[Engine] Replacing piston rings, 1.6 dv6 hdi

[smutts]

What a sow of a job so far.

If anyone has done this, without recourse to flammable liquids, matches and insurance.
I would love to know how you got on.

I am at the how to remove the plasticine injector pillar bolts stage at present. 

Now trying to find M7x1 metric nuts at short notice so as to locknut them together on the stud, 
as there is no way that the comedy torx end will not shear off.

The bottom end looks fun too!

[Sol]

You're brave. I would have personally gone the scrappy route or bought another car.

[smutts]

This was the scrappy route, after a catalogue of wrong, or totally devoid of compression boat anchors, desperation set in & so I ended up with one with three very good compressions with one lazy.

Turning with a ratchet, with the sump off, one could hear the hiss of leaking air from that bore.
So stuffed rings, or soot jammed rings.

So off with it's head & out with the piston.
Rings totally jammed with soot.

On the plus side, bores still cross hatched, engine spotless inside, glassy pitch around that injector hence the sooted rings.

It's a 2009 engine with 2013 date on the oil pickup, so a probable turbo death ten years ago. (perhaps the glassy pitch dates from then)

So now awaiting the arrival of the right head gasket. (supplier sent the wrong one) tedious.

A well packaged engine, at the expense of taking it apart.

Just make sure you allow time for other ebay people to do their jobs right.

[smutts]

The irony is that I might have got away with the piston soak that I did in that cylinder with a mix of toluene & acetone & lacquer thinners that I tipped in that cylinder & let soak for a few days, giving the crank a wiggle now and then to try and loosen the rings.
No difference was seen in the drip rate from that bore so I assumed no change or broken rings.
Once the piston was removed, the soot jammed rings freed easily.
So maybe once the engine fired up properly with 1000 psi diesel combustion pressure, the rings would have freed up, maybe.

The only solvent that dissolves carbon is molten iron,
but gummed oil would be fair game for solvents.

[Sol]

Well done that man. I hope to hear you get it rebuilt and running. Sodium Hydroxide dissolves carbon.

I am (was) Evil Scotsman on Audi-Sport.net and came up with the Mr Muscle (Sodium Hydroxide / Caustic Soda foam) fix for coked up VNT turbos, which many people since have sold online, talked about, made videos, extolled, but it was me and not them, who figured out how to get rid of carbon with this treatment. It works, and works well. Takes about an hour to soften the carbon to almost liquid and then you have to flush it out. Solvent would then work for that bit (Toluene, Trich etc)

[smutts]

Caustic Soda works lovely in the turbo housings, chrome nickel steel.

 BUT it dissolves aluminium VERY well.

There's an excellent Ogri cartoon from the 70's, where the hapless Malcolm dissolves the Vincent heads of Ogri's Norvin.

I've got a can of Mr Muscle in the shed for the very purpose of clearing the VNT vanes on my Seat Leon TDi.
Probably from your very post on sorting them back in the day. Good tip. 
Fortunately, the reason why the south end of the M5 motorway ends and becomes a dual carriageway where it does is an 800 foot ridge, Haldon hill.
Taken flat out, it burns the soot out nicely.
A comedy of errors when it snows though.
I'm glad I'm not a professional mechanic, I'd just go mad.

[smutts]

Causitic Soda is also great for dissolving flesh too.
Bloody hurts while it's doing it.
So take care.

[Romahomepete]

M7 is an odd size not readily available but commonly used in the French automotive industry. It is likely that your sump bolts are M7

Peter

[smutts]

Fortunately the DV6 sump is dead easy.

I'm still cursing the designer of the VW 1.9tdi sump.

[smutts]

The inlet manifold (plastic) is marinading in warm caustic soda solution at present.
That black EGR and oil fume gunge is a total loathesome horror.

The VW Tdi i've got also suffers from this gunging up of the manifold, but being
ally, no can do the caustic soak.

That left the "Kill it with fire!" option. It was great fun.
Start first with a blowlamp, then hot air paint gun to continue.
Your neighbours will hate you.