Gurus please help diagnose (seized head?)

[Chris_TDI_98]

I was driving my Jetta mk3 TDI on highway 84, going about 60 miles per hour in the middle lane, when it stalled out suddenly.
I was able to pull over to the breakdown lane.



NOTE: There's plenty of diesel in the tank, 2-3 gallons, good quality fuel.
NOTE: A few days before, I had work done on it at a garage - they added 1 quart of 15W40 motor oil, replace both sides rear bearings, one side rear stub axle spindle, and both sides brake shoes. They remarked, on the printed invoice, that all the belts seemed on the loose side and the tensioner pulley was near its end of life and ready for replacement!
NOTE: While having the freeze plug installed back in March, the guy apparently reconnected the vacuum hoses wrong, and since then, I've had no "turbo boost effect" while stomping on the accelerator pedal, so you can't really floor it and overtake anyone on the highway. I checked with the OBD2 code reader to see if the computer was throwing up any codes, and there were some EGR related codes in there.


Back to our story.
While parked in the breakdown lane, hazards on, I tried restarting it.
It cranks only about 0.1 second, then it stops cranking, as if it's seized, and something's physically blocking it from cranking.
I looked at the timing belt (while waiting 2 hours for AAA to come flatbed it back to a friend's house).

The timing belt looks very stretched out. You can see through it, you can see the bottom grooves through the top of the rubber.
It's as if the crankshaft is trying to crank, while the cam shaft (or water pump, or tensioner pulley, or power steering pulley) is seized.

I have an OBD II code reader.
I don't have a VCDS / VAG-COM.

Calling all gurus, on this forum.
And/or TDIclubbers with insight and near Hartford, CT who might be able to come meet up and we can diagnose my car together.
Will provide ice cold beers, snacks, pizza, etc.
How can we diagnose this??
Please help.

 

[Mongler98]

So you trashed an engine. Sorry bro but it's going to cost $$$ to fix this and if your not the kinda guy to rebuild an engine, go get a used one or scrap it.
Timing belt is critical. 80k miles or 5 years whatever comes first. Anything past this is a time bomb.
The valves have made contact with the pistons. They are bent and the head will need a complete rebuilt and probably new pistons, if the wrist pins, crank, and rods are true and unscathed (50/50 chances) you will still need to pull the pan and drop the pistons and crank to measure them.
Long story short, it's not good. Its fixable. Used rebuilt head is about $700, pistons and rods $300, crank grinding $200. Misc parts another 300. So all in all worst case your 1500 maybe less depending on how hard they hit.
My #s can me much less if you go used parts for sure.

Moving forward, no matter how bad it is, your pulling the head and having it rebuilt with new valves, guides, machine work,
Measure with a dial indicator how high each piston reaches at its top of stroke and tell us what gasket hole size you have. If they measure good and have minimal if any Mark's on them, you could slap a new or rebuilt head on it and move on.
Fist, pull the head off and snap some pictures, this is unavoidable.
Sorry

 

[Chris_TDI_98]

How do I pull the head off? Which guide online is most reliable?

 

[Chris_TDI_98]

Should I have it towed to a AAA club owned garage to have them diagnose it for half price ie $50 and take pics when/if they take the head off?

 

[Steve Addy]

How do I pull the head off? Which guide online is most reliable?

Removing the cylinder head is not a tough deal but you need to consult the Bentley manual for the procedure, you should remove the bolts in sequence.

Should I have it towed to a AAA club owned garage to have them diagnose it for half price ie $50 and take pics when/if they take the head off?

You could if you want but since I don't believe general garages are familiar enough with these to deal with them I would prefer to have it taken home where I can deal with it myself.

Before you make a decision though I would get a breaker bar and a 19mm 12pt socket and see if you can turn over the engine a full cycle or two without hitting any obstruction. If you can do that then the likelihood of siezed engine is lower.

Do you believe that the oil level was too low and you ran it dry?

Did you experience a cooling system problem that caused overheating?

Did you ever resolve your leaking injection pump?

Any engine lights come on before the problem?

I would do some more investigation before I called the engine dead. That is unless you found that it wouldn't start using the engine starter.

However, the shop warning about the belt (which ever belt that is) would be of concern to me, and the fact that you pulled the timing cover and the belt was very thin and worn out would also be a problem for me.

Remember, the timing belt is the life of this engine, if you lose the belt you're most likely going to incur a big expense repairing the damage. And this begs the question of whether you replaced the timing belt when you purchased the car originally? That's generally the first thing that should happen when you buy a car of dubious maintenance.

At any rate, if the starter won't turn the engine over there must have been a problem that was not addressed, were there any warning lights before the power loss?

Steve

 

[ToddA1]

The timing belt interval is 60k or 5 years, whichever comes first.... not 80K as previously mentioned. When was yours last changed?

If the belt is stretched to the point that you can see through it, that’s not good... I’m going to bet there’s some form of engine damage that’ll consider it a loss. Let the poor car die, already.

You may as well cut the belt off and see if you can spin either the crank or cam. You have nothing to lose.

