Intercooler icing solution my way.

tramsd311

Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2020
Location
ny
TDI
2014 sportwagen manual
Mods... Move this wherever appropriate I just want people to be able to see this when they google around to solve this issue their own way.


I had icing issues last winter which was my first month owning the car... I didn't really solve it the weather got nice and I've been fine since, until it got cooler and I stared ingesting water. Meanwhile... I had dpf failure and when I removed my skid plate I found a big sloppy mess


So turns out the hot side charge pipe(the expensive one that is dealer only) was cracked and spraying sludge everywhere. Also I found leaky ic hose connections. So bought new seals and that pipe and then noticed the water ingestion symptoms. So researched and there's a lengthy thread here somewhere about drilling a hole and I don't see anyone coming back saying they're car blew up subsequently so I went for it...but, I improved it a bit. I dried the hole maybe 3/32" and screwed in a roofing screw. That's summer mode.

There's winter mode engaged. Open hole. But that would make a sludgy mess again and I'm not about that. Sooo. I took a 1 inch plastic abs pipe and made a "road draft tube" the oil can drip/spray freely beyond the skid plate and below the car before being sucked away into the "slipstream"

Pretty simple, just cut the corner yeah off my skid plate, hole saw through the litter bumper closeout, and zip tie the pipe to the ic by drilling through the pipe then zip tie around it into a couple holes in the closeout.

Test drive revealed the following...

Clean skid plate but did anything come through?

Finger dabbed the tube... Looks effective. Good luck dudes.
 

JesseTDI

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 23, 2018
Location
Missouri
TDI
2012 Golf TDI, Premium package
I've never had a problem with just blocking off the grille when the temps drop below 40 degrees. If I don't do it I Ice up but ZERO problems with it blocked off.
 

tramsd311

Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2020
Location
ny
TDI
2014 sportwagen manual
I have my grill blocked. I was getting a stumble when rolling into throttle after chugging along or first starting out in the morning. Removal of the hose revealed water. We'll see how this goes as temps drop well below zero as per usual
 

tramsd311

Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2020
Location
ny
TDI
2014 sportwagen manual
The river valley is fun up here because it's always humid and sometimes incredibly cold and you may swing 60-75*f in 24 hours
 

vincej

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 26, 2015
Location
Calgary
TDI
2014 Golf Wagon
A couple of days ago I had a hard start which took about 30 seconds to clear itself. Hopefully there was no internal damage and since then I did a hundred kilometer round trip. I never had this happen last year so will reinstall the lower grille cover and hopefully it will be OK. I don't know enough about it yet about which pipe to remove to get the water out or where to drill the hole. I won't try to repeat start it next time if it happens again.
 

tramsd311

Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2020
Location
ny
TDI
2014 sportwagen manual
The hose is on the passenger side of the car up front. There's a quick connect fitting to the intercooler. Pop that off. Water should run out. Fix it however you want. Do some reading . As others have stayed sometimes a grill cover is all you need. I did that, and removed the intake snorkel and still had water in there each morning causing a stumble.i have tested it for two days now with the modification above and I have had no more stumble and no oil on my garage floor other than the pig mats that lives under that abs pipe.
 

06bluebeetletdi

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2012
Location
Middlesex, NC
TDI
'14 Passat TDI SEL and '13 Beetle TDI
Starting my first full winter of a grill cover on my beetle, lucky for me a bug only has one grill. I’m also taking the hose off every 5000 miles.
 

Matt927

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2013
Location
Northeast
TDI
several
The Volkswagen fix exacerbated the problem by the overly aggressive EGR flow as well.
 

