[mokoosh]

To recap for those that may be lost in the weeds, the symptom being diagnosed and treated is/was an oil drip in the parking lot coming from the area of the turbo.

Wetness on the oil return line connection was noticed some time ago and the one accessible bolt was tightened. The gasket was a used cardboard gasket, possibly original equipment.

The drip may have been from CCV putting oil in the intake tube or from the oil return connection or both.

Not certain what the diesels have but if you do not have the cam cover, I would get one.

Plastic cam splash guard is being utilized in the G60 cover. Otherwise the valve cover switch did end up making the PCV system much shorter, probably with less opportunity to drain back into the case.

At the time that the drip was noticed, the truck was noted to be overfull on oil.

Steps taken:

*Oil return line gasket replaced and flex hose replaced to ensure no restrictions.

*1/2 quart of oil drained from the crankcase. Now shows at the full line.

*dielectric grease added to the intake to turbo connection as a sealant.

There have been no performance issues with this engine. It has just over 1K miles since the rebuild. Starts easily and holds it's own against a 1.9mTDI climbing hills in 5th gear.

Looking forward to trying out the 20psi tune but it was already fast and powerful. Of course that will be after we get a functional hood release going and maybe after the snow melts off.

Big thanks to @fastinradford for getting s**t done! I could have dragged this out for a month or more if left to my own devices. 😎

 

[Butcher]

Clean it really good. Spray foot powder all over the place. Start the engine. Look for the powder to get wet. Not wet, drive it a mile or two. Check it again. Not wet, drive it 5 miles. Not wet? Drive it 10 miles.

I think you get the picture. At some point you will find the place that is getting wet. What you do not want to do is drive it a long distance only to find out it's all wet. Then you need to start over.

You could smoke test it with a high pressure smoke tester. I do not have one but that is one way to pressurize the entire system and find the leak. If you hook it up to the front of the turbo and that is the source of the leak, you have to except that it may be the hose on the turbo inlet.

Mercedes OM648 [V6 diesel] has that problem on their turbo inlet hose. As far as I am concerned, it cannot be fixed.

 

[mokoosh]

Clean it really good. Spray foot powder all over the place. Start the engine. Look for the powder to get wet. Not wet, drive it a mile or two. Check it again. Not wet, drive it 5 miles. Not wet? Drive it 10 miles.

I think you get the picture. At some point you will find the place that is getting wet. What you do not want to do is drive it a long distance only to find out it's all wet. Then you need to start over.

You could smoke test it with a high pressure smoke tester. I do not have one but that is one way to pressurize the entire system and find the leak. If you hook it up to the front of the turbo and that is the source of the leak, you have to except that it may be the hose on the turbo inlet.

Mercedes OM648 [V6 diesel] has that problem on their turbo inlet hose. As far as I am concerned, it cannot be fixed.

That sounds like a solid plan to systematically diagnose the exact location of a leak.

Maybe more than I need at this point, we'll see.

My standards aren't that high. Sweating a little oil is OK with me. My threaded plug in the secondary oil return line on the case is sweating slightly. Should help keep the headgasket from oxidizing.

As long as the vehicle passes my look underneath for lost fluids pre-drive test, then we are in the clear.

So, I am thinking to drive it until the drip returns. If it returns then we can get out the foot powder.

 

[fastinradford]

Hood release cable fixed.
Got a barrel nut installed on the handle side.
Lucky the other latch side had lots of extra cable sticking out.
Hood latch is working better than ever.

I got it up to temp yesterday and full boost and it’s still bone dry.

Yes I’ve dealt with many well to do customers who had oil leakage from pcv collecting in the intake.

They hate this. If the answer was new turbo. They would do it.
If the answer was new engine
They would do it.

Advertisements tell us our intakes should be bone dry.

Closer look had me realizing the small kink in the oil return was nearly blocked off because of the extreme angle.

I understand most people don’t want to bend their oil lines.

But you’re so much better off.
I bent little reds already to correct the kinks.

Before bending:

It wasn’t so bad with the new hose.
Which is an oil rated 25bar 350psi hose so I don’t wanna hear it- saying that hose is insufficient.

 

[fastinradford]

After bending.

I was also pleased that when removing the Downpipe it lined back up literally perfectly on its own zero wear on the doughnut gasket

 

[fastinradford]

In the test drive report mokoosh was happy to see both the speedometer needle and boost gauge both max out the gauges.

 

[mokoosh]

Copilot is with her grandparents for the weekend, a rare occurrence. So I invited The Wife on the test drive. She shot the video.

That's a testament to how well this MK1 is handling at higher speeds. She didn't even say 'slow down!'

Also no CV clunks, starter is much quieter, and after a good hard test, the turbo area remains bone dry, except for water from wet driving.

Starting to lose a little paint off the exhaust manifold. Oh, well. Cost of doing business.

Overall the truck is working well enough to start thinking seriously (or not so seriously) about getting back to purely cosmetic things like the tailgate and bed.