Club 80-90 Forums

ajsimmo wrote:All the ancillaries will swap over from your old engine to your better engine. It's really the van that's early or late, the core engine is practically similar and interchangeable.

As Andrew says the core engine is pretty much identical from a point of view of fitting all the cooling system, ignition, carb, fuel pump and all the other ancillaries.

The main differences are inside with the crank bearings and little things like some internal case mods to allow a 2.1 to be made with the same case and an extra oil pressure switch. Also I read the metalurgy of the head studs was changed to reduce the rusting problem.
When rebuilding you are more interested in early or late because of the internal differences but from your point of view either will be fine.

Getting a spare thermostat housing up front is a good tip. I'll start hunting

Always worth collecting spares, buy them when they are cheap and not when you need them. They will never loose value you can always sell them on.

I have spares of almost everything engine related, if I have a fault it's easy to fix by swapping bits.

Thanks for the clarification Itchy/Andrew. After a bit of work, the early thermostat housing I have is in reasonably good condition so I'll get a new water pump and stick with the early pipework.

On a related issue, when I was re-tapping the threads on the housing I noticed the steel pipe that runs to the opposite head was moving around a bit. It seems to be a push-fit into the housing. It had been held in with some silicone and backed with some JB weld or similar. There is an o-ring in my gasket set that looks about the right size but the perished seal in there was a flat/retangular section rather than an o-ring. Can anyone suggest a better way to seal this joint?
IMG_1983

The yellow one


https://www.vwheritage.com/catalog/prod ... gory/4109/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks Itchy.

Flat orings were round once, they get compression set where they no longer are round when un compressed.
The yellow one is a different material to the black ones, silicone perhaps but does not seem.to.suffer from compression set.

It turns out the housing & pipe to RH head is not in good enough condition to hold a seal. The thermostat end of the pipe (025121180A) is badly corroded and is affecting the seal top the point that I am leaking coolant in a steady stream. Nobody seems to have a new pipe in stock and the ETA from Cool Air is April/May 2019...

I have cleaned up the pipe, fitted a new o-ring and added some dirko to the area but I am not optimistic that it will hold. Now that I have the engine back in the van,has anyone out there come up with an alternative way to get coolant from an early thermo housing to the right head?

You could pay the import fine and get one from the States.

https://www.buslab.com/product-p/025121180ass.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.vancafe.com/025121180ASS-p/025121180ass.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

DoubleOSeven wrote:You could pay the import fine and get one from the States.

https://www.buslab.com/product-p/025121180ass.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.vancafe.com/025121180ASS-p/025121180ass.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks DoubleOSeven. My initial attempt failed when tested at less than 1Bar but it was because the housing was badly corroded where the o-ring seats. A new pipe would be no good without the housing sorted. I pulled the whole thing back out and cleaned out the corrosion with a drill scotchbrite wheel. I filled in the gap with JB weld and then used some dirko with a new o-ring. I pressure tested the system up to 1.5 Bar cold and had no leaks. I have probably only run for about an hour or so but so far, so good.

From memory I used two o rings and some dirko too. Been ok. 3 years. I still prefer the early system to late. Far simpler.