My project this year came to a successful conclusion today. I'm not a hugely regular poster here so to recap, after fuelling problems, leaky power steering, suspected gasket failure and eventually a failed clutch release bearing / DMF over Christmas, in spring I took the engine out of my 2.2HDi MK1 C5 and began an overhaul. As you do. Time has been against me, and I can only work at my mother's house, which has a big enough garage.
Oh yeah, I'm not a mechanic - I work in IT. But I much much rather doing something with my hands, and I'll turn my hand to almost anything.
The head was stripped, valves cleaned and re-lapped, head and cam cover thoroughly de-gunked (using, er, Gunk!) - airways were quite badly restricted from years of oil seepage from turbo and EGR crud. New belts, waterpump, gasket, DMF, clutch, injector nozzle, HP pump regulator, timing chain/tensioner, new (from scrappers) power steering hoses due to leaky unions, valve seals, sump removed and cleaned/resealed and a bunch of other stuff I can't even remember. I gave up keeping check on the budget. It was a labour of love.
Finally everything back together. Initial turn of the key yielded crank but no start. After consulting the lexia and some missing photos, I'd reversed the crank sensor plug with one that fits to an electrovalve on the air filter housing. Oops. Fixed that, and it fired up on the turn of the key!
I owe a thank you to this forum. A lot of knowledge and inspiration can be gleaned simply from searching past posts. This site is simply wonderful, so thank you all!
The only worrying aspect was, after warming up, vast volumes of steam from the exhaust. But I put this down to the DPF being saturated still. I had jetwashed it out weeks ago, and assume it's a porus material that had absorbed water. Eventually the steam stopped and there's no visible emissions now even under revs. Indeed, the emissions are so clean you can put your nose to the exhaust and barely detect anything
(Not that I spend my time sniffing exhausts).MOT next!
If all remains well, then after a holiday end of this month I'll get the turbo serviced, and replace the radiator and aircon condensor. The fins in these are turning to dust, quite literally. And try to figure out once and for all why my radiator fan is on all the time...
