How did Bob's Passat turn out? Is it running better now?
(Disclaimer: I am running on less than 2 hours sleep, so I blame any errors on that)
Bob's B4 had two problems. He'd been battling a power drop-off for awhile now
and we were unable to remove the case pressure relief (/regulating) valve (CPRV) that was suspected to be the problem. It was stuck tight, and when I say tight, I mean tight enough to snap a Snap-On 10mm wrench when I tried to remove it last September during the pump reseal.
Bob also tried to remove it to no avail, so I modified a socket that would get it out or break it off in the process.
Unfortunately I never got the chance because the CPRV was damaged in the attempted removal process before he came back east.
It was hit on the top with the hopes it would break the seal between the threads and pump. It was a great idea, unfortunately the head of the CPRV is not like the head of a bolt, so when it was hit, it broke rather than knocking it loose since the head is unsupported underneath at the edges.
His car was running like crap as HO5G as anyone can attest. Very hard starting, VERY smokey, and very noisy. Bob said it got a lot worse after the attempted removal, which led us to believe the problem was the CPRV as nothing else was touched.
The VCDS scan looked good with the exception of the IQ wandering around and the timing, which was quite retarded and not where I left it a few months ago when I installed the new timing belt.
I spoke with TDIDaveNH and we came up with the idea to drive it to Dave's shop in Fryeburg, Maine where we could adequately work on it since he has everything at his shop (including his timing belt tools) and just stripped out a B4. We were concerned with the threads stripping out of the IP rendering the B4 useless without a new IP. I brought my old one with me for parts or swap, but it did have 441,136 miles on it when I pulled it. It still ran fine, but wasn't the best choice. I also loaned my timing belt tools to jjcsnlynn and they were in transit on the way back. Dave had the tools and a spare IP he was willing to give Bob should his be ruined in the process. Since the CPRV was toast, Dave came up with the idea of welding a bolt to the top, which would give a purchase for removal and allow the heat to hopefully break things up internally to free it.
I was on a very limited schedule since I was on-call for work and someone was covering while I was away. As such I had to cut short the projects for Jetter_Sprinta and head out, saying goodbye to friends and our gracious hosts. My apologies, Chris.
We drove the three B4's 130 miles one way to Dave's shop, arriving at 9:40PM and started getting ready, which meant moving the stripped out B4 carcass "Popemobile" into another section to make room for Bob's B4.
Dave called ahead for pizza because it'd been awhile since we had anything. I was completely flabbergasted! Imagine, a pizza place in western Maine open until 10PM!!! He also bought paper towels since he brought the last 6 rolls to HO5G, and starting fluid to use as parts cleaner. In that area, you use what you can get.
We were contemplating swapping Dave's spare IP onto the car when Bob remembered issues with his A3 Jetta TDI years ago. He had another IP swapped on that had a different part number that was supposed to be compatible but the electronics internally were different and it wouldn't work properly. He checked the IP number of Dave's IP and it was 0460404990 and his ended in 982. The electrical junction box on the side was also a different part number. I just swapped to a 970 in my B4 so I knew that would work but none of us had any idea definitively if the 990 pump would work, and we could find nothing on the boards, just that they were 'compatible'.
We checked all three B4's present and two other IP's and all five were the 982 IP's and came from B4's. The 990 IP Dave had was a smooth case from a '96 B4 but the QA also looked different in one area. So we conferred and decided to try fixing his first using parts from the IP I just swapped since they were known to work. Quite a dilemma: a high mileage but known good IP, an unknown junkyard IP with different numbers, or repair what was there.
Upon removing the QA, we discovered the passenger's rear bolt was loose, like not even finger tight. I suspect this was the cause of the IQ fluctuations but the CPRV still had to come out. The QA hole was stuffed with a towel and then sealed against foreign object intrusion so Dave could weld. Dave was going to make a cover plate on his milling machine but we opted for some heat rated flexible metal self-sealing barrier instead (since he was out of Duct tape
).
Dave did reduce a bolt to the correct size on his metal lathe (didn't I tell you he had everything?) to weld on the top, then hauled out the Tig welder.
The end result:
Which promptly sheared even more of the CPRV off.
(Continued...)
