Beyond Help?

Oh and have plenty new fuel hose type vacuum pipe handy!

Yes, new head to manifold gaskets, and if you do remove the turbo there is nothing between it and the manifold, it is simply metal to metal clamped really tightly. A gasket set will give you everything you need including oil seals and stem seals. The head gasket comes separately as there are three types available. Another word of advice, when you refit the valves use new valve split cotters, they are about 75p each from VW and you need 16 of them. The old ones could be damaged and you can not tell with the naked eye sometimes. The last thing you want is for them to fail when the engine is running and a valve to drop into the chamber.

Sounds like a faulty switch to me. Does the relay in the fuse box click when you operate the switch?

The bearing in my clutch housing has become very noisy, just looked into getting one from VW, the clutch assemby is a complete unit with the bearing in it and costs

To be honest the pistons are pretty sturdy as are the big ends and gudgeon pins. I have seen engines that snapped their belts at around 4K RPM and the pistons were fine. The valves are inexpensive as are the lifters. As long as the lifters come out OK you should be OK head-wise too, but check for broken valve guides, they can be replaced. If any lifters are stuck it could be for one of two reasons: The valve has punched through the bottom or the lifter has balooned out. If the lifter has balooned then the lifter hole must be checket to make sure it has not become oversized. Note: KEEP THE OLD HEAD GASKET! You will need it to identify the thickness of the new one! Normally you will not need to have the head skimmed. You will probably need some half moon spanners to remove the exhaust down pipe from the turbo as room is very restricted. Al though it is discouraged it is possible to remove the turbo from the manifold. If you do this you must use new nuts and washers when you refit it.

surely in the on but not started position, it would keep the glow plugs heated, ready for you to start the car??? No, they only heat for a minute, if the engine is not cranked they turn off. They use a fairly high amperage and if they stayed on indefinitely waiting for the engine to be started they would soon flatten the battery.

There are at least two models of booster heater, the newer one gives out more heat. To do this they changed the metering pump and fitted a coolant pump. However the original glow plugs were still fitted. They can not always cope with the fouling from the fuel as the increased fuel dispensed cools the plug giving clouds of white smoke from un-burned fuel. The main 'fix' on the newer units is to fit a new glow plug, as they are now a revised item that glows hotter quicker. That solves most of the problems. That would be the place I would start looking.

Mine is broken where it bolts to the block, one of the lugs is broken off and it is a common fault. I used a small repair washer and a smear RTV to fix mine.

Bosch. Because they make them for VW, who sell them to Ford.....

Well I just did a 1000+ mile round trip in my 135K miles TDi and averaged 53 MPG. I don't think your problem is your injectors. Your K&N, is it a panel filter? And yes, I would want to see the MAF and the Turbo boost graphs before I spent over

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As said, there is no 'predictive pre-warming' on opening the door or unlocking it. It is simply that the glow-plugs have two coils in them, the first one is quite fine and heats up very quickly, but only stays on for a second until the main coil glows hot enough for prolonged use. The plugs stay on after the engine is started to help reduce white smoke. And if you think glow plugs are not really needed then turn the key, but not to the cranking position. Now leave it for five minutes until the plugs have cooled down and then try to start the car. Not needed?

That is pretty much nonsense I am afraid. If it sounds like something is being hit then the valves are being hit.

Generally with a diesel if the engine is turning over quickly then there is a loss of compression. If the timming is out enough to cause a loss of compression then normally the valves will have been struck. Is it smoking at all when turning over?

:lol ;): Care to share the joke?

Cheers for that, i have one of those marine suction pumps and have used that a few times ,i recently read a review that said although it was a decent tool it could never get rid of all the old oil and what bit was left in would shorten the effectiveness of the new oil , so a proper draining it will get ;) Whilst the oil left in will effect the life of the oil, you will never ever get all the oil out anyway as there will be some in the oil cooler and the head, turbo spindle bearings etc. If you want to change the oil with the tray on you just need to back the rear of the car up the ramps a little then all the oil will be at the front of the sump where the dipstick hole is. That is how many majors do it, they don't touch the sump plug or under-tray, especially on PD engines where the filter is further up the engine.

No, I don't mean Dingbro. I said and mean Partco (the retail arm of Unipart who make the sensors Ford sell.) ;)

I am pretty sure that that VagCom does not communicate with MK1 booster heaters ( at least it doesn't on my 1998 model, although it could be knackered ). Don't think that there is an ECU fault log to reset ! The MK1 heater is a 'dumb unit' that does not communicate with the OBD II port. If it is not working then you need to bridge the temperature sensor under the bonnet. Open the heater up and check the fan moves, it will do this when you start the car, have an assistant start the car and look. If it is not moving then the motor could be faulty. Check for voltage at the connector. If that is fine then use a multi-meter to check and see if the glow plug is open circuit. If it is it is knackered, change it. If not then remove it and using some fly leads momentarily connect it to the battery. If the tip got hot then it is fine, if not then connect again but for a second, does it get hot? If not it is knackered. If it does get hot, put it back and check for 8v at the connector. Find the metering pump, it is on a fuel line under the car and has a connector on it. The connections can corrode, check they are clean and you get a pulsing 12v when the engine is running. If your getting pulses then put the connector back on and start the car, does the heater start? If not then the metering pump could be the fault. No pulses and your going to have troubleshoot the connector to the unit, if your getting pulses from there then you need to check the wiring to the metering pump. Finally if all this fails, is the unit getting the required signals from the car to start? When I find my circuit diagram I will post up the connector pin-outs.

Why do you feel they need changed? They are pretty good, unless you have done starship miles they should be servicable.

Yep, my money would be on an inner CV joint failing. They are a tripodic joint and can work whilst almost in bits, but when they fail, boy do they fail! Put the car on ramps and take the under-tray off. Now try to shake the driveshafts where they go into the main body of the inner (gearbox) CV joint, if they move about more than a little then they are probably goosed.

It is common, the wiper linkages are pretty poor. You could strip them down and grease them with some copper grease if you were inclined.

Seems right in the ball-park to me, 3 hours is about right although a mechanic with a lot of experience on this type of car could have perhaps shaved half an hour off. Parts wise a belt is about

No web site they are a local outlet, my aunty used to work in the Dunfermline branch some time ago! They have a branch in Kirkcaldy (Tel: (01592) 266171) and one in Dundee (Tel: (01382) 322041) They van parts out to local garages and dealers etc. Why not give them a call?

OK, you would be looking at about