Marinized VW 140-5 on a Jeanneau 57 -> Service & parts

[Zanshin]

Back when I ordered "Zanshin" I came very close to choosing another model because of the engine. It is a marinized VW "Jetta" engine, a 5-cylinder 140 horsepower turbocharged engine. At the time I thought I'd prefer a standard engine from Yanmar or from Volvo, but then I looked into the engine and found that the ECU is different; the HP of the car engine is 150 while the marine is 140 and when certain faults appear the engine will continue running whereas the car variant will stop.
Jeanneau told me that the engine division was sold to Mercury and I'd have thousands of dealerships to choose from for service.

Well, now I need service and spare parts and things look different. I have found that none of the US east coast Mercury/Mercruiser shops I've contacted support the engine or can help me further. I contacted Mercury but they haven't responded.

My engine has died and after quite a bit of analysis and many expensive diesel mechanic hours ($2K labour costs) it seems that the high-pressure fuel injection pump is defective. I've found one address for a spare which looks correct, but they want $5K for the pump! I hope that the corresponding part for the car version is cheaper, but I don't have a serial number for that [yet].

Has anyone here with that engine, or another VW-Mercruiser one, had any experience with spare parts or service? I'd use a U.K. or German store for the parts and for the necessary special installation tools if I could find one.

[rc sail]

Zanshin, so sorry to read you are having continuing boat issues. We love our Jeanneau's when they are sailing trouble free but if an issue, as we have read with other owners, Jeanneau is mostly non responsive. We face same lack of response with
Jeanneau America. I have banged around and found a Bosch in line electric fuel pump part no. W0153-2369037-Bos at about
$130 USD. Other fuel pumps appear to be in fuel tank pumps so not sure this meets your "marineized" VW engine.
Have you considered trying to find a VW diesel auto tech that would come to you? Probably more knowledgeable and less
money than a Marine Tech. Good luck with matters.

[Zanshin]

Unfortunately I don't have problems with the low-pressure in-line fuel pump, but the high-pressure injector pump that is part of the engine. It is responsible for the timing and pressurization of the injection nozzles and I wish it were available for $130 instead of $5000.

I have thought about using a VW diesel technician rather than Mercury/Mercruiser technicians (if I were able to find one, that is) and I'll reach out to car shops today.

Thanks!

[MalcolmP]

New related thread with link for UK spares

jeanneau.proboards.com/thread/7451/vw-engine-j57

[Zanshin]

I ended up giving up on the Mercury/Mercruiser service. They weren't really interested and I'd heard on the grapevine that they'd perhaps lost their diesel expert.

I used Google and some online forums to find Jesse at Banchwerks who was willing to come aboard and work on the engine. He identified the pump from the picture I'd sent and we ordered a new replacement pump for $1500 rather than the $5000 that Mercruiser wanted; in addition this pump would arrive in 2 days rather than the 2 weeks that Mercury wanted.

When he arrived onboard with the pump we discovered that while the pump body is identical, his only had 4 output rather than the 5 that I needed. It turns out that the 5-cylinder TDI 2,5 was never exported to the US market. Nevertheless he did take my pump apart (using a Dremel to get a "security" bolt open) and we discovered that the top end was gummed up with some diesel sludge - not bacterial stuff but more likely a gelled up old diesel mixture. This had also caused two shorts in the assebly. I got out my soldering gear and made a quick solder-bridge but after replacing this part the engine still refused to run.




Since everything apart from the output is identical to other TDI pumps he said he'd return with an old unused pump from which we could take the top. Two days later he replaced it and once the engine was put together again it fired right up!

Unfortunately, it only revs to 1150RPM and at certain settings it is very rough running. I used 12 bottles of Liqui-Moly Diesel Purge in my tank, which only had about 80l of fuel in it, to see if that might shake something loose but it hasn't worked yet.

So I ordered a refurbished pump from a seller on eBay Germany and paid $200 shipping to DHL for a 1-3 Day service. That didn't work out well, despite taking my money for expedited shipping it will take 6-7 days (they sent it to the wrong transfer depot in Germany...) and once the pump arrives we'll get it installed.

