Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from November, 2012

Pre-Winter, Auto Mechanic Intermission

I've been fortunate to have had a pretty long break from playing home auto mechanic, but lately things have been wracking up quite a bit, and for a number of reasons, I had to take action.  The most recent project was on my 2002 VW Golf TDI (for more about this car, you can have a look at my old blog, Veggie Golf ).  I was going to hold off, but the oil building up in the driveway was an indication that I really needed to get on it. Items to fix:  Leaking cam seal, timing belt replacement (maintenance interval reached), rear brake rotors and pads, and a few other odds and ends.  When I got into the timing belt cover, it was pretty clear the cam seal was doing very little to keep the oil in the engine. This is the lower timing belt compartment after I cleaned it up a lot.  Any doubts were sufficiently quelled when I drained the oil from the crankcase, and got about 2 qts. max out of it.  This is dangerously low, especially for a diesel, and even more especially for a turbo e