2007 VW Transporter 2.5TDi 4motion

[Bailes1992]

On a side note, how much further can you remove to inspect for anything more rtv in the oil system?

My intention is to just clean the pickup and reassemble the engine now. I do have a brand new oil pump, but I don't think it's required.

Wow, I am impressed you've stuck with it! This makes me think that if I ever have to use rtv to seal up an engine, I should do a lot of practice on how much is actually needed to make a seal!

I'm a huge fan of M539 Restorations and when he applies RTV he actually smears it with his finger before installation. I think I'm going to copy that method.

 

[Vercingetorix]

Seems like a lot of work to repeat if the oil pump is bad.

 

[Bailes1992]

Well things have gone from bad to worse.

Planned to clean the pickup tube today and seal the engine back up.

This was the pickup once removed.

And this is what I managed to scrape out of it with a small flat bladed screwdriver.

And then something stuck deep inside caught my eye. It took a fair amount of fiddling to get out to.

And that my friends, is a piston oil squirter.

I whipped off the windage tray and quickly realised that this engine has had a recent rebuild. It's squeaky clean in there!

I hoped that maybe the oil squirter had broken off the old engine and got stuck in the pickup and this wasn't seen when the rebuild was done.

I managed to verify 3 of the oil squirters were in tact. But you can't turn the engine over with a wrench, a special tool is needed. So out came the borescope.

And of course, the very last cylinder I checked, cylinder 1.

Unfortunately, this oil squirter looks like it may be a big issue to replace. The engine is fully gear driven, even down to the ancillaries. There is no belt, there is no crank pulley. The harmonic damper is internal.

You can see it here to the right of the rod cap.

And you can see here, how it hinders access to the oil squirter in question.

So what next? Well, the damper is D shaped, so I'm hopeful that once I get the tool to rotate the crank, I can line up the flat side of the harmonic damper with the oil squirter in such a way I can access it. If that doesn't work then it's off to plan B. The harmonic damper itself has two triple square bolts from the bottom and two from the end of the crank and then it slides inwards towards the piston 1 conrod. I just removed the rod cap from piston one and pushed piston one up the bore as far as I could. Unfortunately, even like this the damper won't clear the bottom of the conrod, however if rotated so the flat side is up the top, we may find the clearance required to slide the damper off. If neither of these work, well the engine is going to have to come out.

Obviously I'm hoping I won't have to pull the engine, but if I do then I'll have to build a new shed out front, fully dismantle the engine and rebuild with new gaskets and fastenings checking clearances and general workmanship throughout. I'll probably fully blueprint, document and photograph everything for any future owners.

But lets not think that far ahead yet. I've ordered a timing kit which includes the part required to rotate the engine. Lets see how I get on with that first.

Maybe at 32 it's time to start drinking?

 

[Bailes1992]

So ELSAWIN seems to suggest you can remove the damper with the rod cap removed.

Fingers crossed! Although the order for doing up the bolts holding the damper on doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[BrianF]

Incredible amount of work now to fix someone's sloppy work. While terrible, thank you for documenting it and sharing it with us. Good luck!

 

[IndyIan]

Incredible amount of work now to fix someone's sloppy work. While terrible, thank you for documenting it and sharing it with us. Good luck!

Yes! I can imagine the previous owner had it rebuilt, saw the oil light flickering and gave up!

 

[fdcg27]

Well, you've determined that there really was a reason for the low oil pressure indication you were getting and you've rectified that and you've also found a missing oil squirter before it identified itself with a holed piston.
You are to be commended for the dauntless and methodical approach you've taken in working on this beast.
May this be the last unpleasant surprise it gives you.

 

[Bailes1992]

Bit of an update.

Weather has been horrendous here for weeks now. Any chance I have to work on the van assumes I have no other plans or work and I get lucky in between showers.

I did, during the drain assemble the new front struts on the weekend. They are Meyle shocks, Monroe springs with Bilstein top mounts.

Following on from THIS thread. I plastigauge'd the conrod cap clearance. ELSAWIN advises that the clearances should be 0.022-0.042mm

I'm seeing smaller than 0.050mm here, so I'm going to run with it.

Anyway, good news. I cleaned, oiled and reattached the conrod cap loosely, then rotated the crank until piston 5 was TDC. And managed to remove the internal vibration damper.

Adding even more confusion to the situation, I found the oil squirt bolt rounded off.

But managed to hammer an 8mm triple square bit into and and undo it.

Interestingly, there is some sort of pressure valve inside the banjo bolt.

Old vs New

And fixed in place.

