Mk4 Golf diesel machine

[Gallons Per Mile]

Update time again!

Carrying on from where I left off, next thing to do was remove the tappets and bottom half of the cam journal bearings from the head. The tappets are ruined! I think there were only a couple that weren't dished, and all were really scratched as you can see. The bearings are looking a bit worn too:



Good thing the new tappets that came with the cam kit are uprated hardened items. Here they are installed and with some break-in lube on top for good measure. The new halves of the journal bearings are in too, again with break-in lube squeezed all over them:



Another angle. You can't really see the break-in lube on the bearings very well but it's a nice snot green colour



Pic of the break-in lube in case you're interested in what I used. The bearings are to go in to the cam caps. Sorry for the out of focus pics, using my phone with oily gloves on doesn't really help!



Here are the bearings that came out of the caps:



Once I removed the bearings I cleaned the caps up and stuck the new bearings in place:



TIme to get the cam in place. Plenty of break-in lube went on this and I also poured fresh oil all over it when doing the oil change:



Time to get the caps on. Plenty of break-in lube on these bearings too:



Caps in place, tightened down. It's starting to look like an engine again:



Next up, rocker arms. I needed 8 new bolts for this from VW as they didn't come as part of the cam kit. They cost £65 AFTER some discount!



Just a pic to show the new cam seal in place, and the small amount on instant gasket it's recommended to put on the end cap before you bolt the cam down. That should seal nicely and not leak. If you look at the pics up there ^ the old seal was just about starting to weep.



While I've still got the cam cover off, I'd better change that injector loom too. It's bathed in oil and over time and heat cycles it seems to break down leading to rough running. Pointless not doing it if I've come this far! Here's the shiny new one:



Removing the old one:



Yet another part of the engine bay I've got to take apart to be able to do something else... Top half of the air box had to move to allow the old loom out and the new one in:



New loom in and connected up to the injectors. Another job ticked off!



The old oil was drained and new poured all over the shiny new cam, then I buttoned up the engine. It's looking less serious now, just the cam belt to go, really!



Another 'while I'm there' job, as mentioned above was the water pump. Good thing I heeded the advice, the one on the car was a genuine VAG part and it had the plastic impeller:



The inevitable small spillage you get when removing the pump. At least the block looks nice and clean in there:



Shiny new pump ready to go on. It's a Circoli branded pump and has a metal impeller. Hopefully this will be good for a while:



Now we're really making some progress. Water pump is now on, as are the two cam pulleys and the tensioner pulley. You can see I've timed the engine back up to TDC too with that allen key sticking out of the cam pulley. Interestingly the timing hole in my cylinder head isn't 6mm and the timing pin wouldnt fit. I couldn't even get a 5.5mm allen key in there, so the 5mm did the trick!



Now for the fun part... Setting the tension on the timing belt and not cocking the hydraulic damper up! It took quite a bit of fiddling but I got there in the end. I used drill bits so I could set the gap between the tensioner arm and the damper body fairly accurately. It's supposed to be 4mm +/- 1mm and that's about what I got. I couldn't get a 5mm drill bit in the gap but the 4mm was a bit loose, so I'd say that was bang on. I turned the engine over by hand a couple of times too and everthing seemed perfect. Lots of compression could be felt and it all turned over smoothly. Happy days




I could now get a few more bits back in to the engine bay, so the engine mount, expansion tank and power steering reservoir went back on. It's really getting there now:



Next thing was to get the bottom timing belt cover and the aux pulley back on. Four new bolts from VW (after rounding the originals up there ^) only cost a fiver. Much more reasonable than those expensive rocker arm stretch bolts...



With that on, all that was left was a few bits and pieces of finishing off. Oh, and I remembered to put a cable tie around the CV boot that the clip had fallen off!

The moment of truth, will it turn over ok on the starter motor? I left the injector loom disconnected so I could build up some oil pressure before firing up as I needed to go straight to 2000rpm and bed the cam in for 20 mins.

There's always a nervous moment when turning the car over after major work that affects the timing, but I'm pleased to say I was pretty confident I'd got everything back together how it should be. I flicked the key and everything sounded great. Time to connect the injector loom and actually run the cam in then!