On a side note, the turbocharger wasn't moving. I removed it (messy, since the coolant goes through there and 3-4 liters of it drains when you open the seal) and after 2 hours finally got it off and saw how badly the exhaust side was gummed up with carbon deposits. I never ran the engine at high RPMs under load and I really should have!

I used a recommended method of soaking it in oven cleaner overnight and that did the trick of loosening it up enough to allow me move the vanes - and after re-installing it the exhaust got it moving even better.

[MalcolmP]

Frustrating episode to say the least, but it sounds like you are making good progress now you have a source of parts and a helpful engineer.

How is work on other issues going like the rig replacement and fibreglass repairs? You may want to start another thread in reply so this one doesn't take topic drift😀

Good luck with rest of the recommissioning

[Zanshin]

All the other repairs are on hold, since they are going to be done in Annapolis and I'm still stuck here in Newport with no way of getting there... Until Tuesday (I hope)

[rene460]

Hi Zanshin,  It is a very sad and painful story, and my thoughts are with you.  Obviously not all the damage from the cyclone was immediately obvious.  It has been quite an ordeal.

Thank you for sharing with us the detail.  Your tenacity and practical approach to tackling the problems are inspirational.

I look forward to hearing that you have her back on the water soon.

rene460

[Zanshin]

The really frustrating issue for me today is that I paid $200 for DHL International express delivery, 1-3 days. That was last Wednesday, and the package isn't here yet! According to the online tracking system and customer support, the package was sent to the wrong sorting facility which cause a delay. But the current location is still in Kassel, Germany and the package is supposed to be delivered here in Providence by the end-of-the-day. Either the package's location hasn't been updated or I'm not going to get my package today...

<added after reaching a real human being at DHL support>

The package is still in Germany. Ostensibly incorrectly labelled, but I have a photo of the waybill from the seller and it is correct, so any error would be on DHL's side. The website still shows delivery today. 2 hours to the DHL freight airport in Germany, 8 hours flight to BOS, processing there and a 2-hour drive to here. That is assuming that there's no customs clearance or other processing delays. Not going to happen!

<added 2 days later>
It seem that DHL's 1 Day expedited delivery has taken a week so far. The package is still in Germany after 7 days, it has been "sorted" twice in Leipzig and so far DHL's support has blamed "German Customs" 3 times. Oddly enough, the first time they did this the package hadn't even arrived in a facility with customs. I suppose that this is their standard excuse when, in fact, DHL has messed up. So far the package has spent more than a day just sitting in Leipzig.

[Zanshin]

After 8 days underway the new fuel injection pump has arrived. Jesse, the TDI expert technician, installed the new injection assembly and we adjusted the timing so that the engine ran again, but the issues remained similar in that the engine won't rev beyond a certain point. I used the Ross-Tech software to analyze the engine data and saw all sorts of anomalous behavior but we couldn't explain what might be causing it.

This morning I re-ran through all the tests I could find and did find one in the shop manual which had me measure resistance between cables and run VCDS-Software tests on the ECU. This was regarding setting the injection timing adjustment range in degrees before and after TDC (top-dead-center). Those values were outside of allowed ranges and after going through many steps with cable resistances and continuity checks the end result of the decision-tree was "replace ECU".

This is available in the USA, fortunately. But it is another expensive piece of kit at $1200 ($1600 if bought directly from Mercruiser).

I've seen complete TDI diesel cars available for less than what these 2 major parts for my marine engine have cost! I am certain that had the same problems occurred on a Volvo or Yanmar the total costs including labour would have significantly less - another item that speaks against this engine.

[NZL50505]

Crikey you have got a ton of perseverance with this engine!

I’m firmly put off buying a J57 with this installation!

Did any other J57s have Yanmar or Volvos?

[Zanshin]

The next part of the continuing saga

My diesel mechanic recommended a guy in Tennessee who could "clone" my ECU, so I used next-day delivery to send him my ECU and it didn't come back until Friday the 5th of July (since the 4th was a holiday in the USA). The newly cloned ECU did not solve my problems...

