Club 80-90 Forums

Just taking our 1983 1.6d on its first adventure ...

However when going uphill in hot weather (I'm in Spain) it gets really hot and the engine smells hot (mostly around back rear wheel). Is this normal?

Is the rad fan coming on ?

They all do that sir.

You have to drive according to the temp gauge.

In our experience you need to drive by the rev counter - changing down and keeping the revs around 2100rpm - 2200rpm seems to keep our JX from overheating on even long climbs. Sure you might end being the slowest thing on the road, but who cares - just stay in the crawler lane and go slow and steady.

If only I had a rev counter [GRINNING FACE WITH SMILING EYES].

To be fair it was a very long steep hill on a hot day. We're in the Canary Islands where you go from sea level to 2000m in under an hour. It's first and second gear only for 45 minutes solid.

The fan did kick in and the temperature went to about 3/4 on the dial.

I suppose my question is ... is 3/4 on the dial normal? or should I stop and give him a break? Or is it something I need to look at? I don't even know if the warning light works. In normal use the van is a dream.

Sounds normal to me,3/4 is the max I have ever seen on my van going up long hills.the fan cuts in on mine around 3/4 on my van

Normal.

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Richardspain wrote:
I suppose my question is ... is 3/4 on the dial normal? or should I stop and give him a break? Or is it something I need to look at? I don't even know if the warning light works. In normal use the van is a dream.

The Red Led self tests when you switch the ignition on ...... every time

The flashing red light in the temp gauge has two functions ....
1. If the gauge is above 3/4 and it's flashing it means over heating
2. If the gauge is below 3/4 and it's flashing , it means low coolant in the header tank.

VW in the original t25 handbook say that "normal" temp is anywhere from the white box on the left of the gauge to the edge of the white box on the right of the gauge ( so less than a quarter to just more than three quarters ) during different driving .

Yours sounds perfectly normal for a diesel that’s working very hard

My Jx never goes above the middle even fully loaded thrashing the nuts out of it, check the rad fan works and the 2nd stage , check the rad it cooling too

Thanks. I'll take a look.


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Hi
Just returned from France towing , a motorbike on a small trailer 1.6 JX (+ retro fitted oil cooler ex brickworks), we had higher than normal temperatures and as all have stated the JX requires some mechanical sympathy during a large gradient thus my answer is to , P..... Off the good lady in the passenger seat and surreptitiously slide the heater controll to max ,the giveaway is turn on the blower fan , thus bringing the heater radiator into play once “over the top “ the status quo remains lol. If you brave enough it works ...lol

That’s really useful. Thank you

Opening the windows and turning the heater on full blast is also a useful tactic to stop engine temps creeping up when you get caught in traffic standstills on a hot day.