I rotated the crank a number of times and the squirter has just 0.5mm of clearance between the piston and the squirter itself. I was tempted to file the jet down a little but going to run with it as is.

 

[Bailes1992]

Furthermore (ha, I've always wanted to use that word), I reinstalled the crank damper unfortunately using the existing screws but they were NLA and I couldn't find an equivalent. The factory torque spec was 20nm + 90°, so I went with 30nm and then 90°.

Then I thoroughly cleaned the crank journal and end caps/bearings and applied a little lithium moly grease as my assembly grease didn't arrive in time.

And installed the rod cap with the new bolts. Factory torque spec 30nm + 90°.

Then I cleaned and reinstalled the windage tray and oil pickup with a new gasket.

Now, I bought a range of plastic scrapers and some Victor Reinz Remove, but when I started trying to remove the silicone I found it just peeled off with no effort at all. It's no wonder it all ended up in the pick-up, excessive use aside.

And then I gave the mating surfaces on the sump a good clean.

And that's where I am for now. Hell of a way to spend your birthday, but I did have some fun!

I start a new job tomorrow, I have no idea yet how that's going to effect my free time or how much flexibility I will have to take an hour or two to work during lunchtimes. We shall see. I really need to get this sump back on though.

 

[crashz]

Happy Birthday! And thanks for keeping us in the loop. Glad its all coming together.

 

[meep]

your ability to get in there and work your way through it is impressive. Before you button it all up, are you reading that plastigage correctly, and would it be worth at least putting new stock-sized bearings in while it’s apart? I read that as slightly over 050 since it looks smaller than the guide, but that could also be the camera angle?

It is impressive to me the engineering that went into this engine. This isn’t a “big dumb v8.” There’s a lot of precision and machining that went into its design. OTOH, while serviceability obviously had some forethought with the pull-out design, it was also obviously limited by the sheer amount of complexity and limited space available. The end result is a solid and highly optimized vehicle for its intended lifespan, and then higher effort required for big rework like this. All in all, it’s hard not to agree with a lot of what they did - VW put a lot of engineering into this thing. While I had bad experiences with the brand 30+ years ago, I find it encouraging for the ones of today. I would consider a German VW today over my previous favorite - pre-Chinese Volvos.

The valve in the base of the oil squirter looks like a spring-loaded one-way valve. It would do two things I think: (a) doesn’t allow drainback to introduce air into the lines; (b) closes if there’s not enough pressure, which then keeps the pressure that’s left for critical functions. That’s good design thinking.

 

[Number_35]

It is! My Wife is a Harry Potter nut and I got the cabinet so she had somewhere to put all her HP paraphernalia. It's a Lego model of the Anglia from HP! Well spotted.

Coincidentally enough, our 8-year-old granddaughter wants me to follow her reading journey. She passes her books on to me as she and her dad (our son) finish them.

The latest is Harry Potter, so I've now read the first one (The Philosopher's Stone). I really enjoyed it! Well-written, with just the right amount of humour, both understated and in-your-face.

At some point I expect I will encounter the Anglia.

 

[Bailes1992]

Turns out I totally cocked up the plastigauge. 1, I read the gauge backwards and the clearance shown is actually in excess of 0.050mm, and 2, you're supposed to oil the surface or the plastigauge will read a larger clearance than is actually present. Based on that, I'm not particularly worried. I'm certainly not going to dismantle for round 2. That would mean ordering another set of rod bolts. And to be honest, I'm a little tired of this van now.

I did get a few hours work done on it this evening.

The sump fixings were generally grubby. Threads full of oil, dirt and sealant.

I spent an hour with some WD40, a die, some wire wool and varies brushes.

Some lovely clean bolts!

Brought the sump in from the cold and cleaned the surface again. Decided on Victor Reinz Reinzosil due to lots of positive feedback.

ELSAWIN advises a 3mm bead of sealant should be applied. 3mm seemed excessive, so I aimed for 1mm, stretching to 2mm where there was a light recess.

It was a lovely warm 2°c this evening, nice stiff breeze rolling down the driveway making this whole ordeal a fantastically terrible experience.

And 15 minutes later we have one installed sump.

Sump to crankcase bolts were torqued to 15nm and bell housing bolts torqued to 45nm as per ELSAWIN.

Unfortunately, I stripped a thread clean out while trying to torque to the measly 15nm required. I couldn't get a photo of the bolt hole, but it was full of silicone, I suspect the bolt was glued in place with RTV. Anyway, helicoil kit ordered.