The tappets got some oil pressure straight away it seems as I only had a tapping for about half a second and then all was quiet. The car is far smoother than before and obviously quieter too. It was a tad boring having to sit there for 20 mins but I was happy with the fact I'd definitely killed many birds with one stone!

After the initial bedding in of the cam I got my laptop out and checked the sync angle again:



Looks pretty good to me! I took the car for a test drive as I needed fuel and it seems great on the road. Plenty of torque and power, eager to accellerate, so all round a successful chunk of work

The only thing that slightly bugs me is that I set up the tension of the belt as per the Haynes spec, but it's giving me the classic howling noise of an over-tight belt. It's only slight but it wasn't there before... I've been over to a friend with a PD130 Golf and had a look at how tight the belt was on that car. It's ever so slightly less tight than how I've set mine, so I guess I just need to loosen mine off a bit, but that'll give me a larger gap on the hydraulic damper. What do you lot reckon? I'm thinking I should loosen it a tad and have another listen. If it doesn't sound tight then leave it like that and not worry about the silly damper gap. Sound like a plan?

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martin mrt said:

Excellent write up of your ongoing ownership.

The PD 130/150 are definitely the puck of the mk4 range (r32 excepted) imo

I’ve had a few mk4s and touch wood haven’t fallen foul of the 150 cam failure yet

Thanks! Yep, it's a good all round car for doing every-day stuff in, which is partly why I decided it was worth repairing. My friend's had loads of Mk4 PD's and not had a cam problem either, so maybe I was just unlucky.

I can't really complain though - I'm keeping a cost sheet going on this car. I've just spent £700 in bits to get it running again and even after all that it's cost me less than 13p a mile, assuming I sold it tomorrow and got £0 back for it. Not bad really, and I hope it's now good for many more miles yet!

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colin_p said:

Legend!

I want you tell me how you manged that engine mounting?

As for the yowling noise, I had that on the Wifes car. I personally think that the belt feels way too tight when the 4mm is achieved. The yowling did stop after a week or two though and the car has been fine since (early 2016 and 20k on it since).

Haha thanks! Well, the mount came out with just the right amount of jacking the engine up/down, removing the cam pulleys and tensioner pulley, undoing the cam sensor and moving it out of the way, and undoing the power steering return pipe that bolts to the back of the block. With all that undone it just about comes out. To get it back in again I had to remove the new hydraulic damper I'd just put in and it went in easily. It was just fiddly doing everything back up around the mount, but you get used to it!

Hmm, I don't want the belt to be over-tight though. It's only fractionally tighter than the one on my friend's car and mine only has a slight noise, but I don't want to do any damage after all that work. So you just left yours at around the 4mm gap setting and it's been ok ever since? Interesting... maybe I should wait a little while too.

BTW thanks for all the advice and tips through my thread. They've been really helpful. Have a virtual pint

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helix402 said:

Great work. Keep an eye on the water pump though. I fitted a Circoli once and it leaked after a very short time.

Thanks, will do. It seems like a good bit of kit, felt every bit as well made as the one that came off with the obvious advantage of a metal impeller. Fingers crossed!

[Gallons Per Mile]

A small update this time!

I'm somewhere near 2k miles in after the cam/timing belt/water pump etc work above. All seems good, but the belt still sounds a bit louder than I'd like. I'm tempted to slacken it off a bit for peace of mind. It goes well again and is returning good MPG so I'm happy. I'm back under 13p/mile too even after spending £700ish on parts for the work above. Can't really complain!

The weather's started to cheer up and I realised I can't actually remember the last time I washed the car... It was probably Autumn time last year but I really don't know! The recent rain and driving on motorways had done some of the cleaning for me but I was still left with this:

Minging interior:



Dark blue hides the dirt quite well:






I'm not a detailer. I like a clean car without scratches etc the same as anyone who likes their cars but I'm not getting anal about an old Golf*. I just use a bit of common sense, a lambswool mitt thing, a git guard in the bottom of the bucket and some car shampoo. That'll do for me

• That said, I did machine polish it/wax it last year to get rid of the worst scratches in the lacquer and try to hide the terrible 'smart' repairs...

