[Vwdiesel] ECO Runaway!!

[Shawn Wright]

This sounds exactly like the runaway on my '85 TD a few years ago, except it started 
at around 3500 rpm. In my case, the problem was a clogged airfilter, combined with 
two much oil - I had quickly added an extra quart before leaving on a trip, without 
waiting for it to drain down. Even after the smokescreen, I was still 1/2" above max 
on the dipstick. The intake plumbing was full of oil - a clogged air filter causes the 
turbo to vacuum oil from the valve cover. I suppose another problem could be seals 
on the turbo, but I've never seen that yet on mine.

On 27 Feb 2005 at 1:28, HWY9FERGS at cs.com wrote:

> Well, I haven't piped up for a while, but it's time.  A few weeks back I 
> managed to buy a 91 ECO Turbo Jetta from a little old lady.  It's in decently good 
> shape with 125000 miles on it. Not bad for 1500 bucks.  I did have to do a 
> head gasket on it (oil in the coolant) and replace the AC compressor(it was so 
> loose it started to break up and almost fell off the engine).  Someone who 
> didn't know what the hell they were doing was working on this poor thing. 
> Note--when doing belts or even just belt tightening, REMEMBER TO TIGHTEN UP ALL THE 
> BOLTS!!.  Anyway, it's mostly all better now.  One really nice thing is the hone 
> marks were still showing in the cylinders.  However, after finishing and 
> while driving it, I decided to put my foot in it a bit and "blow it out" some.  I 
> was coming up on probably about 4000 rpm and all of a sudden it was like I put 
> on the cruise control (it isn't so equipped by the way) and with a pretty 
> horrendous clatter and an unfrickingbelievable cloud of bluegrey smoke behind me 
> it was---whoa Nellie!!!!! Brakes Brakes Brakes and it finally settled down and 
> I'm wondering if the damn engine is blown.  But wait, this is fine German 
> engineering, squirters and all!  No problem, she's idling and running fine.  So I 
> figure what the hell. Let's try it again.  Maybe it was just some oil in the 
> intake and that it's all used up (by the way, I never did de-mate the 
> manifolds during the head gasket R&R). Well, no such luck.  It took a little more RPM 
> the next time but sure enough, it started running away again.  And one time 
> after that, it did it again, only it was right in the middle of a shift from 3rd 
> to 4th, so I had a major PITA time of it getting it to crunch into gear to 
> keep it from over revving. Fortunately the tranny seemed to tolerate the abuse 
> and I decided to "not push it" any more and parked the poor beast.  Here's my 
> query for the list.  Where the heck do you think all that oil was coming from?  
> I could probably just keep my foot out of it and not have that happening but 
> from time to time I might want to get on it (to pass or whatever) and I sure 
> as hell don't want that to be able to happen.  I suspect the KKK turbo might be 
> the source (seals?).  My 85 Jetta TD with the Garrett has never done this. I 
> seriously doubt the engine has enough blowby to be doing it.  Any experience 
> with this sort of thing out there?  Kind of unsettling to have that kind of 
> thing just waiting to happen.  And I have a nice freshly rebuilt Garrett I could 
> put on there if I really have to.  Whatta ya think??? All input will be much 
> appreciated.  Doug Ferguson 
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Shawn Wright
http://zuiko.sls.bc.ca/~swright
'85 Jetta TD (retired)
'85 Jetta D 
'88 Westy 2.1L
'82 Diesel Westy