Thunder Chicken

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 19, 2012
Location
Sioux Lookout, Ontario
TDI
2012 Golf Wagon
I’m curious how the grille cover helps? Isnt the issue water caused by condensation ‘inside’ the inter cooler? Water that comes from humid air? Is the grille guard that effective in keeping the intercooler from doing its job of cooling? Or am I totally out to lunch?
 

tramsd311

Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2020
Location
ny
TDI
2014 sportwagen manual
I’m curious how the grille cover helps? Isnt the issue water caused by condensation ‘inside’ the inter cooler? Water that comes from humid air? Is the grille guard that effective in keeping the intercooler from doing its job of cooling? Or am I totally out to lunch?
Yes. If the air isn't chilled then it doesn't condense and then it isn't liquid water. Used to see this on the big rigs all the time when people were too lazy to snap on a winter front.
 

ShelbyRazorback

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 31, 2018
Location
WI
TDI
2012 Golf TDI 6MT (traded in). None at the moment.
In your pic of your blocked off grille I notice that you have the insulation on every other horizontal "bar". I noticed a gap when I did mine like that so I put the foam on every one. I wonder if that gap is enough to let just enough air in to cause the issue. This year I lost some of my foam from last year. I had a 1" piece that I used along with what I did find of my last year's cover.

This is what mine looks like this year....

I usually put some in the upper grille too but I had an accident and it hasn't been 30 days yet. I'm hoping to put wax on it before it gets too cold and then put the foam in the upper as well. I don't know if I'll mess up the paint if I do it too soon.
 

Matt927

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2013
Location
Northeast
TDI
several
Concerning waxing the car with new paint, you should be fine after two weeks. I would just double check with the body shop.
 

tramsd311

Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2020
Location
ny
TDI
2014 sportwagen manual
In your pic of your blocked off grille I notice that you have the insulation on every other horizontal "bar". I noticed a gap when I did mine like that so I put the foam on every one. I wonder if that gap is enough to let just enough air in to cause the issue. This year I lost some of my foam from last year. I had a 1" piece that I used along with what I did find of my last year's cover.

This is what mine looks like this year....

I usually put some in the upper grille too but I had an accident and it hasn't been 30 days yet. I'm hoping to put wax on it before it gets too cold and then put the foam in the upper as well. I don't know if I'll mess up the paint if I do it too soon.
I might try a tighter blockage. So far no issues and my engine is coming up. To temp okay but it's only been down to 20f here as yet this year
 

ShelbyRazorback

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 31, 2018
Location
WI
TDI
2012 Golf TDI 6MT (traded in). None at the moment.
Concerning waxing the car with new paint, you should be fine after two weeks. I would just double check with the body shop.
I asked when I picked it up. Body shop said 30 days. I was thinking "it'll be too cold to wax by then and I'll have salt on my new paint" :confused:
 

ShelbyRazorback

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 31, 2018
Location
WI
TDI
2012 Golf TDI 6MT (traded in). None at the moment.
I might try a tighter blockage. So far no issues and my engine is coming up. To temp okay but it's only been down to 20f here as yet this year
My line of thinking was I want to prevent as much air as possible from going through. I know a bunch of air will enter into the upper grille which is why I would block that off as well. I was thinking I would try to block off all of it knowing that air will still get there, it's not air tight by any stretch of the imagination.
 

tramsd311

Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2020
Location
ny
TDI
2014 sportwagen manual
A winter front would be nice. But I guess that's too much to ask. It would also be nice if it was easy to slide a pizza box down in there
 

ShelbyRazorback

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 31, 2018
Location
WI
TDI
2012 Golf TDI 6MT (traded in). None at the moment.
A winter front would be nice. But I guess that's too much to ask. It would also be nice if it was easy to slide a pizza box down in there
I wish we could just slide cardboard down in front easily. Easy to do with my RAM (V10, not diesel). Haven't looked at the wife's Tiguan yet (non diesel).
 