Looking better already:



Machine polishing it last year obviously helped, all I did was dry the car off and it looks pretty presentable:



It could probably do with some more wax, but I just can't be bothered at the moment!

I did find this had happened over winter though:



Those aren't rain drops in the pic, they're micro blisters. Someone's been at the paint work in the past and there is moisture trapped under the paint. It shows up as these blisters. I didn't see any more on the car, and this wing's had a couple of big stone chips too so I might get the spray gun out and repaint it when the weather warms up a bit more. Again, if I can be bothered to sort it!

I forgot to take a pic of the cleaned interior, but safe to say it doesn't look like you're going to catch the plague any more. I did find a squidgey sopping wet carpet under that drivers mat though. Looks like door seals are now on the shopping list

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With all the bad weather we've been having, it was about time to sort out the water leak. I bought new door seals and set about changing them. I didn't realise you have to remove most of the interior just to change the seal though... Half of it is hidden behind some plastic trim, and to remove it you need to take out some other plastic trim first. You also have to remove the rear door card to get the sill trim completely off, but to get the rear door card off you need to remove the rear seats... AHHH!

The carpet was wet anyway and I needed to have a look under there. Things escalated:

Removing the trim. So much easier if the front seats aren't in:



Already quite a collection of bits and I'm only just getting started!



Ok, getting there now. Everything stopping the carpet coming out is out of the way:



I needed to make this cut in the carpet. It must go in before the dashboard in the factory, and there's no way I was taking a load more stuff out for the sake of making a cut you'll never see as it's hidden behind the centre console plastics. I've got a 'quick release' carpet now



You can see what I mean better in the picture:



Huzzah! Carpet is out of the car. It was fairly dry actually, but the sound deadening underneath on the drivers side was sopping wet:



Removing the sound deadening:



Front floor pan is in perfect condition still:



So is the rear:



Hold on, no it isn't! Looks like someone didn't know where to jack it up in the past...



I wet vac'd the carpet and front seats, so here's the gratuitous pic of the manky water afterwards:



Seats came up virtually like new, and they were hardly bad before:



With all the interior out and new door seal in place on the drivers side it was a good time to test and see if the leak was fixed. Good thing I did!



So, it wasn't the door seal all along! The work wasn't in vain though, I cleaned and dried out the carpet and sound deadening so it didn't stink any more. Also, the preious owner had put some cigarette burns in the fabric trim on the A pillar that is all part of the door seal, so those were removed a bonus. I found the real source of the leak, running over the top of the door seal:



That'll be the membrane on the inner door panel then. Door card off:



There's the leak!



The butyl tape seal was falling apart, no wonder it was leaking:



This all needed cleaning off:



Much better now:



Rear of the inner panel cleaned up too:



I didn't have any butyl tape to hand so tried to make a thick gasket out of instant gasket as a temporary measure. I left it to semi dry and put it back on the car:



With that done, and the sound deadening and carpet dry, the next day I put it all back together:



Result: much nicer smelling interior! The instant gasket temporary seal worked better than the old dead butyl tape but still wasn't sealing properly so I ordered some more from Ebay and fixed it properly a few days afterwards. No more leaks!

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Good tip re the cable ties! My carpet seems to be going nowhere at the mo, It's held in pretty well with all the other bits that go on top!

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colin_p said:

As always, top bananering!

Has the belt shooshed down a bit now? Did you slacken it off?

They really are good cars, even now over 20 years since they were launched. We have no plans to sell the Wifies one which is also used as a daily driver. It is a 2001 GT TDI 130. The only problem seems to be getting breakdown cover, but that was easily overcome.

Thanks, yes the belt seems ok now. I even ran it by my friendly mechanic mate and he said it sounds fine and is probably the water pump I can hear. He said not to worry about the gap for the hydraulic damper either, he's done millions without setting the gap properly and they've all been fine. Good to know! I've not slackened the belt either.

My car is the daily driver too. It does all the boring stuff and running up and down the motorway to work. They don't seem as old as they are, do they!

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Yay, it's that time again. Update!

