my T 25 CAMPER

[Tacky]

i have a t 25 vw 1983 water cooled camper. at the last service at the v w work shop the bloke said the head needed a new head gasket . seam reluctant to take job on as he said the bolts some times breaks . i have had several other bods quote silly high prices right down to silly low prices . no confidence in most replies to the question have you done this job before and dod you no what you are taking on. the bods take have done work on others cars i trust tell me its a hard jod and if pushed would have a go but i dont feel happy . is it such a hard nasty job. a tatto self confested vw expert machanic with a pony tail. says dont go for a new engine as he says they are rubbish and will let me down this new engine i have in van now is only ten years old with not that many miles on it but we dont do a lot of miles so sits in drive way rotting suggestions please

[ghost123uk]

Yes, doing this job on these engines can be a right can of worms and anyone doing it won't know whether it is going to be fairly straightforward or a right nightmare (that can end up in requiring another engine) until they start stripping it down. It's lottery.

Two alternatives:-

Buy a "recon" engine at a cost of between £1000 (Elite VW) and £1800 (Vege / Just Kampers etc). These too can be a lottery. From what I can gather after years of reading about this subject on here, I reckon it might be 50/50 whether you get a good one first time from either of those suppliers. I do know that Elite, whilst a bit tedious to deal with re time scales etc, do seem to honour their guarantee reasonably well. Best for sure to get them to fit it though, so they cannot wriggle out of the warranty by saying it was fitted wrongly.

The other alternative is to buy a good used one. Ones for sale on here are likely to be a better buy than a random Ebay, one, but Club 80-90 cannot guarantee that any engine bought of a member is going to be exactly "as described" and will last for xxx miles with no issues. They do come up quite often in our "for sale" section for ~£300 to ~£600.

Yours should be the earlier type motor (DF or early DG) and whilst any flat four WBX engine will fit, if you end up with a later engine (post 85 with the 2 oil pressure switches) then you will need to transfer stuff like the water pump, and a few other minor bits from your current engine.

Lastly, there are 2 or 3 folk on here that can re-build these engines to a high standard but the prices are of course somewhat higher. Are you looking for a budget solution or a no compromise one?

[lefty67]

Why did he diagnose a new head gasket?
What does the engine run like?
Im no expert but a bit extreme to opt for a replacement engine without trying to replace the head gasket first.

[itchyfeet]

You don't say if pertrol or diesel, from your description we assume a petrol water cooled boxer (WBX) but can you clarify?

WBX don't have head gaskets as such they have a series of seals, the water jacket seal is the most common to fail and it still runs fine but looses coolant, these can sometimes be held at bay with sealing products.

Alternatively the compression or barrel seals can fail resulting in coolant in oil or compression of the water system.

I suggest finding out what symptoms it has first.

[ghost123uk]

I suggest finding out what symptoms it has first.

That's true