81 Vanagon 1.6 Diesel

yotatoy

Active member
Joined
Sep 22, 2012
Location
Kodiak, AK
TDI
2000 Jetta 1.9 TDI
Hey everyone, I am working on getting a friends old vanagon back on the road.

He told me the last time he drove it he was having fuel seepage out of the back of the injection pump where it mates with the fuel distribution block.

He was also having starter issues.

Today I got the starter cranking on her, but no start, I then opened up all the lines on the back side of the pump and turned her over a few times but got no fuel spray, so I am thinking the pump is not pulling a vacuum on the fuel. I also pulled the fuel line from the filter to the pump and put on my mityvac and was able to pull fuel through it easily, so I am thinking the pump just isnt pulling.

I am going to try manually feeding the pump, but not expecting much.

Does anyone rebuild these pumps these days? Or I might look into getting a new one.

Thanks
 

v8volvo

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 1, 2004
Location
WA
TDI
2001 Jetta
If the pump head seal was leaking when running, same leak lets all the fuel run out of the pump when sitting and fills it up with air. The suction pump can still pull fuel when it's full of air, but it moves a lot faster when it's got fuel in it. If you get it primed -- force feeding (low psi) or gravity feeding work fine, then while feeding it fuel crank w/ injector unions loosened until fuel comes out all 4 -- it should start up and run, but will still be leaking, probably even worse than before.

Easy to get a mech VE pump rebuilt still, lots of them still in service on early Cummins, etc, so lots of fuel shops still regularly working on them. Rebuilt is probably better than "new" if done by a qualified shop, since any replacement pump you might find may have questions about seal material compatibility with ULSD, depending on when it was assembled, or quality of reconditioning work. IP's are a good area to not try to get the cheapest deal... proper rebuild alone usually costs on the order of $500; any replacement unit you find that costs less than that or even roughly the same, you should have some questions about. Particularly if it's a $200 prothe pump...

Another alternative, if you like a challenge with a little bit of risk involved -- it's not the worst job to put new seals in the pump yourself, as long as you can determine that the pump is a good runner before you start. It is fiddly work, e.g. quite a bit more involved than resealing a TDI pump since there are fine adjustments that you have to keep track of, springs, levers, etc that make reassembly tricky and have to do surgically clean work on something that is usually pretty crusty on the outside -- however, doable if you can afford to take your time. Got to have special tools to set pump timing when putting it back on too, but they are readily available.

Don't let it leak too much fuel on those Vanagon coolant hoses, some of those are pretty expensive if they get damaged. ;)
 

yotatoy

Active member
Joined
Sep 22, 2012
Location
Kodiak, AK
TDI
2000 Jetta 1.9 TDI
Thanks

Thanks for the reply!

I have never seen the pump leak, I am going off what the owner told me. I did however get it to run today by gravity feeding the injection pump. Then I replaced the line from the filter to the pump with a line from my bleeder and got her to run self sustaining! She was not leaking any fuel out of the pump and I let her run for 10 mins, then shut down for 10-15 and ran her for another 10.

I still think there may be a leaky seal, it was hot today so it could be that the seal is warm and expanded but when it gets cold it might leak.

But, I am thinking and hoping that the pump seals are all good and the 2 problems I solved that corrected the problem were some loose b nuts on the pump and the line running from filter had a hole/crack near where it connected to the pump.

Will keep this thread updated as I go along as I will probably run into a few more questions along the way, my buddy is coming over this weekend to hear the girl run and tell me what else he wants done to her.
 
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