85 505 TD tying up loose ends..

Anup Pahari (apahari@erols.com)
Wed, 29 Dec 1999 23:41:58 -0500

After about 700 miles of driving my "new" wagon, have had to deal with
numerous situations perhaps not untypical where the whole engine came
out and went in again after rebuild. I was going over the haynes manual
on diesels and came across section that mentions rechecking things like
the manifold bolts for tightness. So i took out my slim 10 mm wrench
and went about doing just that. Bolts were tight. While I was at it i
thought I would once again check the diesel pump mounting allen bolts
for tightness too. The one on the outside is easily accessed and it
seemed tight enough. Then I go to check the one thats on the inside,
between the pump body and the block and I can't see any bolt! A
thorough search with my handy torch light turns up nothing... the pump
was being held in its place only by one allen bolt.

I guess i had left the inside bolt loose in order to set the pump timing
and forgot to tighten it afterwards. Over time due to vibration the
bolt just fell off. Hope no damage was caused to the pump, sprockets or
chain.

Luckily I found another pump mounting bolt from the xd2s engine that was
originally in the wagon. using some improvised methods that include
black gasket goo, duct tape, and some 1/4" ratchet extensions I fasten
the bolt in place removing only a couple of coolant hoses.

On driving the car after this procedure I felt a noticeable improvement
in performance. My guess is that when the bolt fell off the pump
began to move just enough to screw up the timing (retarded it) so that
it felt a little underpowered and slow from standstill. Tightening the
pump at once prevented this from happening, hence better performance. I
am pretty sure i will get beter mileage too, because so far i was
getting only about 24-25 in the highway. I figure it should be giving
me at least 28 if not 30mpg.

Anup