2.5 TDI Transporter BPC 2009 info thread

[Greg Roles]

Hi All,

Even though the old forum I used to live on is a lot quieter these days ( as all forums are ) I thought it might help someone else if I posted my findings on a used 2009 2.5 174 BPC transporter I'm fixing up as a local runabout / camper. It would start, and limp along a bit, and apart from the engine was in great condition with a new auto box ( edit - not true! ), tyres, brakes, straight body and pretty good interior etc etc. The auto box seems to be a thread in itself, but so too thanks to all the info I've found on here ( largely thanks to Miro - "transporter" ) and on other forums like Brickyard, it seems that regular fluid and filter changes, along with keeping the box COOL is the key. Anyway more on that later.

The engine presented billowing soot out the engine bay, making a high pressure noise, had a big end knock noise, with a totally clogged DPF, in limp mode, and with oil leaks starting from the EGR valve. It would start and run, but I had it flat bed trucked home, and began getting my head around what I had bought. It has 274 k kms. For the first few hours I had no idea it was 5 cylinders.

Long story short, the EGR valve was 3/4 totally clogged, the alloy inlet manifold was caked in oil blowby and soot buildup ( bitch to clean ) and the exhaust manifold had broken off three studs ( number 1 port and number 5 port both ). It had the typical worn cam issue, obvious by pulling the airbox hose and listening to the pulsing blowback. Vag Com told me the poor engine had not done a DPF regen for 2000kms, and the oil ash was over 40 grams, so decided a new DPF was in order. It obviously needed the usual exhaust manifold and studs, cam and buckets, and god knows what else.

So getting in there I knew it had a funky gates coupler, but took me about a week of research and poking about to realise it has TWO. Even with the front off apart from the radiator etc, getting the alternator off was tricky, so decided to follow the Haynes manual ( absolutely essential ) and will have to go from underneath, first the PS pump, then the alternator. Decided to renew both as the car had no service history, apart from the two quite up to date stickers on the windscreen - probably oil and filter change services! The couplers have some play but were serviceable, but such a bitch to get to, spent the $360 for the two new couplings. I've since worked out you absolutely need the SX400 gates tool set to get the cog type freewheels off, and the more general tool kits may lead you astray, the fitment of the triple spline is vital. I bought the "Sealey" kit out of the UK, half the genuine gates tool set cost. I've read that the cog bearing can seize and ruin things, so if you go down the path of looking at replacing these don't just do the rubber coupler, buy the set, colour of the cog doesn't matter, this is the "2" version of the coupler often referred to as the "euro" one. It's called the "freewheel" in the pic below.



The next thing that surprised me was there are TWO coolant sensors, one on the bottom of the radiator ( controls dash and warning light ) and one on the engine between inlet one and two above and behind the oil filter housing. It's right up high behind the fuel rails, so to get to it without the engine half apart would be a nightmare, and it seems this is the sensor that plays up. I replaced it just in case while in there. Just be aware getting these at a reasonable cost means out of Europe / UK, so there's the usual 2-4 weeks delivery time. This goes for a lot of specific 2.5 TDI parts and non China tools.



The glow plug loom and associated wiring had all the outer plastic covering just turn to dust in my hands, so a new loom is on order - again just to be sure. Expect a fair bit of the wiring to be exposed by now, so it may need some new outer coatings. The intake ports were quite covered in sludge, so a good clean and scrape was in order. Amazingly the exhaust ports were quite clean, probably because this poor van has been trying to regen for the last several hundred kms. Getting the broken head studs out with left hand drills or EZI outs whilst still in the engine bay was impossible, so MIG welding nuts on them eventually worked, and I only used WD40 actual penetrating spray for a few days prior, but it did take about 20 nuts and a few hours to get there. I bought a new aftermarket exhaust manifold from Darkside Developments.

The Garrett turbo has a little slop, but nothing bad ( no end to end ), and apart from some reasonable wear on the intake impeller blade surface, seems reasonably service-able. I will keep an eye on it, but it works fine and didn't appear to have leaked much oil over what you typically see. You ABSOLUTELY need long triple square bits to get that last bolt off the turbo, and there's no way to remove it without taking off the rear engine mount first. I sure tried, but no go. There are 6 bolts holding the turbo on. Even my longer triple square bits I bought *just* worked, I'd suggest getting the VAS 3410 longer XZN 10 tool, or equivalent. There's a special tool at every tricky step on this engine!! EDIT - tools shown in post #6 below.

