Club 80-90 Forums

Myself and Andrew were discussing this on the phone. I had heard that the 1.6 JX Turbo engine that was in the syncro had solid valve lifters where all the 2wd JX turbos had hydraulic lifters. Is this true or not? Andrew reckons its not cause it would be silly for VW to do this. Of course he's right, it is silly but Im just going on what I heard. Can anyone shed some light on this conundrum?

As far as I know (but I could be wrong), none of the T3 diesels (cs, Ky, jx) ever had hydraulic lifters.

The JX defo doesn`t have hydraulic lifters, they are bucket and shim valve clearance adjustment, think it was the early Golf engine that had the hydro lifters.

Ah now some of the T25s must have had them. Any engine builders or mechanics out there to clarify this subject?

airhead wrote:Ah now some of the T25s must have had them. Any engine builders or mechanics out there to clarify this subject?

No t25 diesels had them.

As far as I can work out, it seams most (all?) the vertical(ish) mounted engines are hydrolic and all the reclined engines (T3) are solid. Is there something about the hydrolic tappets that VW thought they won't like running at that angle? They managed it for the WBX though didn't they and thats a far more extreme angle for one bank on a sideslope.

Yeah but the WBX is an underhead cam engine, so the same logic doesn't apply. I suppose the oil would drain out of the lifters very quickly if the engine is tilted. Something like that perhaps.