onthehunt wrote:
You would be driving it by now if you would have just pulled the head to begin with...
That opinion is by no means assured.
I had a similar situation with my VW TDI that was fully documented on Fred's TDI Club site. Look for the "Tale of pain" by me, same username. It should be a very long thread, IIRC it was about a 15 page mess like this one.
Hard to start, but once running, ran perfectly. LOTS of people chimed in with a diagnosis, and I had all their knowledge PLUS my own, PLUS two different diesel mechanics looking at the car. One of the two was a "professional" European diesel tech with his own shop. After about a week at his place, he threw up his hands and had no clue what was wrong.
The second mechanic was a guy from the forum who lived in my area, and together we bashed our heads around every possible solution, slowly eliminating each one. The problem was - On the forum, some people had instantly said "It is the injection pump" from the beginning, while others, myself and this tech2 included, said that is unlikely - Because it runs PERFECTLY once running.
After eliminating everything else without a solid symptom appearing (Even a compression test), we finally pulled the pump and brought it to a Bosch shop. They found that a tiny seal inside the pump had failed - Unusual, they said, except for a VE that had switched from LSD to ULSD like mine had, with lots of miles on LSD.
The people who said initially "It is the pump" claimed they were always right, sanctimoniously. Maybe they were. But at the beginning, it could have been a bunch of things, ALL more likely than this tiny failed seal.
The point is for Bub, there have been a LOT of plausible answers to his problem, that all needed to be explored b/c they were easier to solve (maybe) than the unlikely event of a cracked valve seat. I'm STILL not certain that a valve seat is the answer... But everything else has been carefully eliminated. And like Sherlock Holmes suggested:
When all else has been eliminated, whatever remains, however unlikely, MUST be the solution. People can surmise that pulling the head weeks ago might have found this problem faster. Sure... But what if it actually had been a cracked injector tip and the head was pulled anyway? Diagnosis has to follow the evidence from easiest / most likely to hardest / most expensive.
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if that made any sense.
Fuel everywhere!
Bout ready to send the tool back to Keith with a whole darn'ed engine attatched to it!
)