You will need the Transporter timing tool set, and I found the $180Au eBay no name set fine for me. The big top gear clamp and the crank turning tool and timing tools are key items, no way to get around not using them. EDIT - China tool set upper cam tool is crap, you need a genuine one or the one from Taiwan, see posts #33/34!! Rest of kit is fine.

I decided to exchange the waterpump too, and found the eBay pump tools fine, except the no name gear puller is useless, you really need better hooks that go further behind the 4 holes in the gear. I ended up giving it gentle taps with a small hammer till it came loose. The no name pump puller works a treat however.

In a similar fashion to the waterpump, the power steer pump also allows engine oil out if the seals fail, so am in the process of replacing the seal while there, and flushed out the quite black looking PS fluid. Will report back to where I get said "unicorn" seal from. Again a problematic design as it wears, and something to watch. EDIT - Pump is not designed to be serviceable, and I tried to pull the old one apart, but as it was all too hard, just bought a no name one off eBay, and will just keep an eye on the PS fluid colour. My PS fluid levels were fine, but the fluid sure looked grey/black, so the PS internal seal is probably on the way out.
I'd suggest replacing the waterpump and powersteer pump every 100,000-150,000kms just to prevent any drama these can cause if they fail. Both are cheap enough really, unless you buy genuine from Australia, far cheaper out of Europe.

The cam and buckets were well worn, and there was metal in the front of the head below the injectors, some in the oil filter, and a lot below the oil filter in the 90 degree port that feeds the filter from below- was 3/4 blocked!! I did manage to flush a little more out of the engine with a lot of light oil. Sump off tomorrow, so we shall see what's left, and how the oil strainer looks. New oil pump on route from Germany, seems this and the tandem fuel/brake pump are two key areas to recondition / renew on higher mile engines. I'm planning to rebuild the tandem, and replace the oil pump, as oil pressure seems to be a key issue on this motor, but given how much crap had built up in it at key points ( especially below oil filter ) seems it will easily starve itself after some kms and crud buildup. Make sure you do the oil changes on time, and use engine oil flush at higher kms!

Heat seems to be an issue for the auto box, so beyond the fluid and filter I'm fitting a sizable external ATF cooler, always a good idea on auto boxes, just make sure to add a thermostat so it can warm up normally. I think the key will be regular fluid drains and filters, even though you only ever get part of the ATF fluid out.

New forged steel cam is going in, along with new injector seals and a proper "both sides " injector holding bridge - all from Darkside. The cam buckets were VERY worn - quite dished, but none had gone through thankfully. Compression is OK, but not awesome, although doing dry compression on a long sitting diesel motor is far from ideal. Anyway it's not going to do any heavy work, just needs to potter about the local area. Seems you can indeed re-sleeve these, which had me worried for a while, so if need be I'll go the full rebuild down the track. I'd suggest checking the cam and bucket wear every 100,000kms, although these new forged aftermarket cams and buckets should last a lot longer than stock. Again the correct 507 spec oil is essential here.

New injector loom going in, as it's my belief this is one mode of failure on the PD injectors, and might as well do it while in there, the wires are sure quite hard on the old loom. Injectors themselves needed a good tip clean, but with new seals look fine to me. There were no leaks obvious. The tandem pump has a minor leak, so a rebuild kit is on the way from Europe. I'll eventually just get a new one of these too.

Getting to the crank end where you fit the turning tool from either the timing or pump tool set is tricky, I had to cut down a long allen key to get the top two bolts on the cover plate. You basically need a short bent end given the limited space - that is if you aren't dropping the engine.

There are some good video's online of 2.5 rebuilds and repairs ( links in post #7 now ), usually in various european languages, but if you just watch you can learn a lot. Youtube will start putting them in your recommended after you find and watch a few, I'm getting lots of Russian ones now that didn't show up in any searches.

More below.....

