Timing belt broke!! BEW MK4 Golf

D

Donoross27

Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2021
Location
Warman, Saskatchewan Canada
TDI
06 golf mk4 - PD Bew
Looking to get some advice from the TDI guru's. Little bit of back story, I purchased my first VW/TDI beggining of April as a highway commuter. 2006 Golf MK4 PD-Bew. It needed a few things, one being glow plugs as there was an engine code for them. Changing out the glow plugs I found cyl#3 plug tip missing. I assumed it had broken off before owning as it didnt look fresh and engine ran great! I decided to run it and take my chances, 4 new CZ104 plugs, After about 50km of driving I was on route for an alignment and the Tbelt popped on the highway, I had Inspected the belt when doing maintenance as the previous owner didnt have a direct answer when it was done. Looked old but not ready to snap. Fast forward a weekend, I have the head and all timing components off.

What Im wanting to know is where I am at with it.
Is the head salvageable?
Is the bottom end worth looking into?
What all am I going to need to get this car back up and running?

I have posted picture links bellow of head, piston condition.

Head:
Cylinder #3:
Cylinder #1
Cylinder #2:
Cylinder #4:

The marks where the valves had hit the piston are barely catching by a nail and seem to be mostly carbon build up. My main concern is the damage the glow plug tip did to the piston & head. Best guess is the tip broke off the glow plug, worked its way into the exhaust valve causing strain in the valve train snapping the belt as all the timing pulleys and w/p were all good.

Reading through posts Frank06 and Oilhammer are the go to guys if they are still chiming in on posts. Thanks in advance, can post more pictures on request
 
mittzlepick

mittzlepick

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 18, 2001
Location
union maine
TDI
2004 jetta wagon (365k)2001 wagon tire burner 6spd 2003 wagon(417k)
Junkyard motor i swapped one out $425 30 day warranty. Exceptional deal 188k miles.
 
S

Stupendous60

Veteran Member
Joined
May 18, 2019
Location
.
TDI
.
Crap! Lesson #1 for future reference. Find/absolutely verify where missing part etc. ended up if it coulda ended up in the intake/cylinder. Me? No tip, on a removed glow plug by me, would warrant a search. I have not experienced a T belt failure (wood knocking) so let the experts chime. Also where did the tip go if it was the culprit? Out the exhaust to the turbo? Find the rest of the debris. Inspect the turbo vanes. You are in for a great learning experience.
 
mittzlepick

mittzlepick

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 18, 2001
Location
union maine
TDI
2004 jetta wagon (365k)2001 wagon tire burner 6spd 2003 wagon(417k)
I lost a tip beat up piston and head took out turbo upon exit
 
Mongler98

Mongler98

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Location
COLORADO (SE of Denver)
TDI
98 Jetta TDI AHU 1.9L (944 TDI swap in progress) I moved so now i got nothing but an AHU in a garage on a pallet.
either part it out or swap in a replacement engine. the IP and external parts are about all that's good on it now. if the turbo got goofed, then NOTHING internally on the engine is good anymore. pistons hitting valves ends up usually bending rods at this point.
maybe the crank and block are still good but you can get those for next to nothing so not worth saving. i've done lots of engine transplants and crazy swaps and builds yea yea yea.... lesson taken from all that, do it as simple and as fast as possible and move on. rebuilding what you have probably wont be as cheap and definitely much more time than just a replacement.
 
mittzlepick

mittzlepick

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 18, 2001
Location
union maine
TDI
2004 jetta wagon (365k)2001 wagon tire burner 6spd 2003 wagon(417k)
Hard Coolant line recycle yours if its not rusty. On alh they are different for the transmission cooler. I assume bew the same. Save your old injectors there worth 200 on the black market if there good
 
J

JohnTF

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 23, 2009
Location
St. Paul , MN.
TDI
2003 Jetta 1.9 TDI ALH A.T. Wagon
I did not see that you gave mileage of engine ?
The trick these days - do you know a good machine shop nearby [ so save on shipping ] .
Next is more inspection of head , back when I had a shop [ rebuilt lots of heads gas & diesel ] .
Then how much are you able to do , what kind of tools do you have , and if you have done some auto repair - you go the head off , so maybe .
Then does the machine shop [ if you know one ] do any welding - reason being , you do not want to leave those marks from parts bouncing around , they can become source of hottest / preignition / hotspots , so welding up making smooth flat surface , at min. using a ball peen hammer to keep high spots from getting hot , but welding & cutting smooth is best .
Then replacing all the valves [ that leak ] , and depending on how the valve seats are , at least some touch-up , at min. use lapping compound to get to see if you can get all valves to seal .
Then the valve guides , depending on how tight they are / or not , 1st step could be to have them knurld [ you could buy a knurling kit for not too much ] many machine shops might say if not too bad knurling gets tight again , and does a better lubing .
Lastly is surfacing head , here if you feel confident , disassembly of head before giving to shop to surface will save some labor $$ .

