Mk4 Golf diesel machine
Discussion
Nice work and good cost of motoring. Mk4's seem to be rising in prices these days too so you'll have value in that car when you're at the end of your ownership. Gone are the days of a sub £1k PD (or 1.8T) mk4.
They seem to do well and withstanding rust.I can't find anything on mine and have had arch liners out and a good poke around underneath. I can weld so even if I found some it wouldn't be the end of mine.
Mines due some attention - annual service and I need to solve that slight feedback i get when driving through the steering wheel. Just don't want to spend out needlessly. Don't think it is track rods as no play (although a dust cover has split). I'll try the dogbone as looks original and 1st gear can be pain to get into until stopped. I also need to do my rear bushes which I am not looking forward to, went for some powerflex knock offs.
They seem to do well and withstanding rust.I can't find anything on mine and have had arch liners out and a good poke around underneath. I can weld so even if I found some it wouldn't be the end of mine.
Mines due some attention - annual service and I need to solve that slight feedback i get when driving through the steering wheel. Just don't want to spend out needlessly. Don't think it is track rods as no play (although a dust cover has split). I'll try the dogbone as looks original and 1st gear can be pain to get into until stopped. I also need to do my rear bushes which I am not looking forward to, went for some powerflex knock offs.
_Mja_ said:
Nice work and good cost of motoring. Mk4's seem to be rising in prices these days too so you'll have value in that car when you're at the end of your ownership. Gone are the days of a sub £1k PD (or 1.8T) mk4.
They seem to do well and withstanding rust.I can't find anything on mine and have had arch liners out and a good poke around underneath. I can weld so even if I found some it wouldn't be the end of mine.
Mines due some attention - annual service and I need to solve that slight feedback i get when driving through the steering wheel. Just don't want to spend out needlessly. Don't think it is track rods as no play (although a dust cover has split). I'll try the dogbone as looks original and 1st gear can be pain to get into until stopped. I also need to do my rear bushes which I am not looking forward to, went for some powerflex knock offs.
Cheers, I wasn't aware prices were rising. That's good news as I'm contemplating selling up and buying something petrolly instead. I just fancy a change - I've had the car almost exactly three years now so I feel it's time to drive something else. They seem to do well and withstanding rust.I can't find anything on mine and have had arch liners out and a good poke around underneath. I can weld so even if I found some it wouldn't be the end of mine.
Mines due some attention - annual service and I need to solve that slight feedback i get when driving through the steering wheel. Just don't want to spend out needlessly. Don't think it is track rods as no play (although a dust cover has split). I'll try the dogbone as looks original and 1st gear can be pain to get into until stopped. I also need to do my rear bushes which I am not looking forward to, went for some powerflex knock offs.
Your rear bushes will hopefully be surprisingly easy to do if the old ones have the plastic housing for the rubber part. One well-aimed drill hole and they'll just tap out of the beam.
I've got 800 miles until the dash explodes with warning messages about needing to be serviced NOW, so I've already bought the bits. I'll wait until we're at that point and get it all ship-shape, then it'll probably be time for a 'for sale' advert somewhere.
The Diesel Machine is dead 
Read on and find out how...
That last 800 miles came and went. The service was done bang on schedule and I decided I should probably sell, so with a fresh service under its belt I got it MOT'd as it only had a few months left and I wanted a full year on there for the new owner. That highlighted the requirement of a new exhaust, so it was sorted there and then:
Seemingly good to go for a new owner, I cleaned it and took some reasonable pictures. A well-known website does free adverts for a week if the car is under £1000, which this one was:
Looks smart, doesn't it? Pleased with my work, I carried on piling a few last miles on during the week the advert was live, taking the car to work as usual. Everything was splendid, right up until last night, when this happened:
A very strange noise followed by complete loss of power. I thought I'd run something over at first and possibly lost the aux belt as I had a momentary message about the alternator on the dash before I killed the ignition. I tried a restart after coming to a quick stop as I happened to be right on top of a junction. The engine wouldn't even turn over, so I thought possibly the battery had died. I did a quick recce underneath the car first to check for any debris I might have run over but there wasn't anything to be found, and the aux belt was present and correct. The cam belt wasn't, however...
Balls! That's dead then... A quick phonecall and a Golf-driving friend came to the rescue with the worst tow rope known to man. We doubled it up and there was enough slack so I didn't run in to the back of his car under braking:
I had a quick delve under the bonnet today to confirm my initial findings and perhaps find the cause of the issue:
Nothing obvious found, though I couldn't get to the water pump to see if it had seized or not. That's one suspect. The other is the sheer tension the belt is under in normal operation. I tensioned it as per the book all those miles ago and it did seem tight, but apparently that's how they are on these engines. Anyway, the decision is now made, I'm not driving the DIesel Machine any more!
And finally, the terminal mileage:
As I was sitting at the road side awaiting a tow, I got the email saying my advert had just expired!
I'm so glad it didn't sell as I'd have felt very bad had this happened to someone else, thinking they'd got a nice shiny car to drive for a while.
There's no point repairing it as far as I can see. I'll drain the coolant and take the head off to see what the valves are like but I'm 99.9% sure they're mashed. Even if it was repairable, I think it's time the Diesel Machine and I part ways. I'm slightly annoyed that the new exhaust has literally 500 miles on it, the front brakes are virtually new, and it's even got a full tank of Shell diesel in it... Such is life.
Anyone need some Golf parts?!
