spent some time wrenching on a couple BRM's for family and friends. Our family is a fan of VW's. We've owned two. The last of which was a '13 Passat TDI that we sold back to VW. I've alway's liked working on the BRM and admired the MkV platform. I have been looking for one for myself for a while. I looked at many and walked away as the deal wasn't right. People want top market price for cars that are trashed and in need of dire mechanical repair whether they want to admit it or not.

I finally came across a CL ad on Christmas Day for a BRM that was sitting at a dealer that just diagnosed it with a bad turbo. It has 261k miles on it. They were pretty much done putting money into the car and the $2,900 quote sent them over the top. They were firm on the price but were asking a bit under $1k for it. They were the 2nd owners and kept meticulous maintenance on the car. They had 1/2" of paper work since they bought it in 2010 from every repair done at the dealer.

I went to look at it a couple day's ago. I was able take a detailed looked over the car and also scan it with VCDS. I even had a chance to talk to the tech that diagnosed it. He came across like he really knew what he was doing. The car ran like total crap. It wouldn't run above idle, it smoked like hell and it wouldn't build any boost. The tech said the actuator held vacuum and the boost piping was tested for leaks. The tech deemed the turbo to have failed due to the inability of the car to produce boost. Whatever. I was skeptical as I was able to hear the car run. I've worked on another that ran EXACTLY like this one was. He was right about the no boost part. The car also had no codes. The fuel in the car was sort of nasty so they had emptied the tank, replaced the fuel filter and poured 5 gallons of fresh fuel in the tank.

Even though I was skeptical of the turbo having any problems what-so-ever and I was pretty sure I knew what the problem was without even putting a wrench to the car I agreed to pay the asking price with the comfort level that even if the turbo was no good that I would still be ahead of market value.

I got the car home last night (had to hit the car hauler with some speed as it didn't have enough power to pull itself up at idle). I threw a new OEM battery in it as the Duralast garbage was leaking acid after 2 years. Today I wanted to prove my suspicions. I removed the EGR valve and, sure enough, it was cracked open a little bit. I shut it with my thumb and reinstalled it with the valve left unplugged. The car runs perfect. It builds boost just fine and sounds great. A new Pierburg EGR valve and this issue be gone. The dealer really screwed this one up. The owners were obviously not up for spending the $2,900 to replace the turbo but they would have been REALLY pissed if they spent that and it didn't do a thing to the concern.

Dealerships...

With that out of the way I'm very comfortable in splurging on a bunch of maintenance that the car is in need of. It needs a new headliner which is going to be the priciest part. It drives me crazy. I've done a few headliners with the proper material on other brands but don't know if I can find the correct foam backed material to match the sunroof sunshade so I may just have to drop the $450 on the OEM part. Other than the headliner I'm going to do the timing belt, water pump, DSG service and Franko6 'fixed' EGR cooler as this cars 2nd EGR cooler is leaking under boost. I can hear it. There is lots of oil covering the turbo and dripping on the heat hoses like they like to do so at some point I will probably remove the intake and turbo to clean them all up and reinstall. I may just wait to change the EGR cooler at that time.

I really wanted a 5 speed package 2 car but for this price I couldn't pass it up. It's a package 1 with sunroof DSG car. I may have to post some photos of it once I wash it. I'm pretty proud of how this deal is going so far.
 

Henrick

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 24, 2010
Location
Ireland
TDI
Golf VI TDI, 77 kW (CAYC)
Body is what I check when buying failed/old cars. If the body is pristine or fine and you turn wrenches on your own, then why not.
Be prepared to replace turbo (it might be excessively leaking oil into the intake), flywheel, camshaft and TB kit as the worst-case scenario. While you are there, check main engine wiring harness for damage in front of gearbox, under the airbox. Check dirver's door wiring harness for damage inside the boot to prevent killing a new battery overnight.