-Todd

 

[Chris_TDI_98]

I checked the oil level (it's OK, dipstick at the full mark) and the coolant level (it's WAY too low).


I poured water in the coolant reservoir, and hear a water leak running out onto the ground !



Water is trickling out steady from the 3-way coolant hose, the one that connects from upper radiator hose, to oil filter cooler, to water pump.


This leaking hose is the hose located beneath the (still leaking) injection pump (which I've attempted for a while now to get help changing the injection pump seals but until now have come up empty handed).


So, would it be accurate to say, either :
1. my timing belt stretched and caused the pistons to collide with the valves and lock up the head, or,
2. The Injection Pump leaked hot diesel fuel onto the 3-way hose and caused a coolant leak, which in turn caused the engine to overheat catastrophically and blow out the head gasket and seize up the engine.


What should be our next step ??

 

[Chris_TDI_98]

In response to Steve and Todd's question, My timing belt was changed 30K miles ago, 7 years ago, in April 2012 (just before I bought the car from a local guy named Pete, who's a lifelong professional diesel mechanic for ship engines, and a member of vwvortex forum and if I remember right he's also a member here on TDIclub).

 

[Mongler98]

7 years of life is not likely the reason the belt is stretched that bad. If you have issues rotating the crank, it's probably not a belt that caused it more so the cam or ip locking up or something that forced the belt to RIP

 

[ToddA1]

In response to Steve and Todd's question, My timing belt was changed 30K miles ago, 7 years ago, in April 2012 (just before I bought the car from a local guy named Pete, who's a lifelong professional diesel mechanic for ship engines, and a member of vwvortex forum and if I remember right he's also a member here on TDIclub).

Sounds good on a resume, but it’s still 2+ years overdue. Have you tried rotating the engine or are you still in the planning stage?

You lost all your coolant and never got a warning?

Btw, I can guarantee AAA won’t pull the head for $50. Do they even do that type of work? Even if they did, then what? Your car is at their shop with the head removed....

-Todd

 

[Mongler98]

The short of it is, your car is not worth the work to get back to running condition if you pay someone to do it, and if you do find some sucker to do the work for very little$ I guarantee you it wont last and is done wrong.

If you dont want to do the work or are unable to do this level of work, you should consider it a total loss.
Now I do encourage you to try to do it. There are plenty of info on this and good write ups on it. You dont need much in tools and its fairly strait forward. I'd say you should try it yourself and worst case, well it's still a loss. You dont have much to loss here. Good chance to learn some of this stuff. Wish I was closer or I'd come help!. I'll send you a PM.

 

[Vince Waldon]

Is this the car that had the massive coolant leak for months due to a rusted-out frost plug, was running on pure water over the winter, and froze solid at least once?

If so, a slowly leaking IP was the least of your worries, cooling system-wise, and not likely the cause of your current problems.

 

[garciapiano]

This shop sounds rather reputable given all the work they did. The timing belt tensioner was the tensioner they recommended changing?

This sounds to me like you lost the tensioner and pistons met valves. My guess is that the engine is seizing on a bent valve.

Sadly my recommendation would be to ditch the car. These old TDIs aren't worth the repair cost of a busted engine.

 

[Mongler98]

^^^ this, pull the IP, alternator, and any really easily or valuable part off her enough that you can store in a Bin and junk the rest.

i still encourage you to tear it apart for the education!

 

[Jetta SS]

For an old MK3 in the rust belt this is kind of a Fatality. It can be fixed, but is it worth it?

 

[Steve Addy]

My guess is that when the shop warned you about the 'belt' and the 'tensioner' they were talking about the timing belt and not the serpentine belt and tensioner. Timing belt is critical component and failure is costly.

If that's the case it sounds like your engine is probably shot, but you won't know that until you try and turn it over with a breaker bar, extension and 19mm 12pt socket. If you don't get all the way around then you know there's contact between valves and pistons.

The leaking injection pump is right above the three way hose you mentioned, the diesel fuel attacks rubber and the hose got mushy because of all the leaking diesel fuel. Once a leak opened up the coolant went bye bye and the engine probably overheated.

Whether or not the timing belt contributed to this is anyones guess but I would say that it's likely a dead engine.

You still will not know unless you try turning it over, that's the only definitive way of finding out. Also it doesn't cost you anything unless you don't have those tools.

Good luck

Steve

 

[Chris_TDI_98]

Is it possible for an overheated damaged starter motor to have caused the engine to become unable to crank by hand (with broker bar and 12 pt 19mm socket)?

 

[Steve Addy]

Is it possible for an overheated damaged starter motor to have caused the engine to become unable to crank by hand (with broker bar and 12 pt 19mm socket)?

No

Steve

 

[ToddA1]

C’mon Steve- give him hope. I kinda missed him posting...

Chris- pull the starter and rule it out of the equation...

-Todd

 

[Mongler98]

yes it is possible for it to hold back a motor from turning, if the starter is melted. not so sure that it would hold up against a breaker bar with enough force though but i have seen some starters to bad that they literally melted the copper windings. My chevy g30hd had a puddle of solder under it when i changed it in a lowes parking lot!
heck if you dropped a few teeth of the flywheel and the starter was stuck with the gear engauged it would also cause this if the gears are bound up.

