Club 80-90 Forums

Van ran dry and overheated, I topped up plenty of coolant but damage was already done as I drove later that day and have a thick white cloud coming from my exhaust. Checked the oil dipstick and sure enough it's covered in milky brown liquid.....

Looking through various posts it seems like most opt for replacement engines which I'd love to do but they all seem way out of my price range, so I'm willfully hoping there is some kind of cheap alternative for me to go for, or is it cheaper to try to remedy it myself (my knowledge is extremely limited but I do have a few VW buffs I could call in a favour with)...

All advice very much appreciated, things are very sad here as we love our van and we feel like a member of the family is out of action

Cheers folks

And your engine is?

yeah sorry for the lack of info...

1.9 petrol wbx 1983 DH engine...

Cheers

If the seals on the liners (cylinders) are gone (no head gasket in these) then there isn't a cheap fix i'm afraid.

Starting point on diagnostics would be compression test.

If you search on head gasket you will find lots of info and links to rebuild threads etc, been about 3 in the last 3 weeks IIRC

Cheers,
MM

Thanks for the advice...I guess that seems like a good place to start, I feel like there's a very big mountain in front of me right now n am trying to work out what the cheapest way of sorting this would be....what would be a realistic budget? The bad thing is we were booked to go away next week for our first holiday of the year in it and now this has happened....gutted doesn't even come close....

Look for a good second hand engine and start saving?

good luck.


Hope it works out for you...also investigate how it ran dry without alerting you?

Although I did find out the hard way that my water light is non-functional .....now i check it regularly having failed to get the light to work....

Em
xx

Hi,

With a similar dielmma I have spent many hours on here reading, and got some very useful replies to a recent thread on engine replacement, I can sum up the options:

1) Get replacement 1.9. Have spent hour’s now reading threads on here regarding the various engine rebuilders / re-conditioners, and reached the conclusion that with all of them you may get a good one, you might get a duff one. Elite seem a cheap option with the 24 month warranty, but it appears you may have to use the warranty. I’ve had a variety of other VAG engines from Volkspares, The Engine Shop and one other that escapes me and they were all rubbish for one reason or the other!

In the region of £1k for engine from Elite.

2) Rebuild the one you’ve got. Looking at parts though they come in at approx. £2k assuming most bits need replacing. This is “expensive” compare to other options, plus you need to be able to do the build work yourself, or add the cost of labour for this. May open a can of worms.

3) Buy ‘good’ 1.9 / 2.1 from on here, assuming anyone has one to sell. Add in wanted section. Prices vary wildily but about £500 - £800 seems to be the order of magnitude quoted... Could take a punt on Ebay (from about £200) but this is likley to be a highly risky game!

4) Stick in a 1.8 golf GTI engine. You will need to source a wide range of deisel engine parts to get it to fit (mounitng bars, bell houisng for gear box, input shaft, sump, clutch, flywheel etc), which might not be as easy as it first looks. The 1.8 8v golf is cheap though at about £200 for the whole car, plus I reckon about another £300 in parts assuming you can find them. Need a good mechanic / do it yourself. Could also go diesel golf engine if that floated your boat. More in alternative engine forum on here.

5) Fit a Subaru engine. Very expensive.

So budget - at least £500, more likely £1k for the basic options, upwards of £3k for the suburu.

However, as Em suggests don't overlook why it broke in the first place - check that the cooling system works, or your nice new engine may go pop like the last one.

Good luck!

Alex

If you want the cheapest it's going to be a good s/h off here and fit it yourself with a two mates. If you buy from the usual club traders then one of them will have an engine that at least will be three times better than yours. 3x because it will not have head gaskets blown, will work as expected and might be better than yours used to be. I would never use Elite, their engines are a bitsa fix and in "my personal experience" actually catch fire.

One of your mates needs to have some mechanical knowledge in order to help and the other must be at the very least enthusiastic, large and prepared to work like s dog in the rain for little return. The end result in terms of stories to tell in a future campsite or pub will become a story of legend!

Hi I would repair the engine you have.....if coolant has been used in the engine the head studs should be ok (they corrode inside the engine and snap when the head nuts are undone) GSF do a single head set......you will have to remove head and barrel liners (they usually come out together unfortunately).......it is not as daunting and far cheaper to repair existing engine.....you do need to find the reason for original coolant loss.....I have had a couple of DG engines that the rubber head gasket has cracked ....if you can see where the leak is and it is the rubber head gasket then I would repair your existing engine.........at least you know what you have....I have fitted lots of so called re-con engines and second hand ones from ebay....lots of problems and expense.....I now rebuild them myself.......

Wow what a fantastic thing this forum is....
Such valuable advice and very very much appreciated thankyou.
Its certainly given me plenty to think about over the winter, i think a repair job is looking most likely, and i will let you guys know how it goes.

Thanks again for the advice, n keep on chuggin'

If you do decide to rebuild yourself have a read of this as a starter for ten

https://club8090.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=80287

MM

May I point out that a home re-build can be far more expensive than a recon unit which should be plug and play.

It all depends on your engine's mileage and condition BEFORE it all went Pete Tong.

Ian

Ian Hulley wrote:May I point out that a home re-build can be far more expensive than a recon unit which should be plug and play.

It all depends on your engine's mileage and condition BEFORE it all went Pete Tong.

Ian

but you will exactly how it has been built and what parts (condition of them) have been used to build it condition

neil

And one mistake and it's all been a wasted effort