Club 80-90 Forums

need some advice our 1984 1.9 petrol dg was leaking oil just cleand engine and startred her up and saw that oil was squirting from the air filter so i opend it up and inside was oil of course. rang our machinic and he said its time for a new engine. over the past week we have been having alot of oil leaks and our engine is running hot also fuel consumption is worse. so where do we start where do we look for a new 1.9 dg or can we send ours off to be rebuilt. or is it the case that actully its not as bad as it sounds but we highly doubt that

This question comes up weekly.
You start by asking yourself these questions.

How long can I live without my van?
How much money do I have to spend?
Am I happy to do this all again next year?


They are from about £1500 rebuilt with few new parts to 4k+ rebuilt with many new parts.
A second hand engine is from £500 to 1K.
Expect another £500 to fit because some extra bits will need replacing

Top end rebuilds are more likely to be to order so you have to wait, lower priced rebuilss and second hand are more available quickly.

I rebuild my own so I have no personal experience of paying money to others for the service so this is all just what I glean from reading posts on here.

itchyfeet wrote:This question comes up weekly.
.

sarahandthebear was the last one to ask the question, it isn't deja vu .... I fear their options may be reduced from what they had decided to do

Ironically it was us who asked about a week ago but that was before our engine had actually decided to give up we had the time to fix it up slowly where as now we have no choice it will take us a year to save for a recon which would probably be the same time to rebuild ourselves so that is an option but I have no idea if I could even do it or where to start getting the van back on the road ASAP would be amazing but unfortunately with such low income it’s hard to make a choice in what to do.

At least with a "rebuilt / reconditioned" engine it's another - hopefully 1 less thing to go wrong - but no guarantee as to how long (as itchy says

It sounds not good, so a rebuild or second hand sounds likely.

We've just had an engine built in sunny south wales (have run in & hopefully will get some use over the next few weeks - better than sleeping in our scudo van at events - but the mrs is still very wary of the camper after our lots of white smoke & blown engine incident - spends more time looking in the rear view mirror than looking forward - hopefully going to convince her its fine (& "no you can't smell burning" - even our toddler says "don't start that again" when she says it

I'll confess to knowing nothing about the DG engines but I assume they have some form of crankcase ventilation? If they do check all hoses and the valve if there is one for kinks/blockages. If it cant breath properly crankcase pressure will increase and this might be the cause of the oil leaks and oil in air filter. I only suggest this as I had (albeit on a diesel) a blocked breather and this caused oil in air filter housing/oil leak around dipstick tube and diptstick to partially come out under pressure

ours was off the road for 18 months sorting the rebuild

Short term, get the engine checked out, if its bad news like you fear place a wanted add for a second hand on here and facebook. Take the old engine out (never done it myself), now i would if need be. Here and Haynes is all you need, tools might be a problem. If you were planning on building your own this would need to be done anyway and would save you money for putting towards the engine. On a budget its always a risk, but there are good second hand engines out there

http://www.theengineshop.info/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Just been looking at recon engines online to see what sort of price there are and found this but it dose seem very cheap for a recon. At the end of the day we really want the van to last for as long as we can so we only want the best. We will have a look on face book for a second hand engine as this also sounds like a good option and are still considering doing the rebuilding ourselves

Im guessing you need this engine asap?

kevtherev wrote:Im guessing you need this engine asap?

The quicker we can get back on the road the better but we do t want to just waste money on something that won’t last more then a year and be back to square one. We have realisticly given ourselves a year to save for a decent rebuild unless we can find a reliable second hand decent engine or rebuild it ourselves which would take a year anyway for paying for parts. It would be nice just to find an engine rebuilt and ready to go but we’re thinking that’s not as easy as it sounds

I'm fitting my rebuilt engine in at some point this year.
Then I'll have a good spare engine.
I was going to keep it as a spare.
It's got very good oil pressure and no leaks rattles or clunks.
Its a 2.1 but all your early 1.9 stuff will fit on.

Firstly - I am not endorsing the following link but does anyone know anything about this selelr?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/vwfan27?_trk ... 7675.l2559

Touch wood the VW recon/recycled unit in our van has been fine so far but there is always the question at the back of our minds that says what if..... We've toyed with diesel conversions (even non vw) and the usual subaru however we would be inclined to go down the 2.1 route and just run with the ancillaries and carb from ours.
Noticed the above seller a few weeks back and now the question has been raised I thought I'd share and ask on here. Although registered as a business the address supplied on ebay appears to be a residential property so does not appear to give any clues.

ash1293 wrote:Firstly - I am not endorsing the following link but does anyone know anything about this selelr?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/vwfan27?_trk ... 7675.l2559

Touch wood the VW recon/recycled unit in our van has been fine so far but there is always the question at the back of our minds that says what if..... We've toyed with diesel conversions (even non vw) and the usual subaru however we would be inclined to go down the 2.1 route and just run with the ancillaries and carb from ours.
Noticed the above seller a few weeks back and now the question has been raised I thought I'd share and ask on here. Although registered as a business the address supplied on ebay appears to be a residential property so does not appear to give any clues.

Business adddress is a residential street
27 maplestead
basildon
basildon
Essex
ss142su
United Kingdom

looks like these people to me prices the same

https://elite-engines.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

itchyfeet wrote:
Business adddress is a residential street
27 maplestead
basildon
basildon
Essex
ss142su
United Kingdom

looks like these people to me prices the same

https://elite-engines.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Noted the address but forgot elite were essex based......... no need to say any more, that topic has been covered many times.