Club 80-90 Forums

Hi guys, need some advice please. We've only had our van for a year and we've had a great summer attending a few festivals and taking her out and about. But now the summer seems to be over we are going to stick in a new engine.

Can someone recommend where to get one from? Is there much price difference in re-con compared to new and what should we look out for if going for a re-con?

We'd appreciate your help as we don't want to waste money and time by getting it wrong.

Betty is a 1980 T25, 2.0 Air Cooled petrol engine, with a 4 speed gearbox. Let me know if you need any further info to answer.

Hi,
The choice of how you go about it is really based on why you want a new engine. There are usually 2 reasons; 1. the bottom end ie the crankshaft has worn in its bearings and its making a really bad noise and losing oil pressure or 2. it is buring oil and losing power. If it is the first then a good recon will be a similar price to a new engine. Replacing all the worn parts with good quality new parts is an expensive business and cannot be done cheaply. In this instance if a new engine is available then you would be wise to go down that route. However if the 'bottom end' is fine and you really just need new heads, piston rings, barrels etc then this is around half the price. Obviously the price differs as to who does the work, what level of detail they go into and what quality of parts they use. It can be quite hard to compare prices because you don't always know exactly what you are getting.

The third option and often the most reliable and cost effective is to buy a really good running engine from a van that is being broken due to rust issues. Often vans fail MOTs spectacularly due to rust and repair is uneconomic. If you can find an engine from a breaker or privately that can be shown to be running really nicely, not burning oil and having been maintained well then it will most likely give at least another 5+ years of trouble free service. In my opinion as someone who runs an engine building workshop a proven working engine is always preferable to a recon. I am sure you will get a good range of replies though from many very knowledgable people.

Good luck, Oliver.

Im having a new re con engine from EliteVw based in London. It ended up as £2400 with fitting with collection and drop off to the midlands. I needed about £500 of extra parts. I get the van back on thursday so i will let you know my verdict. Guaranteed for 10,000 miles/12 months

Hi,

Thanks for the replies, the current engine is leaking oil from the bottom end somewhere and I can't pin point it. Also it is throwing out an oily mess from the exhaust all over the back of the van.

Whilst its done us proud this summer we want to use it extensively next year and would prefer to know that something reliable is in there and I won't need to top it up with oil every few hundred miles.

Finding and fixing an oil leak is a much better option than replacing the engine. A little bit of oil can cover a whole lot of the engine & tail-gate. Replacing the rocket seals & push-rod seals should cost less than £100, a lot less if you do it yourself. If it's the crank seal at the gearbox end, even that should only cost £200 if the garage does it without dropping the engine. If you've got oil coming out the exhaust pipe then it could be a valve seal or at worst a worn bore or broken piston ring. Even that could be a cheap'ish fix.

Anyway air-cooled engines always leak a bit of oil, it's all part of the character, and 20/50 mineral oil is only £8.00 for 5 litres. I look at it as the van rust-proofing itself

Has your engine got any other performance issues?

gracon73 wrote:Hi,


Whilst its done us proud this summer we want to use it extensively next year and would prefer to know that something reliable is in there and I won't need to top it up with oil every few hundred miles.

Thats exactly why i did mine, I'm planning a trip to france next year with the kids and don't want to be worrying about the van breaking down. Im confident i can go on a long trip with no worries as the van will be in top condition. Im planning on keeping Toby for a few years yet so i thought it was a good investment. Labour costs soon add up even for small jobs. Think it will work out better for me in the long run as i don't have time to keep fixing things. Busy family man.

Woops. Posted in the wrong place

BOXY wrote:Replacing the rocket seals

I knew there was a way to make the van faster!