[Greg Roles]

A HIGHLY recommended addition is a Provent 200 setup, oil blowby just gums everything up. A place in South Australia "hkbperformence" has amazing Provent sized "ribbed" hoses on ebay in various lengths that allow you to do tight bends that don't collapse, makes fitment all too easy. Brilliant idea. I just buy the over long ones and cut them down.





So for anyone who has bothered to read this far, the 2.5 TDI is NOT a "standard" engine, needs special tools and engine manuals and would best be serviced by a Euro specialist mechanic or someone with above average skills. This thing is built like a panzer tank, and I expect will be tough as nails once sorted, but will need a good service schedule and sticking to the correct 507 oils and ATF fluids to keep running strong.

Peace out,

Greg.

[Kiels3927]

Thanks!

[jets]

Thanks for taking the time to write all your findings, very interesting. Please keep posting as you continue with the work. Well done.

[Greg Roles]

Apologies for the huge wall of text above, didn't think to take any pictures as posting online wasn't on my mind.

Here's a nice pic to brighten things up of the excellent injector bridge. Not cheap, but vital in my opinion to stop injector toggle and seal wear killing your head! Took me a while to work out how it actually fits, and you need to keep the factory holder on injector number 1. The bridge holds the injectors down evenly on both sides, and is an amazing piece of kit. Had to go to the makers website to work out fitment from their product pics. I bought it from Darkside who surprisingly had zero info, thankfully the bridge has the website of the maker on it.



There are two crank tools, a small round keyed turning tool, and a big arm and pin into the head tool. The crank turning tool has a TDC mark on it you line up with the block/sump junction facing rearwards, and as the two pins are keyed ( will only go on one way and allow bolt to be inserted ) you already have TDC with that, but you MUST check with the bigger crank and pin tool to make sure you have the CORRECT TDC, as the cam spins half speed!!! This has been my issue at the final stages, when it just wouldn't start, I skipped the pin into head check tool on the final cam install, and just relied on the small round crank turning tool mark!!!! BEWARE!!!!!!!!

The new cam had a notch cut in it at the gear end to show TDC, and so long as cylinder one has the cam lobes in an upright V, then you are on the money, just hold the cam in place with the cam timing tool when bolting it down. Take your time and it's not all that hard to do, just make sure to oil or even better assembly lube everything.

I've read online of people having trouble getting the car to start after cam replacement, and apart from the priming of the fuel pump, I think it's all too easy to put the cam gear back on in the wrong spot, as the cam position sensor references off that gear. I first put it in with the timing mark pointing forwards when lined up with the top of the head, and couldn't think why that would matter till i put the position sensor back in the head and the penny dropped. The mark HAS to be pointing rearwards, I had it 180 degrees out.

I'll be putting the tandem pump back on for now till the repair kit arrives, so be interesting to see how priming that goes.

I've yet to pull the power steering pump and replace the seal, but will do so this week when the second Gates coupler arrives.

I'm into the new transmission cooler, have removed and simply joined the old coolant lines up in the engine bay, was able to remove a few more kgs of pipes and insanely heavy duty brackets from the van. Pretty decent stock cooler, but obviously an external is better in out hot climate.

I have fitted the new exhaust manifold and studs, gaskets etc etc, only the actual turbo is still the old one. Fitting the turbo and manifold was a bit tricky as they are heavy and kind of need to go on together, but if you sit the turbo far back on the lower studs, put the crush gasket and plates in place for the manifold and then slip the mani into the turbo and then onto the head, you can pull the whole thing forwards as one. Just don't do what I did and manage that balancing act then realise you didn't put the exhaust gasket on! DOH. Take 2.

Have had a good look at the removed water pump and it looks in good order, obviously replaced not so long ago, so that was an unnecessary expense, but I did it just in case and piece of mind. I've kept the old one.

