I purchased this car with 260,000 miles on it for a thousand bucks from an older couple that purchased it new, loved it for the most part but had given up on it due to the fact that no one could repair it. They said it smoked and lacked power. They provided me with a binder full of receipts and service records from several vw dealerships that had worked on the car. Receipts were in excess of 5000 dollars for turbo, injectors, timing belt, intake cleaning, n75 valves, injection pump, cam work, and lots of diagnosing . The last shop to work on the car stated that the motor had internal damage and would not run. My assumption was the car would need a new engine. At that time I knew nothing about TDI's but thought the car would be a fun project to tinker on. I found the myturbodeisel site and started reading. I purchased a vag-com cable and a compression guage. To my surprise the compression was fine. The car smoked like a brush fire, misfired and did not have power enough to move itself on flat ground. It took me two weekends to figure out that the injection pump timing was way off and to clean the severely clogged intake manifold. The car ran like a champ and this grease monkey had a new passion. Soon after getting the car on the road the injection pump developed a leak which I removed and resealed. At that time I did not understand the importance of the special tools needed to re-tension the timing belt. I marked the belt and pulleys and retensioned the belt so that the marks lined up. The car ran great with no leaks and impressed me with over 50 mpg on the first tank of fuel. Soon after my daughter took the car away from me and I saw little of it until she came limping home complaining of no power. She drove the car for 30 miles with the remains of a chewed up lifter under the valve cover. I assumed the valve had dropped and done major damage, pulled the car in the garage and started looking for another engine.
As my work schedule eased towards summers end I got curious and removed the head to see the extent of the damage. I was happy to see no piston damage and was encouraged by chatters to repair my engine. I purchased a Franko6 head on ebay along with a head gasket and bolt kit. I did not purchase a belt kit since the existing belt had very few miles on it. The down time had allowed me to study the threads on this topic and get a much better understanding of the task at hand and the importance of doing it with the proper tools and precision.
While waiting for my parts to arrive I cleaned the turbo, checked its operation with my newly purchased mighty vac, cleaned the piston tops, block, turbo hoses and changed all filters. I also cleaned the intake manifold again to be sure that I didn't miss anything the first time. Once the head arrived I intalled it, torqued it and did the timing belt with all the proper tools which I also had just purchased. I have left out a lot of details but you get the idea. I opened a new case of oil and dumped in 4 qts and pulled the stick to see that I was an inch over the full mark. Strange I thought to myself. Why would four quarts over fill this engine. I checked the specs and saw that the engine held much more than that. Having never changed the oil in this car before I assumed that the extra oil on the stick would be used when the turbo line and head passages filled with oil. I would check it again after running the motor for awhile. I purged the new fuel filter with the mighty vac and filled the tank and hoses with new coolant.
By this time I was more excited than a school boy on his first date. It was time to bring my Little Red Golf back to life. She fired up and purred like a kitten. The lack of valve noise was immediatly obvious. That new Franko6 head was all it was cracked up to be. I gave myself a pat on the back when I found the initial timing to be just a tad above the advanced line and got it dialed in with only two adjustments.
Like a proud father with a new baby to show off I drove straight to the local country store and pulled up to the diesel pump where my coffee slurping buddies could watch with envy as I put a months worth of fuel in for 52 bucks.
On the 3 mile return trip I was pushing her a little harder to see how the turbo was working when I had the sudden feeling that I was being fired from a cannon. I have read about runaways and knew what I should have done but my drivers instinct was to turn off the key, throw the clutch and pull over. It was one of the most expensive thrill rides that I have ever been on. I still can't sleep at night without hearing that engine screaming, its like an endless recording in my head that won't stop playing. The car left a trail of smoke for hundreds of feet, I think a few homeowners thought their houses were on fire. One of my coffee slurping buddies was behind me and seemed more rattled than I when he pulled over to check on me.
Oil, I thought to myself, you didn't check that damn oil. A long series of self inflicted name calling ensued for several minutes. I have to say that I thought about laying flat in the road in hopes that a big truck would run over me. I am rating this as the second stupidest thing I have ever done in my life.
Once back to the shop I pulled the head to find the not so good results. The following morning I called Franko6 and had a nice chat with him. He mentioned that it could have been a run away injector which is usually what causes a melted piston accompanied with the oil level being to high. The trauma of destroying a perfectly good running engine is slowly being overcome by the joy of tinkering and one day I will return to the diesel pump.