Back once again...........

[insanitybeard]

Hi guys, hope you're all well. Long time no speak, apologies for that, my bad.

My trusty Mk2 has been causing me a few troubles of late but then it has done 140k and is nearly 15 years old now. Changing the oil today and I've noticed a few things as it's mileage is increasing, nothing especially unusual but stuff that I'll need to attend to now that the better weather has (hopefully!) arrived:

1) N/S inner CV boot nearly split again, I replaced it when I got the vehicle back at the end of 2013 but it needs doing again. Interestingly the inner boot on the offside doesn't seem to knacker out as quickly, even though the outer shaft is the same length on both sides.

2) Red rust appearing around the intermediate shaft- stub shaft joint. I greased it up back in 2014 but looks like it needs attention Interestingly I see Autodoc (not sure if anybody else here has used them, most of the stuff comes from Germany I think so it's not a particularly quick service but their range of parts far exceeds the likes of Euro etc here- IF you can get to grips with navigating their site) offer GKN replacement intermediate shafts and stub shafts for not silly money so could be worth a look:

https://www.autodoc.co.uk/car-parts/drive-shaft-10162/ford/galaxy/galaxy-wgr/17611-1-9-tdi?sort_supplier%5B%5D=lobro

3) But my most pressing issue is that a glowplug galled its thread in the cylinder head. The plastic shrouded connector rail that feeds power to the glowplugs on my engine has looked decidedly ropey for several years now. I actually bought a repair part to fix it but hadn't fitted it yet due to limited access to the wiring loom in the vicinity to be able to splice it in. I was looking at how bad this was when changing the oil today, so decided to pull it off to inspect. It pretty much fell apart in my hands, so now is the time to fit the new one I guess, she'd been struggling a bit on cold starts recently and smoking a bit so I wondered if the glow plugs weren't doing their job.

So at this point I thought I'd pull the glowplugs themselves out to see how they were looking. Three out of four came out no problem at all, but the fourth (and last- why is it always the last one?) fought all of the way out, I worked it back and forth and sprayed on WD40 as I went but regardless it was mashed when it finally came out. So now I need to order a thread tap kit and tentatively try to re-tap the thread. It hasn't stripped the thread out of the head bizarrely, instead the stainless steel thread of the plug has galled against the alloy of the head and left most of its thread inside the head!

If this should be in the other section, please advise and I'll happily move it. Cheers!

[mike wilson]

Before trying a tap, I would procure something like this and try picking the bits out. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Silverline-415070-Picks-Probes-6-Piece/dp/B0106JPCAC/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=dental+pick&qid=1557212696&s=gateway&sr=8-7

Fiddly and painful but no chance of any permanent damage, unlike the tap, which I think is unlikely to work.

[Chrispb]

Think I would agree with Mike, although the thread in the head may look OK it's probably quite fragile. I would clean the seating area with a thin screwdriver with a dab of grease to catch as much muck as you can then just grease the thread of a new glow plug and screw down in one go don't back it off and go down again.

PS I tend to take out glow plugs with a warm engine especially with alloy heads .

[insanitybeard]

Normally I would agree with you but there was no way that I could have cleaned the debris out of the thread with a pick. It hadn't just stripped the thread off of the plug, it had absolutely mangled it- by galling I think, for this level of damage. Just trying to wind another undamaged glow plug into the hole didn't work (I did try briefly before thinking better of it), and I didn't want to risk pushing swarf down into the combustion chamber by forcing it. In the end I bought a repair kit from and ran the correct thread tap (M10x1) down the thread in the cylinder head after plugging the bottom of the hole with some rag to stop any crap from getting into the cylinder. It cleaned up and the new glow plug tightened up to the recommended torque (15nm) ok. Still baffled as to why the first three plugs came out no problem. They were all OE Beru plugs with VW part numbers on them so I had no reason to think they'd ever been disturbed previously.

Quite amusing to eject the rag plugging the hole after cleaning the thread with the tap by cranking the engine over, it fired out at high speed, god knows how far it went, couldn't see it anywhere!

[attachimg=1]

[brianh]

Looks to me like the old plug didn't seal properly and thats probably what caused it to do it, might have been down to existing damage from previous attempts at changing them. I've had the same problem with a spark plug that managed to throw itself out whilst driving along and ripped a load of the thread out in the process.

[johnnyroper]

I am amazed the thread is mullered on the plug like that,you would think the alloy head would be shot before the plug.