I've now removed the fuel filter on the engine and the small fuel lift pump. The new filter should be at the marina office and I've ordered the fuel pump from a car shop. Total price with next-day delivery is $170 while the Mercury part is $490 and won't ship for a week. The pump is identical...

[NZL50505]

Hey Zanshin

When it’s working what’s your fuel consumption on your VW engine?

And what speeds do you cruise at and max out at? And what’s your fuel capacity?

I’m still considering a J57 down here in NZ and wondering about range under engine amongst the S Pac Islands.

[Zanshin]

I don't have my spreadsheet with fuel consumption data, but the engine is quite good and efficient. Since I'm in the Caribbean and winds are strong and steady I don't motor much at all - the engine only has 800 hours on it and I live aboard half the year and generally move the boat to a different anchorage each day. The cumulative hours are mostly from the 30 minutes engine to get in and 30 minutes to get out of an anchorage.

I will usually motorsail at 8+ knots with a light engine loading, and if there is no wind I'll go 6-8 knots depending upon sea state. I haven't run at maximum RPM so I don't know what the top speed might be. This trip I might find out, though.

Since my goal is a circumnavigation I opted to change one water tank for a fuel tank. That gives me 420L (110 gallons) for the main tank and 310L (82 gallons) in the second tank with a fuel transfer pump that moves fuel from the 2nd tank to the main tank.

I'm still working on the engine repair. It looks like the fuel-shutoff solenoid is causing problems. The part is physically the same as that used in all VW TDI engines; but there's a small difference in that car engines shut off the fuel supply when no power is going to the solenoid while marine engines are normally open and only shut off the fuel supply when they are energized. The little solenoid goes for around $50 new at car dealerships and the internet, but VW Mercruiser want to have $580 for the same solenoid!

[Zanshin]

Today was my first successful day in quite while. Jesse, the diesel expert from Banchwerks, came by with my old fuel pump and we went to work.

I'd seen that marine fuel cut-off solenoids differ from the ones used in cars. Cars need +12V applied to the solenoid so that they open and allow fuel to flow. This works so that in the case of a crash with electrics shutting off the engine will stop immediately. Marine solenoids work the other way, they need +12V in order to turn off and will run when no voltage is applied. This makes sense in a marine environment, where if the electrics partially fail the engine should still somehow work.

The replacement injection pump I'd ordered and which Jesse installed was for a car, so the solenoid worked the exact opposite way; but evidently it wasn't powerful enough to stop the fuel from flowing when turned off.

So we removed the solenoid from my original fuel pump



and put it back into the engine. Unfortunately, the RPMs were still erratic and we couldn't find a logical explanation for the engine's behaviour. We were brainstorming and looking at the old solenoid when it hit both of us at the same time - there was something missing.

We were torn between looking for a mechanical problem or an electrical one. We measured the cable resistances and tested relays and I wanted to put the car solenoid without the blocking valve into the engine to test the always-on mechanical situation. This takes a while to do, since you have to remove all the cables to the ECU box, then get the box out, access the solenoid and then put everything back together.

Once we'd done that the engine fired up, but the RPMs were far too high and we had to adjust both the timing chain and use the VW TDI "Hammer Mod" (you can google that) to get the fuel quantity back into the correct range. Once that was done the engine ran perfectly!

So what was causing our issue with a solenoid installed? it could still be an electrical issue in the wiring loom that wouldn't let the solenoid work correctly; but somehow that didn't seem correct...

finally the solution hit us at the same time and the following picture explains the problem and solution:


It turns out that the previous mechanics in the BVI had removed the uncaptured spring from the solenoid when they re-installed it. The spring was in the plastic tray that contained all the screws and bits-and-bobs that we'd removed from the engine in order to access the important pieces!

[MalcolmP]

Great news, glad your perseverance has paid off.

[Zanshin]

I just did my first passage on "Zanshin" since Irma. I slipped the mooring lines, motored to the fuel dock and, 120 gallons of diesel and 160 gallons of water later, motored back to my mooring ball

In the next couple of days I'll be getting out of here and motoring to Annapolis with the boat.

