Polo GTi rescue / engine swap

[937carrera]

Hi,

New member here, I have had numerous VW's over the years (including Mk1 Jetta Gli) and have just acquired a polo Gti with a siezed engine (suspected oil pump failure) and an engine to drop in. I'm reasonably competent with a set of spanners and have a decent toolkit.

What I have picked up from reading around is that the gearboxes are weak due to the rivets on the diff, and cambelts need to be changed regularly. Other than that they are pretty solid cars.

At this point I intend to drop the donor engine in and probably refresh the original engine over the next couple of months, depending on how much damage there is.

I'm going to see what progress I can make today on the engine swap, so would appreciate some advice as I haven't got a workshop manual yet.

Some simple questions to begin with.

I assume the best approach is to remove engine and gearbox as one unit from the top, rather then drop through the bottom
Is it possible to leave the aircon system intact, by leaving the compressor in situ
Anything I should do to to the donor engine before it goes in ? (check clutch, visual check on cambelt are initial thoughts)
Is there a guide to setting cambelt timing that I can refer to (sorry I haven't searched yet, about to go outside to take the car off the trailer)

I can upload some photos if people like that sort of thing

Many thanks

[937carrera]

A little bit of an update, and answering my own questions:

I have finished removing the engine and box this evening, which I have now separated.

The engine and box did come out from the top, though I had to remove the gas strut to allow the bonnet to move a little higher to clear the arm of the hoist.

I have been able to leave the aircon system intact in the car, this was done by removing the compressor and pump from the block. On the gearbox side you have to remove the bracket with the vertical post for the gearbox mount so that the aircon pipe can be moved out of the way.

When I bought the car I was told the engine was siezed. However, it seemed to rotate fine when it came to removing the flywheel bolts. The gearbox also seems fine on a 5 minute inspection, but I did find a lump of metal in the bottom of the bellhousing, about 3cm x 2cm and 3mm thick. I have yet to find where the metal came from but I suppose it is possible that this had simply jammed in the flywheel ??

Any advice gratefully received............ and if a mod could move this to the MKV Gti forum that would probably be a better home

[6n2stan]

I found debris in the bell housing when I changed the gearbox a few months ago. It could be bits of the release bearing or the mechanism that operates it. I'd also check the sleeve on the 1st motion shaft where the release bearing rests, these can wear thin and break up too. I'd be surprised if that stopped the engine turning over though?

I'd replace the clutch as it's all out, no brainer really unless your just going to sell it straight on?

Have a look at your crank case breather on the back of the block too, it leads back up to the air box, these can go crusty and it'd be a piece of cake to change whilst the engine is out

Stan

[937carrera]

Thanks for the advice Stan.

I have now had the chance to take a couple of photos

The piece of metal


The bellhousing, showing the areas where contact was being made



I have carefully inspected the clutch, bellhousing and starter, all seem in good condition with the exception of the release bearing which only has one spring (I assume there should be two) and some wear on the diaphragm fingers where the release bearing rides. The friction plate looks almost new.

Even though the oil had no bearing metal debris in, I am part way through checking the bottom end bearings. The big end bearings are all in good condition so far, I'll inspect the mains later.

I'm not intending to sell the car on, it's the going to be the little runaround for us for a few years so will want to do the job right so will probably do the clutch...though I might just drop in the spare engine I bought as is and take more time on the original engine.

I know what you mean about the crankcase breather. I removed it from the spare engine because it looked in poor condition. a 5 minute job when the engine is out, probably more like 5 hours when it's installed

Coming back to the debris, I agree with you that it's difficult to understand how it could have jammed

Further thoughts ?

[6n2stan]

Do you know what material that piece of shrapnel is? It looks like aluminium in that picture. Whatever, it's done a good machining job on the inside of the bellhousing!

Is there any visible damage to the starter ring on the flywheel? I'm surprised the starter motor isn't damaged looking at the whiteness marks around that area. If nothing is physically missing it must be a foreign object that's got in but how?

[937carrera]

I haven'y yet made my mind up on the nature of the metal. At first I thought it was aluminium as it is quite light, but it has turned blueish from heat so looks like steel. It looks like the photo has been cropped on the forum (can you use normal html code to set the size of the picture to be displayed on the firum to avoid cropping ?), the area to the right which is not showing is a little thicker with clear abrasion of material about 1mm deep.

I have inspected the starter and I can't see any signs of damage and the flywheel is undamaged on the ring area, the rear of the rim and on the face.

It's a very curious situation. I'm on the same page as you that it is not from within the bellhousing but is foreign matter, but I have no idea how it got in as it is much larger than the inspection hole on the top of the gearbox. The quite extensive history with the car has no mention of a clutch change (is 103,000 miles on an original clutch normal ?)

[6n2stan]

I guess if it was alloy it would have melted away with all that thrashing around in the bellhousing. Your lucky nothing is damaged.

103K on the original clutch is easily done, mine is unchanged on 153K and I changed another on 130K and that still had plenty of meat on it.

[937carrera]

I am indeed fortunate, I bought the car having been told that the engine had siezed.

That's pretty impressive mileages for such a small clutch, it's a shame the cambelts don't last as long

I'm still in a bit of a quandry as to what to do next.

Given the time it takes to get the lump out (especially when you don't yet know what you are doing) I have been looking round at the components needed to do a full engine rebuild. Everything seems to be available from Eurocarparts except for the main bearings. GSF don't seem to have them either. Do you know where those can be obtained. Parts alone would seem to be best part of £500, but then I will have a known quantity engine.

