16v advise

just had an mot on my caddy sport 16v, its the first time i have driven it since i put it in, it didnt go well and i had to drive it in the rain. it seemed to be missing badly and the mot tester couldnt get it to take a reading for emmisions because it was so high. :cry:  he seemed to think it was either the old plugs and leads or the timing was out.

so i just swapped the plugs and cylinder 2 and 3 were black and oily and 1 and 4 were dry with grey deposits. does anyone know what this would indicate.

i also checked the cambelt and when i went to turn over by hand to get to tdc you could hear the teeth jumping on a cog. so i slackened it off and refitted it but not sure whether its worth getting a new cambelt just incase its got damaged. i drove about 8 miles but the timing didnt need altering just the belt refitting

does this look ok




i thought the rotor arm didnt quite point to the mark so adjusted the dizzy so it points straight at it. i have turned over by hand a couple of times and still the same and i cant see or hear it jumping on any cogs. found a good way of doing this if you lift the passenger wheel of the ground and turn it in 5th gear you can look at the flywheel and dizzy

how tight do you tension the belt. there was a loud whine from either the alternator or the tensioner, this was new as was cambelt but the alternator sounds rough when spun by hand so probably this.

 i have done it so you cant get it to turn 90 deg. the manual says use a guage but dont have one how much movement should it have mine has about 10mm deflection. i didnt put it back together yet as pointless if i have to get a new belt.

also the plastic clip for the hall sender plug has broken and the dizzy is leaking oil could this be the problem, there is no oil in the cap just the dizzy body. i know i can put a shaft seal in but can i get the plug to repair it.

i have to sort a few other issues to pass mot.

 i didnt secure the 2 3 way brake pipe adaptors needed for my bigger servo and mc so found the bracket that bolts on the mc studs and a longer bolt and bolted them both to that. its a bit tight and i had to tighten the nuts up before it was all secured but i cant see why he would fail it

plus i had missed 2 clips on the pipes near the axle and 2  clips on the axle itself so was easy to fix

the one other thing is my car hasnt got side repeaters they need to be on there for the test there are no holes for the repeaters so need to find some stick on ones or make something

and one full beam didnt work and needed adjusting and a one rear wheel bearing needed doing.

so almost there  :wink:

i think i may have tracked down why it was running badly after speaking to a mate he pointed out that if it was oil on the plugs then it would be smoking on start up and mine has no smoke at all. he said its more likely to be unburnt fuel making them look wet so cyl 2 and 3 are not ingniting the fuel after chatting for a bit he sugested the leads may have been put on wrong in the past. after looking at it i worked out it was firing 1243 and is supposed to be 1342 so swapped leads and started it and it seems alot better   but after 30 seconds alot of smoke started coming out around the head :dontknow:

hopefully this is the heat wrap or paint burning off the two middle branches of the manifold as it did this when i first put it on so will have to get it hot and it should stop

had another mate over to help me bleed the brakes so havnt had time to drive it but i have a feeling this should make a big difference.

i suppose its easily done if you dont know which way the rotor arm turns

i fitted a new cam belt as after looking at it in the light the old one looked a bit dodgy and checked the pully but that is silky smooth. took a stab at the tension and is probably a little less tight than before but still cant get it to 90 degrees

timing all looks ok, the tension should be set to about a 45 degree twist on the belt but its subjective. too tight and the tensioner can whine if you suspect alternator just remove belt and run it for a few seconds, if noise is gone its either alt or waterpump if not its tensioner or belt rubbing.

that dizzy looks knackered, if you can get a new hall sender unit that will have the plug on, you can then fix this at the same time as doing the internal seal.

the timign should be 1342 ANTI clockwise, so check that. also with the plugs it could be the rocker gasket is leaking oil, eventually it will swap the plugs which will mess up the spark and also kill the leads after a while. if the plug leads are oily as well as the plugs themselves then its your gasket. if dry then its deposits from inside the combustion chamber!

get the car up and runnign for a bit then check the plugs, if its just been put back on the road then they may be a bit fowled up from storage so its best to let them burn off all the cack before you start to check the condition.  lots of blue smoke on a cold start plus oily plugs could indicate stem seals

thanks for the advise, it was the leads on wrong so its twice the engine it was

 the smoke was the heat wrap and has stopped now so proves cyl 2 and 3 were not firing

just needed to check the timing marks my mot tester told me tdc was the diamond mark but i know thats 6 btdc. new belt on now  

i am sure the stem seals are fine as i had a look at the exhaust ports before i fitted the manifold and all looked good plus no smoke out of the exhaust.

