Water leaking...

[Plasticman]

I wpuld 100% not fill my system with leak stop or any other stuff! and clean up as yopu may I wouldnt go down the route of gobbing up the outside of the plug, .
fair comment to the garage that would rather not..
my concern would also be that if we assume the core plaugs were fitted at thew samer time then the rest wont be far off failing,, sorry Id run with plan 1 and use a telescopic tube,
mike

[willard]

Well done some research and gonna drain (not via the block drain points) flush and refil the collant system. I am gonna try K Seal but won't be doing anything to the external face of the block. If this don't work at all then it'll be over to the mechanic to do his thang!

Out of interest it has not actually leaked since driving home from work! Go figure Yes ther is fluid (mainly water) in the system.

Appreciate the warnings, but on my head be it. Reading my Hayne and checking the engine bay to familiarise myself with a partial drain, flush and re-hydration of the engine.

Really do aprreciate all the information and knowledge. I'll keep you posted on the outcome....

[Plasticman]

Ok, often they will cease to leak, sludge and such , but as long as your ontop of it etc then
mike

[mm289]

Late coming on board with this thread - been buried rebuilding the top end on mine

Personally I would not use K-seal or similar in these engines. It "might" temporarily seal the core plug but more likely will cause consequential issues elsewhere. The WBX has a number of quite small water pipes which are prone to clogging, usually from corrosion induced sludge from years of low/incorrect antifreeze. Adding a "sealing additive" will only exacerbate this situation IMHO.

Liquid metal is recommended by some engine builders to seal up the various core plugs on WBX, notably ben from Toronto http://www.benplace.com/vw2.htm uses it to seal most core plugs on rebuilding an engine.

Pulling a pushrod tube and replacing with an expandable one is quite common and easy - hence why your second mechanic is quoting a couple of hours. With the pushrod tube outta the way, replacing the core plug is then easy and no head removal is required. Again here is a link to ben's site to give you and idea of what is involved in the pushrod tube replacement http://www.benplace.com/pushrod_tube.htm

HTH

MM