 

[Bailes1992]

I've ordered new engine and gearbox mounts as I'm sure they're still the original.

While under the front I decided to get it replaced.

Certainly seems like the original.

Old vs new Meyle unit.

Weirdly, the location for the engine mount was about 0.5mm too small for the new bush. So I had to stretch it open a little with the bolt and some nuts.

And after some faffing, I got it in.

I've been fighting this ridiculous tool box for years now. So I asked my Wife to get me something better for my birthday. So I spent an hour emptying my socket set, cleaning everything and putting it all organised in the new box. Much better!

 

[Bailes1992]

Had an hour and a half on the van today at lunch time.

First things first, removed the old upper engine mount.

This allowed me to lower the engine down a few more inches to access the crank seal.

The seal isn't your standard crank seal. It's a cap that sits on the end of the engine block, and any oil that passes via the big end cap, can run down into the sump. The crank seal is ~£200 new. The old seal still seemed pliable, so I decided to take my chances with it. It is, after all, an easy part to get to. I did however, apply a very small amount of Victor Reinz Reinzoplast to the seal, a flexible, non-setting sealant that hopefully would make up for any areas where the old seal was struggling.

And after some cleaning up of previous silicone and general grime. Installed with all fixings torqued to 10nm.

Next, the sump bolt. I bought the cheapest helicoil kit from Amazon. What could go wrong?

I marked the drill bit at the correct length, then drilled the oil thread out.

Then tapped the new thread.

Helicoil then installed with a little threadlock.

And the bolt torqued to 15nm. Perfect!

It was then time to install the new top engine mount. Bit first, needed to improve this puddle of oil, dirt and general grub from where the engine mount sits.

That's better.

 

[Bailes1992]

New vs old engine mount. The new one is Febi. Not sure what's leaking out the original unit. I'm going to assume, a collection of power steering fluid from the long term leak.

And then I neglected to take any photos at all, until I had the new engine mount and air box installed.

Good news!

I had the engine running for 20 minutes. No sign of any leaks. Engine sounds it's usual obnoxiously loud self thanks to it's PD injection system. Oh, and the oil pressure light stayed off while I ran it up and down the revs a few times.

Bad news!

The hazard lights won't go off and if you indicate right, the horn goes. There's a BCM called a J519 which I believe has gone faulty. One day, I'll get to the end of this bloody van!

Plan now is to drop the oil. I put 5 litres of Fuchs Titan XTL GT1 Flex 3 5w40 in it for the initial start. Obviously the engine was sat outside open for a little while, plus I used lithium grease on the conrod bearing, so I'm keen to get that out of there. I've also got a new filter to install.

I need to reinstall the bevel gear to continue reassembly, but I need new oil seals before I do that. This months vehicle budget is now depleted so it's going to have to wait until next month. I also have ton of other stuff that needs ordering such as fixings, CV gaiter and subframe alignment pins.

In the meantime, the wishbones and subframe are going to be thoroughly cleaned, descaled and painted in an epoxy mastic. And all bushes except the subframe bushes are going to be replaced with polyurethane. So that will keep me busy over the Christmas break. I did want to replace the subframe bushes, but nobody makes a specific tool to remove them, and I can't get my universal tool to sit correctly on them. I'm worried I'll make a hash of removing them, and truthfully, they feel and look okay. So that's going to be a compromise.

I also need to look for a company that can repair the instrument cluster and J519 module, but that's probably going to have a wait until February.

Does anyone want a yellow, half dismantled T5?

 

[Brons2]

Wow incredible! I spent the majority of my childhood in the wet side of Oregon and I can just feel that raw cold rain.

I'm not sure there is another 18 year old VW van anywhere in the world that has gotten this much love.

One thing I was wondering, was if the disassembly of the sump would be better on a 2 wheel drive van, or would it be just as bad because it would be front wheel drive.

 

[CleanSump]

The engine mounts have silicon goop in them that helps absorb vibration so it isn't passed into the frame/body. The rubber cracks with age and it oozes out.

 

[Vercingetorix]

I put 287,000 miles on A VW T4. Keep the faith.

 

[meep]

I'm not sure there is another 18 year old VW van anywhere in the world that has gotten this much love.

There’s something about vdub vans that do this.

I had a 73 - and not nearly the talent, experience or tools as @Bailes1992 but as a younger fella sunk all my time and money into it and drove it until it burned down.

A friends brother bought an air cooled vanagon and did a full restoration, including rebuilding the engine in his moms bathroom because it was too cold out. He went through every inch of the thing.

There’s something about these vans….