[Greg Roles]

So to summarize, the special tools I've needed so far:

2.5 TDI timing / lock set, my $185 China set has been just fine.



The Water pump set, apart from the puller, no name China set OK, but not great:



The Auto filler adapter, unsure just how important this is, and it did also come in a auto box pressurised container set I bought:



And for the turbo, you absolutely need this tool VAS 3410. I bought extended XZN bits, and they still were not long enough:



For the Gates couplers, it seems the freewheels can fail especially on the earlier engines, so you need the SX400 set to get the freewheels off, and added bonus it has the triple square M10 tool above that will also remove that PITA turbo bolt!! You use the bottom two tools out of this set, this M10 triple to hold the alternator/AC wheel, and the splined socket to undo the freewheel as a whole part. There is no "bolt" and they are both normal thread. Easy once you finally get to them, the Alternator needs the front engine mount loose / removed to get to the lowest bracket bolt, at approx 4 oclock. The top two are easy in comparison at 11 and 1 o'clock. The AC unit is way easier from underneath.



For setting the PD injector lash you will need a dial gauge, my China one worked fine, you simply need to know the injector compression point:



When hunting tools / parts, remember the Toureg R5 had the same 2.5 engine, just with different codes, I found the oil pump a lot cheaper under Touareg R5 than Transporter T5 for instance, and they are identical. Shop with care, but if a T5 search isn't working, then R5 is an option. Just an FYI the R5 Toureg has the engine North South "Audi style", as opposed to the typical "Golf" East West of the Transporter.

The BPC seems to have a maddening mix of normal Hex ( Allen key ) Torx, and XZN triple square bolts. Mainly XZN though, so you will need a good set of all those, and to clean out dirty bolts and have a proper look lest you strip something.

[Greg Roles]

And a link to all the videos that have been super helpful:

Elring PD injector service: Elring | O Ring, Pumpe, Düse - fachgerechter Einbau by GÖHRUM Fahrzeugteile GmbH - YouTube

Elring head off: Zylinderkopfdichtung - fachgerechter Einbau - YouTube

Tandem Pump repair kit: Leaking tandem pump repair, leak fix, (problem solved) - YouTube

Full engine rebuild by VAG Technik UK: VW Transporter T5 with Low Oil Pressure - Full Engine Rebuild - YouTube

A long and home made tools water pump swap: vw T5 2.5 Tdi water pump exchange-how to.. - YouTube

Camshaft and lifters kit: https://youtu.be/M7ypNvgcl-0

Gates coupler freewheel tool use ( normal alternator pulley shown but the same ): https://youtu.be/p52VTAnLptI

And when you get stuck / angry, take 5 mins out and watch this amazing ventriloquist ( and you will get stuck ): https://youtu.be/MIq_vWjjTAI

[Greg Roles]

OK new development today, took the sump off and cleaned it out, was in good shape with very little metal. Hooray!

To get the sump out, you have to undo the rear and drivers side mounts and jack the engine up carefully via the sump, then hold it up with a piece of wood holding the drivers side mount open and apart. The sump then drops off easily, no way to do it without jacking it up, or dropping the subframe.

The oil pickup had free bits of silicon in it from the sealing of the sump, but no metal so happy days. I cut the end off the inverted cone a little to open up the intake, I feel anything at all to get better flow in this engine is a good idea. Obviously I'll have to keep the oil levels on the higher end as I've lost a bit of reserve, but I watch my engines like a hawk ( not THE hawk ).

Then I noticed the windage plate had a chunk roughly cut out of it below cylinder 5!



At first I thought the engine had dropped a rod or something major, but there were absolutely no marks around cylinder 5 at all. The only mark I could find was some rub marks on the arm of the oil pump. I thought this was weird, so did some research. Was hard to find much, but I eventually put it all together. There were also no pieces of it anywhere, so it's been purposely removed!

Here is how the plate should look.



Mine is missing the end flap that is unsupported. Seems that this end flaps up and down, develops cracks, and then breaks loose and causes all manner of problems. The T4 crew know all about it.

So tonight I went looking for a new one, and found this on eBay uk. Already on the way out!!





So I'm glad I dropped the sump, and will replace the baffle plate EDIT I bought a new one and welded some major metal reinforcement on these corners and braced it around the bolts that hold it on, should be far, far stronger now.

[Greg Roles]

Ok just a quick update, things have slowed down as I wait for tools / bits to arrive before full reassembly, looking like next week. I have since drained the auto fluid and removed the old filter, got 5L out, which is something to note as the TITAN ATF 4400 fluid I'm using comes in 4L bottles and of course I only have one, second one on the way. Much cheaper online in Australia than at the shops, weird but there you go, shop around. I used SparesPro.