Generally if the pistons do not show much damage [ from what the pictures look like , not too bad ] the bottom end is ok , but a better look at how the cross-hatching is / left .

In the 80s I would have charged about $1,600 - tow in - drive out , complete valve job - new valves , cut all seats & knurl guides .
What a shop charges today ?
 
S

Stupendous60

Veteran Member
Joined
May 18, 2019
Location
.
TDI
.
Get the manual trans, shifter, cables, pedal etc. too. You are gonna want to swap auto for manual if possible..
 
PakProtector

PakProtector

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Location
AnnArbor, MI
TDI
Mk.4's and the Cummins
Confirm the cam on the donor engine is still good. That is a wild-card in the BEW family. There are plenty of forum posts on BEW cam wear. I got a BHW head to play with, and even with allegedly low miles( 200k km ), that puppy was toast. Half the came lobes were showing nose wear, one quite significant. The no.3 and 4 valves were closed so when the idiot who removed it set it down on something hard he wrecked the No.4 injector tip. Was hoping the set of PD135 injectors were going to be good...1043 nozzled, 1.1 solenooids and 8mm pumps would have made a nice upgrade for the BEW units...and this beast also had wear on the injector bores and on the injectors where they rocked a wee bit in the head...
cheers,
Douglas
 
D

Donoross27

Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2021
Location
Warman, Saskatchewan Canada
TDI
06 golf mk4 - PD Bew
Stupendous60 said:
Get the manual trans, shifter, cables, pedal etc. too. You are gonna want to swap auto for manual if possible..
Click to expand...
I looked through forums on doing the manual swap and for what its worth just going to stay auto on this one, 09a autos seem to be a decent trans from what I read aswell. Purchased the car as a money saver not a project car
 
D

Donoross27

Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2021
Location
Warman, Saskatchewan Canada
TDI
06 golf mk4 - PD Bew
PakProtector said:
Confirm the cam on the donor engine is still good. That is a wild-card in the BEW family. There are plenty of forum posts on BEW cam wear. I got a BHW head to play with, and even with allegedly low miles( 200k km ), that puppy was toast. Half the came lobes were showing nose wear, one quite significant. The no.3 and 4 valves were closed so when the idiot who removed it set it down on something hard he wrecked the No.4 injector tip. Was hoping the set of PD135 injectors were going to be good...1043 nozzled, 1.1 solenooids and 8mm pumps would have made a nice upgrade for the BEW units...and this beast also had wear on the injector bores and on the injectors where they rocked a wee bit in the head...
cheers,
Douglas
Click to expand...
Thanks. Fingers crossed unfortunately I wasnt able to open up the engine without purchase so well see how the insides look when I have it in the garage
 
D

Donoross27

Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2021
Location
Warman, Saskatchewan Canada
TDI
06 golf mk4 - PD Bew
JohnTF said:
I did not see that you gave mileage of engine ?
The trick these days - do you know a good machine shop nearby [ so save on shipping ] .
Next is more inspection of head , back when I had a shop [ rebuilt lots of heads gas & diesel ] .
Then how much are you able to do , what kind of tools do you have , and if you have done some auto repair - you go the head off , so maybe .
Then does the machine shop [ if you know one ] do any welding - reason being , you do not want to leave those marks from parts bouncing around , they can become source of hottest / preignition / hotspots , so welding up making smooth flat surface , at min. using a ball peen hammer to keep high spots from getting hot , but welding & cutting smooth is best .
Then replacing all the valves [ that leak ] , and depending on how the valve seats are , at least some touch-up , at min. use lapping compound to get to see if you can get all valves to seal .
Then the valve guides , depending on how tight they are / or not , 1st step could be to have them knurld [ you could buy a knurling kit for not too much ] many machine shops might say if not too bad knurling gets tight again , and does a better lubing .
Lastly is surfacing head , here if you feel confident , disassembly of head before giving to shop to surface will save some labor $$ .

Generally if the pistons do not show much damage [ from what the pictures look like , not too bad ] the bottom end is ok , but a better look at how the cross-hatching is / left .

In the 80s I would have charged about $1,600 - tow in - drive out , complete valve job - new valves , cut all seats & knurl guides .
What a shop charges today ?
Click to expand...
Engine only has 240000km on it and didnt look worn out at all other than the damage that was done. Crosshatching all good and no scoring from the debris. I didnt get any quotes on redoing the head but in the end I doubt I could do less than $1100 plus my time which is what I can do the motor swap with new timing components for. Id still be taking a gamble on the bottom en aswell
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top