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
