Club 80-90 Forums

Cheers will post pic tomorrow. Got a new battery in there today and after 5 months of sitting around she started up first time! Didn't want to keep the engine running for too long beacause both water tanks are full of oil, so i need to clean the system out. There's no sign of water in the oil so i'm praying it's not the head -will eliminate other possibilities first such as faulty oil cooler. Could a faulty thermostat also cause some oil to mix with the coolant-in which case i should test that as well. How do i flush the cooling system without introducing air pockets and what's the best thing to use to get rid of the oil inside the tubes/hoses.

Its nothing to do with your thermostat.But some remove it when there are problems with oil in the coolent .Do some tests on the oil cooler you can pull the inlet&outlet hoses off without removing the cooler .Diesel coolent system is easy to flush out as not like WBX that can have an air lock.Theres not much point in doing a flush untill you no where the oil is coming from.

What kind of tests can i do on the cooler and does it sit on top of the oil filter? At the moment the van is not at home but about 7 miles away- do you think i won't damage the engine in any way if i drive it? that's why i wanted to flush it out first and just put some water in it to get it home.

oldiguana wrote:the oil stays in the system for quite some time........

It certainly does

When this happened to me (2 years ago and WBX engine) it took weeks of flushing with water and re-filling and of course re-bleeding each time before it cleared.

Not sure what the best "flush stuff" is though - someone will come along with a suggestion.
I did consider using washing up liquid or detergent (less froth) but wasn't sure what it might do to aluminium bits

How did you flush the system out exactly and how did you avoid introducing air in it. Do you think i could drive it home the 7 miles before flushing it?

Dont worry to much about the 7 mile drive provided there is a full coolent system even with the black gunk your tempreture gauge should tell you if there is a loss or overheat on the engine.I drove a T25 from Leeds to Leatherhead in Surrey with a oil leak into the coolent system i didnt no this untill the next day when i inspected the engine compartment .The van had been listed on ebay which i won and discribed as having a good engine with no oil leaks or other issues.What i did notice on the drive back from Leeds to home was the temp gauge reading was low which is a suprise when you consider the black gunk & loads of oil in the expansion tank found. The thermostat had been removed & the water level senser in the expansion tank had been wired together.I was well pi****ed off i must have been lucky to get home without a breakdown.If you have some mechanical ability the VW diesel engines are fairly straight forward to work on .If its not the oil cooler with a few tools & taking care you should be able to remove the cylinder head and get it sorted.

Sorry to hear your story camper! From thinking that i might do the job myself when i went to get the van today the amount of oil in both tanks as well as all the hoses was scary! At that point i lost the inclination to get my hands reeeeaaallly dirty and took it a mechanic i half know (a friend towed me). He said head gasket straight away, but will also fit new cam belt while he's at it and of course clean out all the coolant system- without parts he wants £300 so not looking too bad- hope it all works out...

Does the mechanic no about these engines? When the head is removed there may be cracks between the valves which cause no problems normally .The head needs to be checked for flatness & not warped.But also pressure tested for leakage .As i said my local engine reconditioner does this for aprox £80.00 .Doing this tells you if you have a servicable head .Oh from my own experiance of getting rid of the oil out of the coolent system .Provided the engine is servicable again once its up to temp & a few flushings it clears out using just water .Tell us your location?.

Thanks for reply camper- mechanic don't think necessarily knows a lot about this partcular engine but says has done many similar ones...as far as head is concerned he's going to take it to the engineer to get it skimmed- that's going to be £30. Today i received the manual i orderd (from JK) and has a section on the cooling system- flushing ,refilling etc. i hope he knows things like how much coolant and water to put in as well as other things. Reading it made me want to do it myself -it's all common sense and at least you know yourself what's been done (and not done!). Almost feel like phoning him up to tell him what to do! The section about the head gasket change is pretty comprehensive and involves lots of steps- anyway we'll see...By the way i was a bit disappointed with the pics in the manual-not exactly very clear. Haynes don't do one as far as i can tell and bentley is too pricey. Is there a half decent one out there?