Would be interesting to see some photos.
 

turbocharged798

Veteran Member
Joined
May 21, 2009
Location
Ellenville, NY
TDI
99.5 black ALH Jetta;09 Gasser Jetta
Seen dealers do stuff like that so many times. Wonder how many turbos got replaced for broken vacuum hoses...

My favorite one was where a person was quoted something like $1500 for an ECU replacement and it turned out a $10 relay 109 was bad.

And people wonder why I have a really low opinion of VW dealers. There might be some good ones out there but they seem to be far and few between.
 

banshee365

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2012
Location
FL
TDI
06 Jetta
The flywheel sounds okay for now. I’ll check the cam during the timing belt job. At first I was thinking about just doing the timing belt and DSG service and start drive by the car. But now I’m thinking about just going ahead and removing the EGR cooler, turbo and intake manifold to give everything a good cleaning and get the turbo on the bench for thorough inspection. It’s possible that the oil is coming from excessive oil in the inter cooler system from CCV but with 261k miles I may just tear it all down and check it all out. It costs quite a bit over $100 just to remove the stuff and reinstall but it’s probanly worth it. I’ll also probably pull the tandem pump to replace the o-ring on that. The ones I’ve pulled apart have had very brittle o-rings there.
 
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Henrick

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 24, 2010
Location
Ireland
TDI
Golf VI TDI, 77 kW (CAYC)
Not worth pulling the turbo just to check, I'd say. It can be checked by just pulling the intake side of the compressor. All you want to check is shaft play. If you are paranoid, separate the catalyst and check it from the both sides. Having it on bench won't tell you anything more that that, you'd just waste your money on labour and seals/gaskets which will need to be replaced.
 

banshee365

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2012
Location
FL
TDI
06 Jetta
The idea of pulling the turbo is to give it a good cleaning and maybe separate the housing and clean the inside up as well. The entire turbo is covered in oil. I want to replace the EGR cooler anyway because I hear it hiss under boost and sometimes at idle. The expensive part of removing the turbo is that the oil feed usually seized on the coupler and it destroys the feed line.
 

Henrick

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 24, 2010
Location
Ireland
TDI
Golf VI TDI, 77 kW (CAYC)
Well, you choose it, it's your car anyway.
There is a possibility to remove the oil feed line without damaging it. You need to make a special tool to counter hold the coupler. Also, you need to have tiny hands to insert and hold it.
FWIW, the EGR cooler does not necessary need to be replaced. You can only replace the bushing. The new bushing needs to be machined, of course. From brass or simple material, I think.
 

banshee365

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2012
Location
FL
TDI
06 Jetta
Here are some photos from yesterday. I washed, clayed and waxed it. I did it sort of fast so I didn't work on some areas as hard as I should have. I just wanted to see how it would turn out. There are obviously a couple door dings and that damage to the sill but I may looked at my PDR guy to get some of that out. It doesn't have to be perfect in that area. The cool thing with MkV's is that if I find pristine doors with no dings in the junk yard I can just take the outer skin and swap it with mine without doing any body work. For what I paid for the car and the miles it has covered I'm really not too worried about the dings and such. It shines up nice.

I've also included a photo of the EGR valve upon removal. It should be closed. This is why the car ran like crap. Literally zero power. The new valve should be here this week.

P.S. Disregard the faded looking B-pillar covers. I missed the wax on those for the photos. They're actually in fairly decent shape.




 
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Henrick

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 24, 2010
Location
Ireland
TDI
Golf VI TDI, 77 kW (CAYC)
Wow, nice car, except the headlights, rocker panel and a few dings which are visible on the photo... Very nice weather outside at this time of the year! The headlight issue in your region is probably related to the climate.