JesseTDI

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 23, 2018
Location
Missouri
TDI
2012 Golf TDI, Premium package
A winter front would be nice. But I guess that's too much to ask. It would also be nice if it was easy to slide a pizza box down in there
Go to lowes and buy 2 of those split foam pipe insulation tubes, smallest size is fine and a bag of zip ties 15 min in your driveway with a knife to cut the foam and it will cost you less than $10.
 

tramsd311

Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2020
Location
ny
TDI
2014 sportwagen manual
Go to lowes and buy 2 of those split foam pipe insulation tubes, smallest size is fine and a bag of zip ties 15 min in your driveway with a knife to cut the foam and it will cost you less than $10.
Did you get that idea from the pictures I posted? Because that's exactly what I did, and I posted pictures in this thread where that is visible
 

vincej

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 26, 2015
Location
Calgary
TDI
2014 Golf Wagon
Ours is hard to start when cold, like a year or more ago. We do have the lower grill covered with plastic cardboard. I pulled the intercooler hoses and only a few drips of oily water came out of the RH side so I don't think that is the problem. Maybe one or more of the glow plugs aren't working as well as they are supposed to.
BTW, what is that bakelite type cap that is upside down between the hoses? It kind of looks like the cap over the oil filter.
 

DivineChaos

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Jul 27, 2019
Location
Minnesota
TDI
mk6 jetta sportwagen tdi
Mods... Move this wherever appropriate I just want people to be able to see this when they google around to solve this issue their own way.


I had icing issues last winter which was my first month owning the car... I didn't really solve it the weather got nice and I've been fine since, until it got cooler and I stared ingesting water. Meanwhile... I had dpf failure and when I removed my skid plate I found a big sloppy mess


So turns out the hot side charge pipe(the expensive one that is dealer only) was cracked and spraying sludge everywhere. Also I found leaky ic hose connections. So bought new seals and that pipe and then noticed the water ingestion symptoms. So researched and there's a lengthy thread here somewhere about drilling a hole and I don't see anyone coming back saying they're car blew up subsequently so I went for it...but, I improved it a bit. I dried the hole maybe 3/32" and screwed in a roofing screw. That's summer mode.

There's winter mode engaged. Open hole. But that would make a sludgy mess again and I'm not about that. Sooo. I took a 1 inch plastic abs pipe and made a "road draft tube" the oil can drip/spray freely beyond the skid plate and below the car before being sucked away into the "slipstream"

Pretty simple, just cut the corner yeah off my skid plate, hole saw through the litter bumper closeout, and zip tie the pipe to the ic by drilling through the pipe then zip tie around it into a couple holes in the closeout.

Test drive revealed the following...

Clean skid plate but did anything come through?

Finger dabbed the tube... Looks effective. Good luck dudes.
What skidolate is that? Any chance I could get dementions and a few pics?
 

turbobrick240

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Nov 18, 2014
Location
maine
TDI
2011 vw golf tdi(gone to greener pastures), 2001 ford f250 powerstroke
That's a beefy splashguard more than a skidplate, imo. I believe ECS sells them. They use the stock splashguard mounting points rather than hard mounts that a true skidplate like a Panzer plate uses.
 

tjg

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 8, 2019
Location
Ft. Hood, TX
TDI
'13 TDI A3, '14 TDI Sportwagen
What skidolate is that? Any chance I could get dementions and a few pics?
yea you're not going to want that if you're looking for anything other than a replacement for the plastic undertray... though you could use it if you make your own metal mounting brackets for it that allow you to mount it to the vehicle frame/subframe.
 

DivineChaos

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Jul 27, 2019
Location
Minnesota
TDI
mk6 jetta sportwagen tdi
yea you're not going to want that if you're looking for anything other than a replacement for the plastic undertray... though you could use it if you make your own metal mounting brackets for it that allow you to mount it to the vehicle frame/subframe.
Oh just dementions to make my own. I like the looks of this more than the stock plastic one.
 

turbobrick240

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Nov 18, 2014
Location
maine
TDI
2011 vw golf tdi(gone to greener pastures), 2001 ford f250 powerstroke
If you still have the OE splashguard, just trace it out onto some thin sheet metal and go to town with tin snips. Then drill out the holes. Honestly though, the OE tray will do a better job of keeping the underside clean.
 
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