Club 80-90 Forums

DG engines whats the crack, did vw produce 2 DG engines, I ask as I have 2 engines both DG 1.9 but the engines are different, thermostate housing some of the pipe work, but the internals are different as well.

I have stripped both engines and the heads barrels and pistons look the same, but they have different cranks.
Looking for replacement main bearings and i can only find refeerence to the thinner bearing on the left.
Part number for the bearing on the left is 025 105 531
Part number for the thinner bearing on the left is 74 477 611 ( uo.25)

So how many DG 1.9 engines are there, and how do you identify which one you have, and where do you get the parts ?

Any help with this head scratcher would be great. Thanks.

Hi, I found the same when I rebuilt my DG. I snapped a head bolt and had to find a replacement case. On assembling my original crank into replacement case I found the bearings different. I had no problem changing the bearings over. Got them from Volkspares now called Allpartszone in Croydon

http://www.volkspares.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Lots of changes happened in 85/86

Ok, will check out volkspares thanks for that.

So these changes in 85 / 86 why did vw not changes the engine code to something else rather than having 2 DG engines. Is there any where i can find what the changes are are so i know whats interchangeable.

Interchangeable parts have the same part number.
For that information you need to register with vagcat

http://www.vagcat.com/epc/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I presume you want VW to answer the other question.. I couldn't possibly comment

necromonger wrote: So these changes in 85 / 86 why did vw not changes the engine code to something else rather than having 2 DG engines. Is there any where i can find what the changes are are so i know whats interchangeable.

Uncle VW didn't plan for the unwashed (like me and thee) to be fertling around amongst his part numbers, he intended for you to tread the deep-pile carpets bound for his parts department and his operatif to either hand you a huge bill for the parts or (preferably) for you to go and order a new delivery van instead. The fact they accidentally happened to have outlasted most of their knowledgeable parts men and still remained popular must be a source of amusement to the designers.

Ian

I always assumed the changes were to bodywork and cooling system (that is not part of the engine) and not the 1.9dg engine itself??

Thanks for the info lots to follow up on.

On further investigation the crank is the same in both the early and late DG engines, it is the case that is different, the earlier engine having thicker main bearings, and the later engine having the slimmer bearings.

Now the engines have been stripped, No 4 big end is shagged,, requiring the crank to be reworked, expensive.

Now as the cranks in both engines are the same i want to swap the cranks, but i need to change the main bearings on the early crank for later ones to match the engine case. The early crank has red dots on both ends..

looking on Vagcat it refers to the main bearings as red or blue or nothing which i think must mean the dot on the crank when it has been reground, but it doesn't give a size. Do these coloured dots stand for std, 0.25 and 0.5.

Any advice as to is it is possible to swap cranks and what bearings to use please.

Hi, I have looked throught so many sites looking for bearing sizes to convert early DG crank to fit the later DG case.

Does anybody know the measurements of what a standard jounal should be, or where i can find the information.

I still can't find any reference to the red dots on the crank.

Think i may have found something.
http://www.vanagonguy.com/blog/vanagon-specs/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;