This is what I would do for this car (cosmetically):
-PDR
-Replace headlights
-Clear front sidemarkers
-Maybe install front fog lights
-Euro switch w/rear fog
-LED tail lights, w/fog
-Single stalk cruise control, maybe some audio control on the steering wheel
-Maybe some navigation unit
 

banshee365

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2012
Location
FL
TDI
06 Jetta
I think I’m going to need to disconnect the exhaust on the turbo and inspect the turbine. I removed my unplugged EGR valve to replace it today with a new one and the valve was full of oil. That oil has to be going through the cooler from the turbo. I haven’t owned the car long enough to observe any oil consumption.
 

banshee365

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2012
Location
FL
TDI
06 Jetta
Still no oil consumption after 600 miles or so since the oil change. I disconnected the cat to check the turbine side of the turbo for oil. It looks pretty darn normal. I haven't pulled the intake side yet but I'm sure there is lots of oil in there. I did disconnect the lower I/C tube and didn't get a drop out of the I/C so that's good. I may have a valve cover or tandem pump oil leak as the turbo is soaked in oil and it's dripping on the heater hoses that were replaced at the dealer not long ago. As far as I can tell the turbo has never been off. The tandem pump was removed for an oil leak or something several years ago according to some of the invoices I got with the car. But on the tandem pumps I've had off on BRM's that o-ring is rock hard.

Looking at the last two photos yall can maybe see why I'm inclined the pull the turbo and intake and clean everything. There is oil everywhere and there is always a drip hanging off the heater hose even if I wipe it off. I included a shot of the EGR cooler. It was replaced in 2013 or so at the tune of $1,000 at the dealer and is leaking like CRAZY right now. It sounds like there is just a 3/8" hole and it's pouring exhaust out. I'm getting a very noticeable loss in boost from this. Sometimes to leak seals as the shaft moves or something and I get a kick in the butt of boost. One of Franko6's products will be fixing that problem in the near future.

I'm enjoying driving the car as it's running great but I think I'm to the point where I need to put it down and order a bunch of parts like the timing belt kit and other maintenance items. I get a good discount at my dealer so I'll probably get the DSG materials there. I'm still on the fence on whether to pull the turbo and reseal everything as well as replace. or at least inspect, the thermostat housing and thermostat.

Any opinions?



 

Henrick

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 24, 2010
Location
Ireland
TDI
Golf VI TDI, 77 kW (CAYC)
It's hard to tell from the pics where the oil leak source is. You probably need to wash/degrease everything there and monitor closely.

I'd suspect turbo return line but... You say there's no oil loss...

Also, as for EGR cooler, you can have a replacement bushing of brass (or other metal) machined. This will be cheaper than replacing entire cooler. Let me know if you need a diagram of the measurements.
 

lamboworld

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2014
Location
Tarheel
TDI
2006 Jetta TDI
If I were you I would delete the EGR Cooler and pull the turbo and Intake Manifold and clean them up. My Intake looked horrible and I used air and fire to clean it. You get quite the show and it makes quick work of the carbon.

I have gotten pretty good at working on this motor and I can get the turbo and Intake off in a little over an hour. Gaskets are only about $15 or less.
 

banshee365

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2012
Location
FL
TDI
06 Jetta
I haven’t seen gaskets that cheap. The OE exhaust gasket is one piece and has a built in heat shield. I don’t really use aftermarket parts on VW’s so the only pricing I do parts wise is with genuine parts, or OE manufacturers like Pierburg.
 

lamboworld

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2014
Location
Tarheel
TDI
2006 Jetta TDI
I just bought OE gaskets from ID parts for $11 not including shipping. $9 for the exhaust gasket with the heat shield and $2 for the intake gasket.
 

banshee365

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2012
Location
FL
TDI
06 Jetta
Yea the Elring brand could certainly be the OE supplier to VW. The main expensive thing to remove the turbo is the oil feed line. The coupler almost always breaks loose in the turbo before the flarenut on the feed line does. The area is way too small to fit a wrench I think you would maybe butcher a 12pt box end to fit. It may have to be shaved thinner too.
 

Henrick

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 24, 2010
Location
Ireland
TDI
Golf VI TDI, 77 kW (CAYC)
You can manufacture a "special wrench" to counterhold that.
Once you have the right tool, you'll never break/wrap the oil feed line. Not a single one anymore.
 
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