Club 80-90 Forums

Unfortunatly i broke down last week at the side of the motorway. With a overheating engine and regular rapid rattling as i attempted to accelorate. After a little investigation it appeared one of the spark plugs and been damaged due to what i think was the conrod, the clanking is likely the play in the bearings at the big end. The conrod still moves the piston.

So i will be getting the engine recfurbished and cleaned up. Nevertheless i need to find the problem which caused the overheating and the failure. ( coolant and oil seemed to be fine, both were checked half an hour before the break down)

1, does anyone have any advice as to what could caused the bearing conrod to fail?

After asking some questions one mechaic insisted that running my van with the alternative fuel( LPG) has caused the deteriation of the engine. He claims that LPG burns hotter, doesnt lubricate the engine and therfore wears quicker. Other people have told be that this is nonsence. But i would love to hear peoples thoughts.

2. Does anyone have any experience with this phenomenon? is there any truth?

My van has run on LPG for 10 years with no problems.

what the ""mechanic"" said is possibly true of upright inline engines if they dont use something like "flashlube" , however flatfour VW dont need this .
however like any other fuel,, if the mixture was very lean damage could have been caused, normally to the valves or the seats .

blaming LPG is a common exclamation from those so called mechanics that simply dont understand.
truth is no engine lasts forever, and poorly serviced and looked after engines die sooner

Saying your big end failure was caused by LPG is akin to suggesting the Titanic sank due to the brand of coal they used for the engines.

It's far more likely that your oil pressure wasn't sufficient. Which cylinder was the failure on - number 3 by any chance? That is the last of the big ends to receive oil, so the lowest pressure and most prone to failure.

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I'm on the same page regarding low oil pressure, nothing to do with LPG.

You said the engine overheated (what engine is it by the way ). Oil gets thinner when it gets hotter, giving even lower oil pressure. However as said above, if the LPG mixture went lean, that could have caused the overheating.

What oil have you been using - if that was not the right grade that could also be part of the cause.

I suggest you don't allow the mechanic that suggested LPG as the cause to rebuild the engine

My vans not lpg’ed (yet) but we have forklifts at work that have been running fine on lpg for the last fifteen years at least (Passat engines I believe) they are serviced regularly which probably helps, but definitely no engine failures at all.
Off topic, they replaced two gassed for electric and they are a dream to drive. Brakes are almost redundant, all the controls are worked with fingertips from one hand and they are silent obviously!