Fluid was fine and obviously quite new, the two stock magnets had a decent amount of metal stuck to them. I've added a third strong magnet out of an old computer hard drive which should work a treat. Old filter is a simple mesh design, looked fine, but have put back in a temporary cheap filter kit, and will reflush the trans in a few thou kms and put back in a name brand filter set.

I'm almost finished getting all the parts for my external trans cooler, the hoses out of the box are AN 10 ORB females. I'm adding a thermostat controlled valve - probably not required in Australia but just to be sure - and getting AN10 ORB male to 1/2" NPT adapters isn't easy. "ORB" ( o-ring banjo ) AN fittings differ to regular tapered AN fittings, same threads but the sealing mechanism is different, so be aware of that trap also ( see pic below ). Just take the adapters into consideration if you fit your own cooler, the lines out of the box are 1/2" not the usual 3/8" I'm used to. All Enzed could sell me were made up adapters that sadly have thread inside them I have to carefully drill out to get half the seal. The inside of the female ( on the factory cooler ) is 12mm smooth, with an OD metric thread of 18mm. You can buy AN ORB fittings to barbs quite easy, but my thermostat makes it a lot trickier. I should have just stuck to all barbs and made up short adapter hoses!



EDIT Went to Pirtek this morn, and they too came up with a made up adapter, and that too didn't fit! Pirtek did say they thought the fitting was AN8 ORB, so I may be wrong too, if you do go down this road buy proper AN ORB fittings with barbs before anything else, it's the biggest hurdle to overcome attaching to the factory hoses.

[Greg Roles]

Well I'm at the point of cranking the engine, but ran out of light / enthusiasm to finish priming the fuel lines. Seems to be quite a few posts of people having trouble getting the engine to start after doing the camshaft / tandem pump, and it would appear it simply needs to be properly primed. I cranked my engine about ten times from totally off, with not a single fire, and on inspection the fuel filter is still bone dry. The Haynes manual states that on each key turn the fuel tank electric pump only runs for a few seconds, so it seems it will take a lot of on/off key work to get the lines and filter, then down to the tandem pump and injector lines primed. I've simply got some diesel and found a decent syringe tonight, and will fill the filter and pump manually, and then draw the fuel up the supply line from the tank. So moral of the story is priming is more involved than you think, and is no doubt what a lot of people stumble over when messing with the fuel system. There's probably a priming adaption in Vag Com too, didn't think of that till just now, might check that out tomorrow.

I've finished my large transmission cooler, but at this stage I've had to take the 12V fan it came with off to get it to fit. I'll make a better job of placing it so the fan can be fitted as well, just to be sure, but for now this will do fine. For anyone else wondering, working out the inlet and outlet lines for the 09G auto box is difficult, and there's stuff all online, took me a fair bit of web browsing to find anything at all. I believe the outlet from the auto box is the line closest the bell housing ( drivers side ) and it has a vertical gearbox bracket. It is also the outer bracket on the single bolt that holds both lines into the box. The return line is further towards the passenger side, and has the inner, horizontal to the ground support bracket. Only matters if you are running a thermostat valve like I am ( probably a waste of time in Australia ) but figured I'd do it right whilst in there. It did make filling the box a piece of cake as I just used a funnel on the cooler by taking the temperature switch out, and the whole 5.125L that came out went back in fine, albeit slowly. Will get it up to temp and do the levels tomorrow.EDIT- my later purchased auto manual shows this inlet/outlet as correct!

Here's the only pics of the lines I could find from a vague self study document on the box, and I assume the dark green outlet shown on the first "golf/passat" box corresponds with the dark green on the 2.5L box I have. I will put a temp gauge in the line, so will quickly work out if this is correct or not!





Also be aware that the fans will run flat out with the front bumper off, as the wiring for the temp probe ( and passenger headlight ) runs through the bumper. Took me by surprise till I had a look.

I've also read that you must run in a new cam with flat lifters at 2000 - 2500 rpm for the first 20-30mins, idling is apparently the worst thing you can do. Guess you need to keep the oil pressure up or something....anyway that's the plan tomorrow.