This time, something slightly not what you might expect for an average oil-burning Golf. The Pistonheads Sporting Tour South

Yep. I took a diesel machine to a 'petrol'head event. Shame be upon me. In fairness, I'd booked the event with every intention of taking my Mk2 Golf, but I had a wobble, put it up for sale and hedged my bets by not thrashing it around the tour 'just in case'. I'm not actually sure I really want to sell it yet, but anyway, the Mk4 filled the slot and I guess I won the prize for 'most MPG achieved' or 'most body roll' on the tour or something... Incidentally, yes I did check, and even though I was three up in my car and I'd installed my lead foot I managed over 40MPG for the whole day including the cone slalom and rally stage at Brands

I cleaned the car in the dark on Friday night. In the morning it looked good, but the rain and mud on the country roads of Kent soon had it looking its usual self

This is the queue for the first auto test on the Grand Prix circuit:



The diesel machine in full Sporting Tour glory:



At the end of the day, parked in the corner and generally overlooked by everyone, wearing ususal camouflage of dirt:




Through the week leading up to the tour I'd noticed my rear drivers side making interesting noises under braking. I think the tour just about finished it off, but I pre-empted that with a nice Eurocarparts '50% off' brakes deal last week. I picked up a set of discs and pads for about £37. I had some free time today to get some maintenance done:

Looks like the pads been wearing a bit strangely. Also, that damper is toast. Not surprising really given the state of some of the roads we managed to find around Kent. I think managed to bounce my rear passenger almost off the seat at one point of hooning down a straight but extremely uneven road while trying not to loose the TVR in front...



The piston must be almost at the extent of its travel:



Hmm, outer pad is fine still:



Aha, inner pad is [French accent] wafer [/French accent] thin:



The piston must have stuck a bit. It was a bugger to wind back in so I exercised it in and out a couple of times and it did free up a bit. We'll see if I need a new caliper in the near future!

The disc was a bit rotten:




I cleaned the ABS sensor as it was covered in crud:



Everythings looking a bit better now. Here are the pads from the passenger side for comparison. Plenty of meat left:



The passenger side disc was similarly doomed:




This is the divers' side build back up and ready to go. Didn't bother taking a pic of the other side finished, but feel free to mirror image this pic and you'll get the idea



That's all for this time. Looks like the next update will involve dampers...

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I've been looking at getting new B4 dampers all round... Where did you find the Eibach spring/damper combo? Any links?

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Ok, thanks. Funnily enough I was looking at these from the same supplier. They're the correct type for my car, ie the 'sports' version, and they're cheaper to buy in pairs rather than a set of 4... I'll probably do it incrementally as I don't know whether I want to change the springs yet. I'm pretty sure all the dampers need doing so might as well get those and have a think about better springs. Not bothered about being low particularly but less body roll would be nice!

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Cool. Do you have any pics of your car lowered a bit? If it's not too drastic I might be interested in the future.

For now, I tried to order that pair of rear shocks I linked to but they're out of stock for the next month. I found the same part number listed 'for new beetle' even cheaper and saved a fiver. Result! I've also got some new rear top mounts on the way.

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No idea! I didn't look actually. I'll find out when I come to change them

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Update time again!

As suspected, this one involves rear dampers:

It's really rather simple to remove the rear damper on a Mk4 Golf. Take the wheel off, find your nearest 16mm socket/spanner, remove three bolts:



That took me all of 15 minutes of fannying around because I'd forgotten to retrieve my swan neck spanners from the back of the garage - my straight set that stays in the tool box doesn't have a 16mm...

Next thing, a sense of foreboding. Someone's been here before judging by the amount of copper grease on the bottom bolt and the top mount:




Lets take a close look at the damper I've just pulled off. Ahhh, it's not original and appears to be a Euro car parts special. 'Anschler' ?



Anyhoo, the foreboding wore off as there was nothing untoward found, and the copious copper grease did me a favour as everything came apart just fine.

helix402 said:

Bump stops ok? They’re normally in bits!

