Diesel car can't start in cold

[notfred]

haha... "plug it in"....

 

[silverpig]

Just turn that crank on the front of the car...

"Contact!"

 

[N8Magic]

Thanks for clearing that up Roger.

As I was reading along in this thread, I too was worried that he was going to try the starter fluid.

An excellent source of information.

 

PsychoAndy

I never heard that one before

It's possible, but I find it unlikely

 

[Stark]

Originally posted by: N8Magic
Thanks for clearing that up Roger.

As I was reading along in this thread, I too was worried that he was going to try the starter fluid.

An excellent source of information.

beat me to the link

 

[Mavrick007]

*Update*:

Well, I got it going last night after my friend came by with his Ranger and we towed it across the parking lot to try jump starting it. It is still pretty cold, but I got it home and started it up again this morning with it being plugged in for 20mins or so. I am quite sure it's the glow plugs cause the mechanic I talked to said that if it's a 4 cylinder engine then if one or two are bad it might not start at all, either that or it's a compression problem.

Anyhow, I hope I don't have the problem again after it's tested over the holidays when I get the glow plugs replaced. Thanx to everyone who gave suggestions.

 

[monckywrench]

While it's in consider replacing the timing belt if you aren't sure when it was last done. (They are inexpensive) The most common killer of diesel VWs is belt slippage/breakage since the engine is an "interference" design wherein the valves and pistons will hit if the belt dies. Otherwise they are tough engines that should go 300K miles easily.
I get decent results using propane instead of ether to start recalcitrant diesels and gas engines. Propane is nice since it is gas instead of aerosol, and if it accidentally ignites it just flashes instead of risking adjacent parts. It won't hydraulic-lock diesels either.

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: monckywrench
While it's in consider replacing the timing belt if you aren't sure when it was last done. (They are inexpensive) The most common killer of diesel VWs is belt slippage/breakage since the engine is an "interference" design wherein the valves and pistons will hit if the belt dies. Otherwise they are tough engines that should go 300K miles easily.
I get decent results using propane instead of ether to start recalcitrant diesels and gas engines. Propane is nice since it is gas instead of aerosol, and if it accidentally ignites it just flashes instead of risking adjacent parts. It won't hydraulic-lock diesels either.

:Q Man.. that must be quite a sight/sound when the belt goes..... You would think they would try and make it virtually indestructable......

 

[monckywrench]

The belts are durable, but often neglected on older VWs. Failure isn't dramatic, since like most timing belt death it usually happens on cold starts. There is so little room in diesel combustion chambers that bent valves are pretty much a given, add piston and cylinder head damage to that if the engine is fully running when it lets go.
The horror is when you pull the cylinder head and see the damage.
BTW, the belt warning also applies to 16 valve gasoline VWs. 8 valvers just quit running but don't normally break anything.
Timing belt failure isn't all bad though. It keeps me supplied with "organ donor" cars.

 

[Antisocial Virge]

I rebuilt a 1980 engine for a friend and had the timing belt off by one cog. Anyone who has changed one knows how easy this can be to do since timing everything at once is pretty hard. It ran noisy drank oil like it was going out of style and just worked bad. Pulled the head and saw where the valves were hitting the pistons. Fixed the timing and it worked fine afterwards. The fact that the vales hit the top of the pistons straight on instead of at an angle probably kept it from bending them all.

 

[monckywrench]

Which reminds me:
Always, after replacing a timing belt, manually turn the engine over several times in the normal direction of rotation (using a ratchet on the crankshaft pully/harmonic damper bolt) and verify the timing mark alignment between camshaft(s) and any other timed parts.
On VWs, the factory Robert Bentley manuals are excellent and make RTFM enjoyable.