[MalcolmP]

Jul 13, 2019 16:51:50 GMT Zanshin said:

I just did my first passage on "Zanshin" since Irma. I slipped the mooring lines, motored to the fuel dock and, 120 gallons of diesel and 160 gallons of water later, motored back to my mooring ball

In the next couple of days I'll be getting out of here and motoring to Annapolis with the boat.

Must have been a great feeling, have a safe trip, bet you can't wait to get re-rigged too, and thanks for joining our Ambassador scheme.

[NZL50505]

That’s great news!
Apparently the boat here in NZ has had its VW engine serviced by the local Mercruiser agent - it’s due another service soon and I’ll find out more about the cost & complexity of servicing vs a Yanmar or Volvo equivalent after that.

[Zanshin]

I hope that the local VW Mercruiser technicians are more experienced than the ones here. If so, the engine should give you years of pleasure.

[MIMU]

Hi All,  a new member here, first post! - and a cautionary tale...

We have a J57 with the VW turbo diesel.
We've hit a problem with the turbo, after a lengthy period ( 250+ hours) of low throttle running.
I normally cruise at 1800 rpm, sometimes 2000 rpm if we need a bit more speed. It seems that these revs are insufficient to keep the turbo clean, and that translates to a damaged turbo in due course.
I am told by various big time engine users that it is necessary to run at > 80% revs for 5% of the time to keep the turbo cleaned out.

Our turbo ceased operating completely, meaning that we had 100% normal ops up to 1500 rpm, but over that more throttle just delivered plenty of black smoke but no more power. The turbo shaft was also damaged so the normal service kit wouldn't suffice, and a new turbo has now been ordered. Its a garrett turbo, plentiful and not too expensive, but still an unwelcome surprise and a potential safety issue.

In all other respects the engine has been great, smooth and strong, and we've taken it from about 1100 hrs to 1880 hrs with no other issues.

Can anyone else advise on suitable operating protocols for these engines?

[NZL50505]

Hi Mimu!

How funny - we nearly bought “Mimu” a few years ago - but I was concerned by the unusual engine setup (VW vs the usual Yanmar) and paucity of VW marine engineering services in Auckland.

Anyway, you’ve obviously had a good time until now and in terms of your question about usage protocols I think you’ve largely answered it yourself ie you need to run at 80% + quite regularly. This is important for any diesel generally (to avoid glazing of bores) and even more important for turbos (to avoid the issues you’ve suffered). It’s the tips of the turbo blades themselves that must get hot to burn off residues.

Some people say you should try to motor at 75-80% most of the time with a bit of variation of speed for longer trips. But I often find 75-80% is too fast - I don’t always want to be going 7-8kts on a quiet Sunday morning enjoying the scenery over a cup of coffee. So I motor whatever speed I want but make a point of motoring at 80% at least 20% of the time and about once every 20hrs I run at full throttle for a sustained period eg 30-60 mins. I am always very careful to slow down very gradually after running hard & fast for sustained periods so I drop the engine speed down from high to low over about 10 mins in ~200rpm reductions. The worst thing to do is motor hard to the marina entrance, suddenly pull back to idle and then shut down immediately after tying up. I always let the engine cool down in neutral for at least 5 mins on the berth whilst I sort lines or for the same time after anchoring.

Hope this helps and hopefully see you out there sometime (I was out on the Gulf last night but came back in this evening due to the 50kts+ sub-tropical low forecast to hit Auckland tonight )!

[Zanshin]

I had my turbo seize as well, but the fix wasn't difficult - just messy. After removing the turbo unit I sprayed it with oven cleaner and let it soak, then sprayed it again while using a pencil (which slowly dissolved) to turn the blade a bit at a time. Continuous spraying and turning finally worked and when the unit was turning easily I replaced it and let the engine exhaust give it the final polish at higher RPMS.

[MIMU]

Many thanks Fogg and Zanshin.
The VW has been a good engine for us to date - this problem ( hopefully now fixed) is 100% from operator error.