Yep. They're fine. Which was nice! Well... The passenger one was starting to break in two, but it'll certainly do for now:



On with the new bits. Which I forgot to get out of the house before I started, so had to fanny about and find them first

At last. New Bilstein B4 and Meyle top mounts:



Fitted up to the car:



I went for a test drive last night around some roads similar to those we used on the Sporting Tour. I can't belive the difference - it's like night and day. The rear end is planted and you can actually feel what's going on now, rather than just feeling like a wobbly magic carpet. I really didn't think 'standard' dampers would make such a massive difference. The only slight problem is that the front dampers now feel totally dead compared! I don't know if the old rear dampers were the 'sports' version or not, but they were extremely soft compared to the Bilsteins. It goes around corners much better even now, with half dead suspension

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integraf40 said:

This is pleasing to know! I've gone a similar route with you and have a Bora highline as a daily mile muncher which I've had for the last 6 months and it is a bit like a cross channel ferry around the corners. Good to know a fresh set of B4's can make this much difference, definitely on my shortlist of jobs now.

I'd definitely recommend it! I'm sure it didn't help that there were cheapo dampers on there in the first place but the difference really is that noticeable. I'm going to order some more B4's for the front soon. If you want part numbers for the 'sport' versions let me know, those are the ones you want.

Bora highlines were in my radar too when looking for a daily oil burner, but they were double the price of this Golf! Posh shedding, eh

[Gallons Per Mile]

Another boring update from the world of diesel machines Anyone still reading this?!

This time it's a service. The dash was telling me to service the car in 2000 miles counting down every 100 miles. Didn't take long for that to drop to 1400 with 100 mile round trip every time I go to work... Time to get the spanners out. The oil's the same stuff that went in when I did the cam change so it's had the break-in lube running around it all this time. I was going to change the oil about 5k miles ago but sort of forgot, and then the message came up on the dash! I've actually done almost exactly 9600 miles since the cam change, so I reckon all that hard work in the middle of winter was a success

I've been a bit busy of late and all I've really done is fill up with the devil's fuel and drive. Apart from vacuuming out the interior the other week because it was minging! Pics of the car in full battle worn mode:




It's looking pretty rotten, but the pics make it look nicer I did actually wash it at some point between January and now, maybe even a couple of times, but we've had plenty of rain, mud, stuck on flies etc since.

Engine bay looks rank too. Lots of abuse looks like this:



Let's get on with it then. I poked my head underneath and it looked pretty filthy unsurprisingly. I did a diversion around a few miles of lanes to avoid traffic the other week and with the wet weather it was more like a rally stage, hence all the mud under there. Note the interesting Heath Robinson cable tie setup to keep the bottom boost pipe where it should be. It's been like this since before I owned the car, and to be fair it's done the job. I might get around to replacing it one day, but for now, just checking everything's where it should be is good enough!




While we're on the subject of cable ties, remember the 'temporary' one I used to secure the CV boot back in January? Yep, forgot about that, but pleased it's still doing the job perfectly well. If it's not broken...



Right, let's do some actual work. Oil out:



I won't bore you with pics of old and new oil, air and fuel filters, but you get the idea. All swapped out while the oil was draining, sump plug back in and filled back up with oil.

I decided I should get the worst of the crud off the engine bay. Behold the wonders of an oily rag:



Not bad for 155k. I'm down to around 9p/mile now, and if I drive bang on 70 on the motorway all the way to work I get over 600 miles per tank, averaging about 55MPG. Not sure how long I want to do that for though. One test week was enough!

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colin_p said:

Nice.

For an oil and filter service a Pela 6000 or similar oil extractor is very useful and you can get more oil out than you would by doing just a gravity drain. It can be done, the whole process in less than 30 minutes without even putting a knee on the ground, let alone jacking the car up. Regular oil changes really benefit the PD TDI as well and for the sake of £30 for some PD spec oil and a filter plus 30 minutes of your time if using an extractor, it is silly not to. I do mine every 5,000 miles, probably OTT but I do it all the same.

You can put the oil extractor pipe down into the oil cooler once the filter is out and get another 200ml or so of oil out that just sits there otherwise on a gravity drain.

Top tip as well; Do the bulk oil filling through the filter housing before you fit the filter back. Much quicker and far less chance of a mess.

