Club 80-90 Forums

Our van's been in the garage to get its head gasket replaced, but i've had a call from the garage this evening to say that they're concerned that there may be a propous bore on cylinder 4.

What are the likely implications if there is a leak on one of the cylinders? Do we realistically need to junk the engine, or is there a cost effective way of sorting out the problem, either in the interim or long term e.g. K-Seal or similar? Is it even something that can be sorted out?

Given that we've just invested some money trying to get this engine sorted, we don't want to throw it away if we don't have to, but unfortunately we don't know enough to be able to judge, so any opinions from grizzled diesel sages as to what might be best would be much appreciated.

porous bore? These blocks are cast iron.. I'm no expert but that doesn't sound likely. Surely it would crack being so hard and brittle rather than go porous? Maybe thats what they meant.

To be honest it all depends on budget what your best course of action is. A 1Y (normally aspirated) engine can be had for £150, you'll get that back from your JX turbo and head. It'll go straight in and they are bulletproof.

If it was my choice I would be swapping fuel to petrol and fitting a 2.0 GTi engine - you have all the bits needed to do it already bar a fuel pump. If you're anywhere near the LEZ the van can be made compliant and you should get low 30's mpg if driven sensibly.

HTH

Hutch

There is a complete 1.6td engine for sale on the ukpassatforum at the moment. £250.

lloydy wrote:There is a complete 1.6td engine for sale on the ukpassatforum at the moment. £250.

what you doing lurking over there??

scouring the interweb for AFN parts

Cast iron 10mm thick...porous?

no

unless it's cracked it ain't porous

I went past this morning to take a look - unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me.

The wall of the cylinder looks as if it has a dozen or so pinpricks in it, and an area about 1cm long that looks like a crease in the cylinder wall on the 'end' wall' but no obvious signs of any fractures/ cracks. There is also evidence of discolouration on the old head gasket between cylinders 4 and 3 - although this gasket is known to have failed. The guy doing the work is convinced that the discolouration, along with the marks on the cylinder wall is evidence of the cylinder block having failed.

Symptoms before the engine was head was stripped were pressurisation of the coolant system and combustion products in the coolant, and a small oil leak at the head gasket..

I haven't agreed to any further work as yet but they are recommending that the cylinder block is removed and rebored, new pistons fitted etc.

clift_d wrote:I went past this morning to take a look - unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me.

The wall of the cylinder looks as if it has a dozen or so pinpricks in it, and an area about 1cm long that looks like a crease in the cylinder wall on the 'end' wall' but no obvious signs of any fractures/ cracks. There is also evidence of discolouration on the old head gasket between cylinders 4 and 3 - although this gasket is known to have failed. The guy doing the work is convinced that the discolouration, along with the marks on the cylinder wall is evidence of the cylinder block having failed.

Symptoms before the engine was head was stripped were pressurisation of the coolant system and combustion products in the coolant, and a small oil leak at the head gasket..

I haven't agreed to any further work as yet but they are recommending that the cylinder block is removed and rebored, new pistons fitted etc.

I read the last line of this and it contradicts itself - if the block is porous it is passing water through to the combustion / pistons (or the other way around - combustion gases into the water)
If it is porous - it is not possible to rebore it as you are boring into "bad" metal
This is obviously going on evidence submitted without seeing the real picture

DuaneEddy wrote: I read the last line of this and it contradicts itself - if the block is porous it is passing water through to the combustion / pistons (or the other way around - combustion gases into the water)
If it is porous - it is not possible to rebore it as you are boring into "bad" metal
This is obviously going on evidence submitted without seeing the real picture

I'm assuming that they would be putting some kind of lining to the cylinders at the same time, but I'll know more when they come back to me with some more details and a price.

Dunno about a porous block but I had a 1.6 td with a crack at the base of the bore once...it's not as thick as you think the block for a start, this engine had been over heated and rebuilt...appeared ok and ran fine...it was possible to drive it hard for about 15miles or so but then it blow its coolant out the cap and gauge would rise and led would flash....crack was found using rocol penetrant flaw finder after it had passed a block pressure test...this engine was a real pain to be honest, many hours of faffing about spent and it was nice to actually find the fault at long last...a pressure test should show up a bad casting so maybe worth doing...or scrap it and find a better one!


As stated above a rebore will not cure anything and to my knowledge these blocks can't be sleeved...and even if they could its not worth doing!

max and caddy wrote:As stated above a rebore will not cure anything and to my knowledge these blocks can't be sleeved...and even if they could its not worth doing!

That's where it sounds like it's going. We suspect that any price for 'repair' is going to come back as a price to 'replace', which means a new (remanufactured) engine or short block, and if that's the case then we'll probably be looking at a newer, more powerful/ efficient engine rather than another JX, ideally something that uses as much of the existing installation as possible.

clift_d wrote: we'll probably be looking at a newer, more powerful/ efficient engine rather than another JX, ideally something that uses as much of the existing installation as possible.

G T I

you know it makes sense. Cheap as chips engines, plentiful, more modern, use all the JX bolt on bits.