I need help with my 02 Jetta’s engine!

Hello TDI Club, I came to this website when my grandfather let me have one of his old jettas with the 1.8 TDI in it. I’m a seventeen year old just wanting to wrench away and get a reliable, fuel efficient diesel for college. It has many issues like rust, bad smell, a boot lid that won’t shut, etc., but I came for my engine. When we first got it, the alternator was not charging, but is now. I can only assume that the brushes were dirty. The big problem is oil consumption. We saw that it was spitting oil from the vacuum pump, the turbo actuator was replaced, the EGR valve had oil residue on it, and the hose that connects the CCV valve to the intake was duck taped together. We replaced all of this, and when I go and moved it to another spot so that I can see if there is an oil leak. Sure enough, after I put oil in it, oil was on the ground and what looked like coolant too that next afternoon. It seemed to be leaking from the passenger side of the engine, where all of the pulleys and tensioners are. I’m just wondering if there is potentially a cracked block, or maybe a crankcase seal went bad? I’d just love some suggestions!

Thanks for the help,

-Benjamin

Time for timing belt assembly

Coolant from pass side is often water pump if you dont see any bad coolant hoses there....if WP is bad and leaking that could also mean bad WP bearing which could seize and snap the timing belt. So look at the leak area closely and if no hose leaks, get into the water pump which is run by the timing belt. Most guys here just do a Timing Belt on a new car to them just to be sure.

Thanks for the advice! I’ll definitely take a look at it!

Was the oil on the ground fresh oil that you poured in? You could have a cracked oil pan. It would be obvious damage i would guess.

I posted this up in another thread of some possible leaking areas for these engines but I'll copy and paste it here for visibility as well:

• Valve cover
• CCV puck and connections
• vac pump
• Oil pan
• Turbo inlet/outlet
• Coolant glow plug flange (manual)
• T-stat housing flange (because it's plastic, likes to warp or become brittle)
• Coolant hard pipe into block (underneath t-stat housing)
• Waterpump
• oil filter housing to block gasket (a bit more rare, but I just did this)
• There's probably more I'm missing at the moment, others will chime in

If it's your waterpump you mine as well do the full TB kit...it's about the same amount of work anyway. You definitely don't want that to fail. I actually had a 100k waterpump fail at about 60k or less. It had been weeping as I found the coolant leak and I had planned on replacing it. I was driving down the highway, heard a pop, a puff of white smoke, killed the engine within a few seconds of seeing it and coasted off to the break down lane.

Had the car towed and found that the WP shaft had snapped...but the belt had not skipped any or damaged any teeth so the engine stayed in time. Needless to say, I got VERY lucky. You don't want that happening because it likely not going to turn out the same as what happened for me.

That being said, sounds like you're on the right track for getting things sealed up. Just take your time and methodically go through where leaks can come from.
Welcome to the Club!

jokila said:

Was the oil on the ground fresh oil that you poured in? You could have a cracked oil pan. It would be obvious damage i would guess.

Click to expand...

No, it looked like it was coming from the the crank pulley or the camshaft pulley seals. When you opened the hood, it was a bunch of blue smoke (oil burning) and the pulleys were wet. Once you turned off the car it would drip down the block to the oil pan and onto the ground.

So it should be easy to find. If not a quick engine wash will help.
Diesel fuel is a bit oily, so be sure it's engine oil.
The vacuum pump is a sealed unit driven by the camshaft, not sure if it even seals the oil system.

Actually the vacuum pump has a seal to keep oil from leaking outside the engine. It is lubricated via oil in the head and exhausts the air pumped into the valve cover.

Cheers,

PH