And, did you take the engine under tray off or was / is it missing? They can be got quite cheaply off ebay and will quieten down the tractor-ish-ness a bit and maybe improve the MPG's a tiny bit also.

Glad the car is serving you well. The MK4 in TDI form is a gem and a best kept secret.

Thanks for the tips. I've always thought a gravity drain was the best as you'll remove any rubbish in the bottom of the sump (hopefully). I warmed the oil up thoroughly before dropping it too by going to collect all the bits I'd need so it would flow more freely and in theory I'd get more out. Never thought about using the filter canister as a filling point. That's actually a very good idea. To be honest, I'm pretty careful so don't generally spill any when filling up via the conventional hole, but that's definitely an easier way to fill. I'll remember that for next time! Under tray has always been missing. I sort of need new arch liners too as they've been chewed at the front somehow...

Jimmy No Hands said:

Great work, the cam work would be incredibly daunting to me, are you a mechanic or just self taught? I've had a PD115 for two weeks and the 150s must feel like rocket ships as mine positively flies.

I've serviced it so far, thermostat change due to sticking open and that's about it, I am hoping I get some longevity out of it. I must take the EGR off for a clean soon, and it's due brakes all round.

All self taught. Nothing's that hard if you go about it methodically and use a bit of common sense My friend just took apart and rebuild the cylinder head on his E46 M3, including having the entire VANOS system down to component pieces. That was a bit more tricky than my cam change but again, once you see it all apart and do your homework it's not that bad really!

I bet you're loving the mid range torque at the moment, it's pretty good isn't it! Has the thermostat cured the problem? More often than not it's the coolant sensor in the pipe below the PD fuel pump on the right of the cylinder head. Might be worth changing that too for the sake of about a tenner. Keep on top of oil changes and only use the proper oil - it'll last forever like that! My local VW main dealer is doing the 5/40 Quantum stuff for £24 so I just use that. My EGR is a bit different to the one on your car but you can follow the pics I've taken more or less. Brakes are simple to do

Which reminds me, one of my rear calipers appears to be a little bit sticky sometimes... I'll have to have a look at that soon.

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greenarrow said:

Stuff...

Thanks! Yep it doesn't hang around in the mid range. I'm tempted to remap it as apparently they'll do somewhere around 200bhp with no other mods. I think they're about 1350kgs so no exactly light but the amount of torque makes it gain speed effortlessly. I don't know about dragging Volvo 850's, but it'll definitely hold 130 on the clock no problem... For a diesel engine, I've got to say I quite like it!

Jimmy No Hands said:

It certainly did. Neither the water temp or the oil temp gauge would move more than a tiny flutter, which lead me to believe the sensor was fine but the car was just looping the coolant and neither the water or the engine was managing to get up to temperature. Fortunately the AJM has good access to the thermostat housing, albeit fiddly, and is an easy enough job. Once reinstalled I went for a run, water now sits at a steady 90 and oil fluctuates between 80-90, usually 85. Cleared codes (had one for the sensor, but has not returned since changing the thermostat) and car has been fine since. Car has a full service history with regular oil changes, and two records of the belt and water pump. There are a few complaints about them chewing head gaskets but at this price point I'll take a risk.

I managed to get 5 litres of that Triple QX 5W40 stuff from Euros, for about £21. It meets VW 502.00/505.00 standards and I'll probably do it every 5k.

NSL slip road today in second and 20-60 seems to come round in no time, I'm pretty confident it has had a remap of some description.

Awesome, sounds like you've nailed the problem in that case! Not heard of problems with head gaskets but it'll be easy enough to sort out. My cam change was most of the way to taking the head off anyway and that wasn't scary, so don't worry even if it does go. Perfectly DIY-able.

They've got loads of torque as standard but they do shift with a remap. A friend had a PD130 with a map and that took it to around 170. It went like a stabbed rat

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Cool, what sort of power is stage 1? Your lumpiness could just be the map, or possibly glow plugs need changing?

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Nice! Just been for MOT and of course it passed with flying colours. I enquired about a remap while I was there and he reckons around 190bhp on his map for my car. Just debating if it's worth £200...