it idles a bit rough now but hopfully it just needs a tune up

i will try that with the alt belt but the water pump is new so im sure its the alt plus the engine is louder now so cant hear it as much :wink:

yah i think once its been running for a good while and tuned up you'll be fine. cant believe you made it to the mot centre on 2 cylinders

got it through the mot the other day it went straight through the emmisions test

but the damm thing is getting very hot very quickly when drove to the test the needle rose to 3/4 and the fan didnt come on turns out the fan switch was duff

so when swapping it i let a bit  of coolant out and there were big chunks of pink stuff in it (rad weld?) so tried flushing it out but it still seems to get hot very quickly and i dont want to cook it.

i tried an old mk1 rad on today (bigger but made no difference) but when i drained the water out the car there seemed to be grey sandy stuff in it maybe metal. i had a look at the water pump pulley as it was running and it seemed to be wobbling and there is some play in the shaft.
is there supposed to be play in the shaft or do i need a new one

either the water pump or the alt are whining very loudly so much it spoils driving it. the problem is there is play in both of them so may have to do both

there shouldnt be any play in the shaft, i think its time to replace it

AVS Car Parts - [The VW - Audi - Seat - Skoda Parts Specialist]

remove as may water pipes as you can and flush everythign forwards and back with a hosepipe to make sure you get all the chunks of crap out of the system, then buy a brand new hella rad:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290721327145

this one is 1.8 8v gti size so you'll need 1.8 gti hoses and fan shroud, im assumign thats what the mk1 rad you had was if it was bigger than the 16v one. you can tell if its a 1.8 8v rad if it has 2 square holes on the shroud with rubber flaps over them

ahh thanks bloody thing was new but it came in a box of spares with the engine so it may have been duff. or the crap in the rad may have destroyed it. hopefully the water pump will cure the overheating and the whining noise.

do you know if i can replace the half with the shaft on without removing the body from the car. there is a local company (veedubmachine) that sell the half but not the complete unit, they also do rads quite cheap, am i better getting a mk1 or mk2 one ive got shrouds for both

you can swap just the impeller half if you like, but if it was me id just swap the whole thing.

rad is same mk1 and mk2, just the different types based on engine

did the pump and rad but no difference   

i think it may be due to poor set up so will get it done properly with a timing light and gas analyser

if looking at the pulley when the engine is running it wobbles so i think it might be bent and makes the belt whine. im not sure if an 8v one will fit a non pas 16v but have one on my 1.6 engine so will check tomorow

non pas water pump pulley obsolete from vw

tried a cooling system flush and it made it alot worse it now overheats and boils the coolant out of the bottle.

had it set up properly but it was almost spot on anyway

even though there is no signs of oil and water mixing i am going to have to do the head gasket

sporttrucker said

non pas water pump pulley obsolete from vw

What water pump pulley does your have at the moment?

non pas

took the head off this evening not sure if i need to get it skimmed or where to take it

the bores look good i can see the honing marks and no scores.

whats the best thing to clean the block off with

ran it for a second before i took it apart without the alt belt and the whine went so need an alternator

any decent engineering place should be able to check it for you, just make sure they know to take the valves out!

can get a block scraper specifically for this, but a tip i heard was get a 2p coin and grind it to a sharp point, makes a nice scraper that wont scratch the block face

had the head skimmed and new valve seals put in but when he did it i dont think he got the cams back in properly as there was slack in the chain and the dots didnt quite align

so refitted them along with a new chain and it is really tight now

its all back together now and fired it up last night there was a loud tapping to start from the cams that got quieter and persisted for a while and seems to have gone now. also it doesnt idle very well now and cuts out. im pretty sure the dizzy is on in the same place and timing hasnt changed but need to get a timing light to check.

 is it normal to have to adjust timing/ mixture/idle after a head gasket ?

yes whenever you do work like this you'll have to check the basic idle and co settings, if the dizzy has been off that'll need resetting properly before you mess with the  co too

thanks i was hoping it would run better than before but there could be something simple ive forgotten to do so will double check everything and try and borrow a timing light.

been looking into the poor running and discovered the head gasket hadnt sealed properly so must have done something wrong. i borrowed an endoscope to look in the bores when it was hot and could see oil and water in all of them

i reckon the torque wrench i borrowed is out so will buy my own and try again.

 ive been talking to people who have done head gaskets before and they say i should have needed a large breaker bar to get the bolts torqued up but i only needed a small one :dontknow:

while poking round the bay noticed my master cylinder is leaking round the reservoir and maybe a gearbox leak through the driveshaft or it could be the brake fluid dripping down on to it

not having much luck with this

on another note how hard should the head be to turn over when off the block mine seems very stiff now i put the new chain in