Broke down in Italy and towed back!

[lsidir]

Hi all!

I don't know you all here since I usually post in the syncro section. My name is Lefteris, from Greece, but leaving in the Netherlands.

After fixing cv joints, springs, etc. I decided to drive my van form Greece to Netherlands, only to have a major engine break down in Italy. The van is now towed back to the Netherlands (after 3 weeks trying to communicate in italian with various garage and transportation companies). Anyway, now is parked outside my house and I have to fix it soon to drive to a garage for MOT.

Symptoms are: engine wont start - it turns, makes some noise but wont start. There is some smoke (grey) coming out from the exhaust. Also I saw some oil inside the cooling liquid.

First steps: I will try to change head gasket, also the glow plugs since the italian road assist thought that this was the problem, and also check the oil cooler since that might be leking oil in the cooling water. Any other ideas to check?

Now my question is simple but I am novice on fixing engines. Where the hell is this illusive TDC mark? I mean where in the engine? the engine is a 1.6TD jx.

Thank you very much and sorry for such a stupid question!

[ZsZ]

I have a german video bookmarked about changing the timing belt. You can spy out the technique of setting timing to TDC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iqx2WVMj14Q" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[lsidir]

Finally! There it is!

Thank you!

[lsidir]

Hi everyone!

I tried to change the glow plugs, removed the old ones without problems and start putting in the new ones. When I tried to screw in the first one, a piece of metal broke out from the head! Basically, half of the threaded metal where you screw in the plug broke! I did not use any force (had my torque wrench to 20Nm) nor screwed in wrong. Is that normal? have a piece of the head breaking so easily? The piece that came out was white inside instead of being metallic as I would expect... Anyone had the same?

What do you suggest? new head or new engine?

thank you!

lefteris

[garyd]

I don't know how common it is to have the thread break away from the injector holes but I had exactly the same happen to me. It is one of the reasons that I started down the road which ended with fitting a GTi engine instead.

I guess it is a case of metal fatigue in a thin but highly stressed section of the head.