 

[Chris_TDI_98]

1. OK we disconnected the starter physically, and when we went to hit the starter switch, the starter turned at a high speed, and smoothly. So it’s not the starter motor.
2. We removed the timing belt, and tried using ratchet/breaker bar to turn cam and crank. Cam turns just fine, it gives a little resistance because it’s spring loaded due to valves. The crank turns about 2/3 the way around in both directions before it hits something and can’t turn anymore. So the crank seems alright. It appears to be the oil pump pulley which only wants to turn about 2 inches (5 cm) total. This “oil pump” I’m referring to is the big pulley located physically below the big injection pump pulley. I took some pics and will post in a couple hours. Does this sound right? Is the oil pump or its shaft or its mechanicals, easy enough to remove and either repair or replace?

 

[garciapiano]

You are referring to the intermediate shaft pulley which drives the vacuum pump, which drives the oil pump. It’s highly unlikely that the intermediate shaft or any of those components would seize the entire engine given their construction, if anything the belt would slip on the intermediate shaft pulley.

Why are you turning the cams with the timing belt disconnected? You run the risk of bending valves.

You say the “crank seems fine” when it does not turn around completely. This makes zero sense. I’m 99% sure you have a bent valve or some sort of deformity that is causing a piston to seize in the bore.

 

[Steve Addy]

1. OK we disconnected the starter physically, and when we went to hit the starter switch, the starter turned at a high speed, and smoothly. So it’s not the starter motor.
2. We removed the timing belt, and tried using ratchet/breaker bar to turn cam and crank. Cam turns just fine, it gives a little resistance because it’s spring loaded due to valves. The crank turns about 2/3 the way around in both directions before it hits something and can’t turn anymore. So the crank seems alright. It appears to be the oil pump pulley which only wants to turn about 2 inches (5 cm) total. This “oil pump” I’m referring to is the big pulley located physically below the big injection pump pulley. I took some pics and will post in a couple hours. Does this sound right? Is the oil pump or its shaft or its mechanicals, easy enough to remove and either repair or replace?

You need to turn the engine (at the crankshaft) with the timing belt installed so that the values open and close in coordination with the piston movement, otherwise you will (unless the cam is removed) likely have a valve / piston collision and hence the reason (I think) you found that, "The crank turns about 2/3 the way around in both directions before it hits something."

As for the oil pump pulley, I think you mean the intermediate shaft pully, which drives the vacuum pump / oil pump. Since that involves several components you'll need to figure out which one caused the problem. It's hard to say which one given the limited info we have, but if it only moves a little bit there's something wrong. Further, if this shaft quits moving then you lose oil pressure because it drives the oil pump, and it can quit moving because it's driven by the non-toothed side of the timing belt.

If you lost oil pressure you'll need to do further investigation, there's a lot of things that rely on oil pressure to maintain integrity...a lot.

And finally, why your starter didn't turn when you turned the key? That's really suspicious that it would work now but not in the car by the normal engagement mehanism, especially since it's done so for a while now I assume? What's the 'starter switch' in this case? Is it normal ignition switch or a 'bypassed' setup that uses a cheesy push button of some sort?

Steve

 

[Steve Addy]

C’mon Steve- give him hope. I kinda missed him posting...

Chris- pull the starter and rule it out of the equation...

-Todd

I stand by my original comment...

Steve

 

[ToddA1]

^^meh, I tried, but had an idea it was toast, with all of the stretched belts and warning from the shop about the tensioner.

Next thread....?

-Todd

 

[Mongler98]

valves are hitting, or something has dropped in the head. probably a valve seat.
cant believe you have not pulled the head yet. thanks for the update, i know its difficult for you to get anything done to it.

 

[Chris_TDI_98]

When we removed this oil pump, the intermediate shaft pulley suddenly is able to turn freely as it’s supposed to.

We also removed the vacuum pump, which runs off the oil pump, and disassembled both, they seem fine, except the oil pump binds up ever so slightly at one point in its revolution. However note this very negligible binding up is nowhere near enough friction to seize up the intermediate shaft pulley and stall out the engine.

When we reinstall these (oil pump and vacuum pump), the intermediate shaft pulley locks up hard, and can rotate only about an inch forward or backward.

Cause of seize? Fixable? Next steps?

 

[Chris_TDI_98]

Bump! Any input on solving this mechanical engine problem guys??

 

[Jetta SS]

Sounds like a clearance problem of some kind. Once assembled and tightened it binds. Do the pumps sit flush before tightening?

Could the IMS bearings possibly be worn enough to cause it?

I've no experience here, just throwing out what I'd look at.

 

[ToddA1]

I had a 1.9 idi do something similar years ago. As soon as the oil pump was torqued to the block , I couldn’t rotate the drive tang. I ended up replacing the pump, although it looked perfect.

Keep the vacuum pump out, and install the oil pump. Try to rotate the drive tang.

-Todd