Jetta 4 1.9 TDI AHF Diesel Leak on Pump

[Papa TDI]

Morning All

Guess it's my turn to take a beating on maintenance, i drive a beautiful & maintained Jetta MK4 1.9 TDI AHF I had the Cambelt fitted on @ 498565 km last Friday Happy Me, however the smell of Diesel Sunday Morning whilst washing Her didn't sit well with me so my 1st instinct was take the top cover off & i pretended like i'm Panic aka Stephan van Tonder & i know what i'm doing with confidence coz my youngest daughter was with me & vacuuming the car & guess what i noticed drops of oilish substance on the floor and smelled like Diesel started the car & on closer inspection my worst nightmare was confirmed there were bubbles coming out on the top of the Diesel Pump & visible leak going down onto the thermostat housing below the Pump i nearly had a Heart Attack!! Checked for loose bolts around it & nothing everything was tight. So in a nutshell any cost effective recommendations (of where i can get good quality seals if they're culprits to start with) will be gladly welcomed actually i'm on a tight budget money wise & if anyone on this forum who had this problem & how it was fixed + costs would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

[VAG Fan]

Sorry to hear about your rough patch. Sometimes it doesn't rain, it pours.

There is a seal kit available for the pump. I got mine at Bosch (Diesel Electric Pretoria West). Couple of hundred bucks.
In most cases, it's just the large Viton seal between the pump body and the distributor head that is leaking. But one has to buy the whole seal kit.

I did this repair a couple of years ago. There are some people who say this repair can be done with the pump installed, but it's dicey. If the pump is on its side, chances are much higher that something becomes dislodged inside. It's much better to remove the pump, clean it (paraffin, brush) and mount it securely in a vice, vertically. Then one loosens the distributor head without actually removing it, picks out the old seal, carefully stretches the new seal over the head, then re-tightens the head.

But to do this repair yourself, you need to be confident to
a) get the pump re-installed without changing the cambelt timing, and
b) get the pump timing restored close enough at least for the engine to start.

You might also have to replace Allen bolts ("cap bolts") on the pump head, if they become stripped during disassembly. In my case, two of the four stripped, so I had to go hunting for the right size and tensile strength. (Cheap, once you find the right thing.)

If you're not confident to do those things and face those potential complications, then you should rather have Panic do the repair.

[VAG Fan]

P.S.: if you dry everything properly, then start the engine, you should be able to see which part of the pump is leaking. The above description is for the seal between the body and the head.
P.P.S.: keep the Diesel off your radiator pipes! Wipe them down immediately. A friend of mine had a similar Diesel leak on an old Diesel Passat engine and a while later, the radiator pipe failed at the point which was weakened by the Diesel.

[Cass]

yes vag fan is correct the diesel eats the radiator pipe....so be carefull.

i feel if it id the top part "the head" or the Quantity adjuster part , you can swap the seal on car.....if the leak is distributor side , the remove the pump and swap it out and hope you dont break anything. i got charged 12k for a VE pump rebuild.....foook that

[VAG Fan]

"Charged" as opposed to "quoted", so I presume the work was actually done. Who did the rebuild?
At that price, I'd actually consider hunting for a pump at the scrappy and having it rebuilt.

[Papa TDI]

Sorry to hear about your rough patch. Sometimes it doesn't rain, it pours.

There is a seal kit available for the pump. I got mine at Bosch (Diesel Electric Pretoria West). Couple of hundred bucks.
In most cases, it's just the large Viton seal between the pump body and the distributor head that is leaking. But one has to buy the whole seal kit.

I did this repair a couple of years ago. There are some people who say this repair can be done with the pump installed, but it's dicey. If the pump is on its side, chances are much higher that something becomes dislodged inside. It's much better to remove the pump, clean it (paraffin, brush) and mount it securely in a vice, vertically. Then one loosens the distributor head without actually removing it, picks out the old seal, carefully stretches the new seal over the head, then re-tightens the head.

But to do this repair yourself, you need to be confident to
a) get the pump re-installed without changing the cambelt timing, and
b) get the pump timing restored close enough at least for the engine to start.

You might also have to replace Allen bolts ("cap bolts") on the pump head, if they become stripped during disassembly. In my case, two of the four stripped, so I had to go hunting for the right size and tensile strength. (Cheap, once you find the right thing.)

If you're not confident to do those things and face those potential complications, then you should rather have Panic do the repair.

Hi VAG Fan

Sorry for the late response, i travelled to Lesotho last week with minimal online activity hence the late response.

Actually in relation to this i actually have no intension of doing it myself let alone take a chance on that, my cousin brother who's a mechanic on VW & Audi cars intends to take it to ADE Diesel not sure however my suspicions my cousin doesn't wanna touch it too! & on enquiry we're quoted R4,8k ( strip, clean, replace all the seals & calibrate of course ) i immediately experienced heart palpitations & headache, strangely enough the quote i got from Diesel Electric(Pretoria West) for the complete seal kit was R393.00 however i can't explain the R4,8k quote on the flip side Diesel Electric(Pretoria West) don't do repairs they only sell seals so kinda in a fix now so any less expensive recommendation will be greatly appreciated.

Regards

[Papa TDI]

yes vag fan is correct the diesel eats the radiator pipe....so be carefull.

i feel if it id the top part "the head" or the Quantity adjuster part , you can swap the seal on car.....if the leak is distributor side , the remove the pump and swap it out and hope you dont break anything. i got charged 12k for a VE pump rebuild.....foook that

Hi Cass

I'm not sure where the leak is though my suspicion is the the top part then leaking down however its visible at the bottom of the Quantity adjuster part now due to the position of the VE pump it becomes difficult to determine where it's leaking.

Regards

[VAG Fan]

400 bucks for the seal kit is correct. It's just a bunch of O-rings and gaskets. No installation.

The other quote you got, involves a complete disassembly, cleaning, resealing and calibration, which is a whole lot of fidgety mechanical precision work, so this explains the much higher price. If you're going to get a complete strip, clean, seal and recalibrate, I doubt you're going to find much cheaper than that.

Like I wrote above, if it's just the distributor seal that's leaking, it's not necessary to strip the whole pump, nor to recalibrate it. Partial repairs are quite feasible, but it really depends on which part is leaking.