Alternatively, I could just replace the clutch release bearing and chuck it back in, knowing the cambelt has got another 15-20,000 miles life left in it which should be good for a couple of years at least and it'll cost about £30.

That still leaves the gearbox of course. I have gone through the history file and there's no mention of any gearbox work. Perhaps I have a good one and all will be fine. Alternatively, Murphys law may come into play and the gearbox might decide to fail in a few weeks. Other than chacking that all the gears can be selected and there are no obvious grinding noises, is there anything else I can do to check it's OK

Thanks again for taking the time to help me ; ignore my question on the display of images, I was being thick, the browser was not full screen and the image was being cropped by the forum software.

[937carrera]

Well, the mystery is over, I now know where the metal has come from.

It was, after all, from the clutch plate, from the metal section that surrounds the springs. I had seen what i thought was missing material the first time I inspected it, but was thrown because the opposite side was exactly the same shape. So two failures but only one piece of metal, berpaps because they got bashed into each other or one of them got totally destroyed.

So, new clutch is on order and I'll return to fit it it on Monday. I just need to find out the torque settings, but I'll start another post for that

[6n2stan]

I'd go with your original plan of dropping the donor engine in so you can investigate the so called 'seized' engine at your own leisure (and when £££'s permit it!)

The 'box will let you know what's up once it's running unfortunately. The other option is to pull it apart but do you want to? Worse case is a complete rebuild at £400-£500, less if you did it yourself but it could be one thing or another for much less. It might be ok of course!

[937carrera]

A little bit of an update for you.

Having drained the oil and checked the big end / main bearings I decided to put the original engine back in with a new clutch kit.

When all was assembled I connected the battery and turned the key. She fired immediately on the first turn of the key and was very rattly. I switched off straight away to have some thinking time and then remembered that these engines have hydraulic lifters so given that the engine had been drained of oil and turned upside down it would take a few seconds for them to fill and operate correctly. Which is exactly what happened time I started the engine:D

I have run the engine for 40 minutes, the heating system is working well, there are no leaks and the temperature gauge stayed solidly on 80 degrees C once warm.

There are a few things I need to do to finish the job off;

Obtain some CV joint gaskets and regrease the joints
Adjust the gearbox linkage - not too far off, I have 1st.3rd,5th and reverse. Not quite enough movement to engage 2nd and 4th
Refit the airbox and engine cover
Replace the old coolant with fresh
Final adjustment of clutch

The car is still on axle stands. I assume the beep beep beep about 5 seconds after engaging gears was from the traction control / ABS system which believed the car was out of control

It's the first fly by wire car I have ever worked on. Most disconcerting to be working on a running engine and not have the ability to change the throttle position.

The final little wrinkle is that the new clutch had exactly the same shape material around the plate springs as the old plate. So my understanding about where the metal came from was wrong I believe. Never mind, all seems good now, fingers crossed.

This is my tenth post, so will soon be free to post in real time. I'm sure I'll be requesting more help and asking some further questions before I can start helping others

Many thanks

[alexperkins]

You can post in real time from now

Happy days that it started first time!

With regard to the CV joint boots, i would almost insist that you use genuine vw boot kits (about 15 quid a side, cheaper on trade) as the material used is superior to nearly all other copy parts. Non genuine ones tend to split and crack prematurely, plus the kit comes with all the grease, a new lock pin and nut for the driveshaft

I would also suggest using genuine VW G13 coolant as its best for these engines compared to other 'red' longlife coolants.

The clutch cable on these also has a tendency to slack after the first few hundred miles after a clutch change - something to be aware of.

Im to assume you meant 90C not 80C?

[6n2stan]

Where were you thinking there was part of it missing?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[937carrera]

Alex, real time it is, and thanks if it is you who has been approving the posts.

On the CV joint front, the boots are fine, it's just the paper gaskets that are fitted between the CV and the drive flange. They are available from the VW main dealer only I believe.

I'll watch out for the clutch adjustment when she's done a few miles, thanks for the tip, and you are of course correct that the temperature was stable at 90 degrees C, being the line between 70 and 110

One of the other issues I have found is a water leak into the passenger footwell. It's dripping from behind the glovebox and from the distortion in the carpet up there it's clear it's not a new leak caused by being on axle stands. From reading around it seems this is going to be either a collection of leaves blocking the drain holes near the bulkhead or something to do with the pollen filter area. I don't think it's the membrane on the door cards.

Other jobs to do on the car, at least that I am aware of are

New front tyres
Car tax
Clean up discs / brakes
Find out how to tidy up blistered hatchback release handle
Source right hand side fog lamp grille
Source rear parcel shelf straps / complete shelf
Source new carpet mats (are the original type still available ?)
General clean & polish including wheel tidy (but not refurb)

Are there any recommendations as to what to use to clean up the red trim on the door cards ?

[937carrera]

Stan,

That's funny, I had a box just like that yesterday

The picture below shows the old and new clutch plates together



I think you can see just how much material is left (or how little has been used) on the original clutch compared to the new one.

If you look at the spring, there is a piece of metal to the outside (sorry I don't know what to call it but it's function I believe is to absorb shock when the clutch is engaged) that also extends round to cover the whole of the spring to the right. I mistakenly thought that the missing piece was what had broken off.