octytdi4x4

Thanks Bjorn, yes you are correct, the manifold/turbo is all one piece. i actually managed (after MUCH swearing) to get the bracket off from the bottom of the turbo housing, it is sandwiched between the engine block and another bracket which goes around the transfer box behind the driveshaft and then bolts back to the block below. What a pain! Fitted a new centre cartridge and cleaned up all the vanes and everything inside. got everything back together, minus the egr cooler, and blanked off both ends. Just need a vacuum pump and guage now to set up the vnt actuator, i tried to get the stop screw in the same position on the new cartridge and kind of assumed that the vacuum actuator would still be set correctly. but its obviously miles out, when i first set off i get little to no boost for the first 30 seconds or so of driving, and this horrible knocking at around 3k rpm, but by the time i'm up to 3rd gear, the boost is there again, but is laggy, and doesn't feel as strong as it did before, come to think of it, there did feel to be a fair bit of preload on the actuator when i was putting it all back together. I had a catch tank on my last tdi (bora 1.9pd), if you fit one , make sure the pipework and especially the fittings on the tank can flow enough gas through to ensure your not getting a build up of pressure in the crankcase under heavy load, i was surprised at the amount coming through just at idle, so id imagine with heavy acceleration there will be a lot of blow-by. Not sure if its a daft suggestion, but instead of a catch tank (which i found still let a bit of gunk through) is it possible to stick one of those cheapy inline fuel filters inbetween the nipple on the turbo and the n75 valve to catch the gunge and then just swap it every service?

Bjorn..... I feel your pain, had some serious frustration today trying to get the turbo off my MK2 octavia 4x4 TDI, access is almost impossible from underneath, with the transfer box getting in the way of doing pretty much anything useful. It took me ages just to remove the pipework, cooler and egr valve (none of which will be going back on afterwards). finally got in to see the turbo and manifold. Took all the nuts off, then discovered the evil bracket. Its mounted below the turbo as with yours and after struggling to get at it with every spanner and socket i have, whilst trying to look through a mirror decided to give in for the evening. I think tomorrow i will be getting the car on axle stands and removing the driveshaft and some bits of subframe to see if i can get in a little better that way.

A good garage should be able to confirm whether or not it's the case anyway mate, they can do a test in the water circuit for exhaust gases.

Pressure in the header doesn't sound good if the engine is clap cold, usually this would indicate gases from the cylinders pressurising the coolant circuit, does sound like a goosed head gasket to me :(

I think the worst thing you can do for a flywheel is labour the engine hard when at lower revs, I reckon the lower frequency but harsher movement from the engine will wear them out pretty quickly, this is probably the reason why newer diesel engines have torque limiters set into the management system.

Is the temperature needle going up and down depending on how hard the engine is working? I had this problem several years ago on my bora, it was a 115pd engine, which were allegedly terrible for the head gasket leaking from the cylinder to the waterways somewhere, it never seemed to lose any water, but there was always a little bit of smoke in the header tank, and when it was running there was a constant stream of tiny bubbles coming from the top small hose into the header, it must have been causing an airlock in the cylinder head somewhere and stopping the heat exchanging properly into the water, and I think revving the engine was enough to kind of pump the water around fast enough to get it to blow the airlock clear and send the engine temp back up. Hope for your sake it's not that, but if it is, use a non oem headgasket to replace it, because as I found, it will probably go again.

I think mines early stages, but as you say, juddering during gear changes, and if it's at the point of being FUBAR your gonna know about it, my last one was also making the clutch not clear properly sometimes, I think due to the loose half of the flywheel pushing the clutch cylinder back and causing the automatic adjustment to not work properly, just got a couple of garages to quote me on it this morning, so I should be getting a call back from them sometime today, this is gonna be the decider between paying someone to do it, and spending a couple of days rolling around on my back getting crushed by a gearbox

Strange how that happens really, I'd have thought they would all last a similar amount of time really. Well, I think I'd best be getting some prices today whilst I have the day off and get someone to do it, not sure I can do with the hassle of pulling the thing to bits myself, if getting the gearbox off is anything like the shenanigans I had getting the inlet manifold off and back on again, I don't think I fancy it really, that was the most awkward easy job I've ever had to do lol

How'd you manage to get through a flywheel in 80k btw marky? I was remapped from 115 to around 150 bhp, de-catted and with water/methanol injection and still took ages to toast that thing lol

So it's another DMF going in then from the sounds of it! Couldn't do with it being bad to drive, I'm at 123k now, so it's not had a bad innings really I suppose if the next flywheel lasts me the same again it's not going to be bad value for money. I reckon I could spin it out a good few thousand miles more to be honest, my last cars got changed at 145k it was a little more rattley than this one, but when I actually got it off it didn't actually have that much play in it! I'll still be doing it one way or another soon though, I don't really fancy losing a game of DMF bingo, I reckon that thing could do some major damage if it decided to self destruct.

Hi everyone, Its come to that time where i'm starting to hear the dreaded rattle of a dying DMF, its not bad yet, just a small rattling whilst cold at idle, and a little more engine noise whilst driving, so for the last few weeks i've been taking it steady and trying not to stress the poor thing to an inconvenient death. Ive been quoted £1600(ish) from skoda for a new DMF, new clutch, release bearing etc, also i'm due a timing belt replacement, which i think will bring it up nicely towards the £2k mark! Almost as much as the cars worth. I replaced both the DMF and timing belt on my previous car myself (1.9PD bora)without too many issues, but doing a bit of research its looking like the 4x4 system is going to make it a much more difficult task, from what i have seen, the simplest way is to drop the entire engine/gearbox/transfer box out from beneath the car and work on it that way. Has anyone done this themselves, i'm ok for garage space and tools etc, but i doubt i'll be able to get all that out in one without ramps. Cant the transfer box come off separately, allowing me to get the gearbox out from the bottom, leaving the engine supported and in place. And just to open a little can of worms... would you stick with the DMF, or swap to a solid flywheel, i know they're going to be a little more lumpy, and noisier, but i kind of like the old solid flywheel idea, that just sits there for 400k and never moans once. Is anybody running one, and are they reasonable for a daily driver? cheers jon