Hi All, As some of you already know, my car has not run since I moved from NYC to Tampa three years ago. Having a new home, life, business travel and having an aging daily driver have all gotten in the way of getting her running again. I had not posted about this before because I felt so defeated by whatever is wrong with the car that I thought I would wait until I made some progress. The car still will not start but after this weekend's adventure, I felt like I needed to share - which might give me the motivation to push through the wall I have hit at this point.
Chad from this list has been immensely helpful in helping me learn to diagnose things and try to narrow down the root cause. I am pretty novice at wrenching although I have had this car for 15+ years. When I was in NY, many thousands were spent at R+A Applied Arts in NJ to keep her running. Since I had no garage in NY, I never learned to wrench. Now that I do have a garage, I have had to learn at an old age. Hopefully, I may have passed some measure of understanding when I was able to perform a timing belt and water pump change on my daily driver (99.5 Audi A4 1.8TQ) [with lots of help from Chad!] this past year. I definitely felt a little more confident to tackle the GTI after that. In any case, about a year and half ago I began looking at what was wrong with the GTI 16V, starting with buying a new battery and checking for spark. After some days staring at the car and scratching my head, it was determined that no fuel was getting to the engine. I removed the banjo adapter at the fuel distributor and no fuel would come out if I turned the key to the on position. Thinking back I am not sure why I did not try to crank the engine at that time with that banjo disconnected. But no fuel came out when I turned the key to the on position. Also, I could start the car with starter fluid, which is what supported a fueling issue. It is possible I did test cranking with this line at the fuel distributor disconnected, but I can't remember if I did. Video of me not getting any fuel at the engine: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dv8j84j7g9wvezq/20140801_210452.mp4?dl=0 I then checked the transfer pump, and it had fallen apart. The old fuel seemed to have eaten away at all the rubber pieces. Many years ago, the transfer pump was replaced and a worm clamp was used to hold the new one in place - that worm clamp had come off also. I am not sure if all of this came apart as I pulled it out but the large gasket was in bad shape so it seemed clear that this whole thing needed attention anyway - the old fuel was doing a number on it. This whole tranfer pump assembly is NLA and I could not find the special metal/rubber reduction piece anywhere. So I hacked it back together with a brass fitting. Lots of pictures of the transfer pump hack: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xvobv66fyk3weco/AAAneQqrBpDeCTTkAGBAKxaIa?dl=0 After hacking the transfer pump back together and purchasing a new gasket for the large plastic screw that holds it in - I was able to hear fuel getting the main pump when the key was turned to the on position and the system primed itself. This seemed like a positive sign but the car would still not start and it still seemed like no fuel was getting to the engine. I then tested the main fuel pump by putting power to it and it did indeed buzz and seemed to respond as it should but it still seemed like the car was not getting fuel. In hindsight, I probably should have tried to figure out if the main fuel pump was pumping fuel towards the engine by disconnecting the line headed to the engine. I was so afraid of spilling fuel all over my garage that I did not test things as extensively as I should have. Thinking about it now, I could have used clear hose to see if it was pumping without spilling fuel.. In any case, I did not test things further and decided I should try to swap the main pump. So this past weekend I decided to change the main fuel pump with a used one as a test and I tried to remove the main fuel pump. I could not find any how-tos or videos online and the bentley was brief on this as usual. So I just winged it and asked Chad a bunch of questions before I started. I drained almost all the fuel and moved onto trying to remove the main fuel pump. One of the three screws holding the fuel pump in was stripped (maybe it was replaced in the past) so I could not get the pump off - so I tried to remove the banjo connector leading to the pump. As Chad had warned me a few times, I bent the banjo connector going to the fuel pump and broken the rubber/plastic piece of this connection. I was so upset that I decided to take the whole assembly off and that was a pain but eventually I was able to get it all off. I then started to take it all apart on the bench so I can clean it all up and replace everything I can with new parts. I was able to remove the fuel pump once the whole assembly was on a bench but I still can't figure out how to remove that banjo connector (even though it is already broken and bent I thought I should learn how to remove it). When I tested the fuel pump again after having removed it from the housing, it seemed to work fine. I had forgotten that I had tested it before and it buzzed so I was super bummed to hear it buzz after I took the whole assembly off and broke stuff. I guess it is possible the main pump was working all along - maybe the check valve is bad, now I will never know - oh well.. I guess this is one way to learn.. A bunch of pictures of removing the main fuel pump assembly: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/00hwfsjss0prnr7/AAApvQbTfzk2bc0iKdDgwoARa?dl=0 So at this point I have the whole fuel pump assembly in pieces. I will start shopping for parts to rebuild it and put it all back. I might try again to find a replacement transfer pump assembly because I don't trust my hack. Then I will put it all back and see if I can get fuel to the engine so I can be one step closer to getting her running. I might also look into alternatives to this OEM pump, it seems like the Mk3 and Mk4 pumps will fit with a swap of the fuel tank - not sure I want to go through all that so I will see if I can get this original one back in working order. Sorry this is so long, I thought you all would get some laughs from my adventure here. Thanks, -Larry 91 GTI 16V -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MK2-16v" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mk2-16v. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mk2-16v/34b1def8cf7d4662bfbe38ecb37fe8e4%40MBX082-E1-VA-2.EXCH082.SERVERPOD.NET. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