Read on and find out how...That last 800 miles came and went. The service was done bang on schedule and I decided I should probably sell, so with a fresh service under its belt I got it MOT'd as it only had a few months left and I wanted a full year on there for the new owner. That highlighted the requirement of a new exhaust, so it was sorted there and then:
Seemingly good to go for a new owner, I cleaned it and took some reasonable pictures. A well-known website does free adverts for a week if the car is under £1000, which this one was:
Looks smart, doesn't it? Pleased with my work, I carried on piling a few last miles on during the week the advert was live, taking the car to work as usual. Everything was splendid, right up until last night, when this happened:
A very strange noise followed by complete loss of power. I thought I'd run something over at first and possibly lost the aux belt as I had a momentary message about the alternator on the dash before I killed the ignition. I tried a restart after coming to a quick stop as I happened to be right on top of a junction. The engine wouldn't even turn over, so I thought possibly the battery had died. I did a quick recce underneath the car first to check for any debris I might have run over but there wasn't anything to be found, and the aux belt was present and correct. The cam belt wasn't, however...
Balls! That's dead then... A quick phonecall and a Golf-driving friend came to the rescue with the worst tow rope known to man. We doubled it up and there was enough slack so I didn't run in to the back of his car under braking:
I had a quick delve under the bonnet today to confirm my initial findings and perhaps find the cause of the issue:
Nothing obvious found, though I couldn't get to the water pump to see if it had seized or not. That's one suspect. The other is the sheer tension the belt is under in normal operation. I tensioned it as per the book all those miles ago and it did seem tight, but apparently that's how they are on these engines. Anyway, the decision is now made, I'm not driving the DIesel Machine any more!
And finally, the terminal mileage:
As I was sitting at the road side awaiting a tow, I got the email saying my advert had just expired!
I'm so glad it didn't sell as I'd have felt very bad had this happened to someone else, thinking they'd got a nice shiny car to drive for a while.There's no point repairing it as far as I can see. I'll drain the coolant and take the head off to see what the valves are like but I'm 99.9% sure they're mashed. Even if it was repairable, I think it's time the Diesel Machine and I part ways. I'm slightly annoyed that the new exhaust has literally 500 miles on it, the front brakes are virtually new, and it's even got a full tank of Shell diesel in it... Such is life.
Anyone need some Golf parts?!
colin_p said:
What a shame, gutted.
I'm actually thinking about getting rid of our 51 plate 130 that has only about 105,000 on it with heated leather....
Cheers, yeah bad luck all round but that's what happens sometimes. I'm actually thinking about getting rid of our 51 plate 130 that has only about 105,000 on it with heated leather....
Heh, nice sales pitch
I'm going for a petrol next...JakeT said:
Sodding 'eck.
What a pain. Moreso as you did the belt and a new cam so recently, too!
Last time I had to scrap a car I had also just filled the tank. I used the in tank pump and a hose to fill my dad's car with it.
Yep, cam and belt, water pump etc was just over two years and 39k miles ago, so I'm pretty sure it's not a school-boy error on my part that caused the belt to snap.What a pain. Moreso as you did the belt and a new cam so recently, too!
Last time I had to scrap a car I had also just filled the tank. I used the in tank pump and a hose to fill my dad's car with it.
I nearly rigged up the fuel pump relay to be constantly on so I could fill the Jerry can up that way but it was just easier to use my small pump straight in to the can. I'll have to make up some jumper wires in case I need them in the future!
Thanks all for the comments. I was thinking of selling anyway and now the belt's gone I've lost all interest. I pumped out the full tank of diesel in to jerry cans last night and filled up my friends Passat so I've got some money back from that.
While we were filling up his car he suggested I put it on Facebook and see if anyone's interested as it is. I don't have Facebook so he put a quick post up for me and it took a whole two minutes for someone to say they'd have it and another ten for them to turn up and have a quick look. It turns out that the guy is a hobbyist PD engine breaker/tunes up his own cars so wanted it for bits. I think I got a fair price for what is to most people a giant paperweight at the moment! He left a deposit and is bringing the rest of the money today so hopefully the Diesel Machine will give parts to help other PD's keep going
As such, I'm not going to bother taking the head off and having a look. I did take the cam cover off yesterday and have a peek; everything looked fine with the cam/tappets etc but that's as far as I got.
A bit of a brutal end to my longest serving daily driver but in reality it's had a couple of major problems so I'm not sorry to move on. Which car next? Off to the car buying forum methinks as I can only come up with Mk5 Golf GTi or maybe Fiesta ST at the moment
While we were filling up his car he suggested I put it on Facebook and see if anyone's interested as it is. I don't have Facebook so he put a quick post up for me and it took a whole two minutes for someone to say they'd have it and another ten for them to turn up and have a quick look. It turns out that the guy is a hobbyist PD engine breaker/tunes up his own cars so wanted it for bits. I think I got a fair price for what is to most people a giant paperweight at the moment! He left a deposit and is bringing the rest of the money today so hopefully the Diesel Machine will give parts to help other PD's keep going
As such, I'm not going to bother taking the head off and having a look. I did take the cam cover off yesterday and have a peek; everything looked fine with the cam/tappets etc but that's as far as I got.
A bit of a brutal end to my longest serving daily driver but in reality it's had a couple of major problems so I'm not sorry to move on. Which car next? Off to the car buying forum methinks as I can only come up with Mk5 Golf GTi or maybe Fiesta ST at the moment
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