Club 80-90 Forums

Hi
New owner and total newb when it comes to mechanics really, so apologies if this description isn't clear and becomes quite long!
I've done a few searches but not found anything exactly the same, so here goes:
I recently bought a T3 Westy in Holland and drove it back to the UK via Belgium. It is an 85, with 1Z 1.9TDI engine conversion, 5-speed box.
The van happily pinged along at 65-75mph from Holland to Belgium in the dry, where I had a meeting to go to. After the meeting the rain started and my journey to Calais and back home was entirely in the rain. After an hour or so, again doing 65-70mph, there was a total loss of power.
The engine was still running at normal tick-over revs, but pressing the accelerator did nothing. Luckily a very nice chap called Eddie who spoke English (my Flemish is none existent!) towed me off the motorway and proceeded to drive me round the next town looking for a mechanics that was open at 5pm on a Friday...3 garages later we found one. We went back to pick the van up and tow it to the garage, and what do you know, it revved from the engine block and accelerator just fine. The garage plugged in the computer but found no error codes of note. It seemed like turning the ignition off reset something?
This same thing happened again near Brugge but was then fine to Calais, after pulling over, turning off, waiting a few mins and restarting; happened again (still in the rain) about 10 miles out of Dover, same thing resolved the problem, tho I had to wait a little longer.
Since then we've MOT'd the van and it passed with no advisories and have been waiting for the registration to come through.
Got the plates this weekend and drove from Windsor to Esher to Volksworld in the sunshine-van didn't show any signs of the accelerator failing/power loss that I had in the rain...so I'm at a loss! Anyone suffered similar or got any ideas?

There is one other slight oddity-at about 1/3 travel on the accelerator at about 50 and 60mph, if you try to accelerate gently the van gets a shuddering feeling. Ease off the pedal slightly and the shudder stops, put you foot down and it stops. Only felt this at these speeds in 4th and 5th, but will see if it happens in 3rd at lower speeds.

Again, I'm a bit stumped so any thoughts welcomed.

Thanks

I know little about Diesels but as you have not yet had a reply, I thought I would try

Am I correct in thinking that the TDi conversion uses a "fly by wire" accelerator ? (i.e. one that is electronic rather than a conventional cable) If so, then maybe the wet weather you encountered might have got into the control box under the accelerator pedal. This would mess up the control of the actuator at the engine end. Just a thought.

Ghost123uk correct - the 1Z TDI does have fly by wire accelerator pedal. Trouble is with conversions they can be done in different ways so we cannot tell you where the electronic bit is. Some people swap the whole pedal assembly including the potentiometer (pedal position sensor) across from the donor car in which case you will have a pedal hinged at the top like the brake and clutch. Others have the normal T25 pedal with original cable and have the potentiometer mounted in the engine bay. With mine I have the original T25 pedal but the potentiometer is positioned above it on the crossmember and connected to the pedal with a cable tie.

Try and invest in some kind of fault code reader. VAGCOM or VCDS - clone ones are quite cheap on ebay if you have a laptop handy and should be able to report what the problem was. The other thing I can suggest with regard to the shuddering is check all the vacuum hoses are in good condition. Can't say I've suffered the same problem as you are describing with mine but had one of the thick intake pipes work loose once and that caused big problems if I applied anything more than a tiny amount of pedal as the turbo would try to kick in, and then the ecu would notice the leak and kill the power and a big cloud of smoke came out the exhaust.

I also used to get a resonance at about 65mph which used to rattle all the cupboards in the van. This is with unmodified gearbox so going faster would shut it up but the engine speed would be too high so I used to cruise at 55 to 60. I believe this was due to the foam air intake filter used. I now have that positioned so it does not touch the sides of the engine bay and that seems to have cured it. I have also fitted bigger tyres that increase the road speed by about 5mph at 60 for the same engine speed. Again this resonance sounds different to the shuddering you are getting.

Other thing to do would be to post this in the alternative engines section where others with TDI engines might be able to offer suggestions.

Thanks guys, realise now that I should post this in the alternative engines section...using Tappatalk is convenient, but not a patch on a standard web interface.

From your reply pirate-Pete I would say the conversion I have is "the normal T25 pedal with original cable and have the potentiometer mounted in the engine bay"...but I would have to check where the potentiometer is tho to be sure-any idea what they look like??

The garage in Belgium did put VAGCOM on, but it didn't show any fault codes. No smoke from the exhaust spotted, but I Will check the vacuum hoses, but the previous owner changed a lot of hoses and pipe work before driving it to Italy and back last summer.
Thanks again.