Petrol or Diesel Syncro - can't decide!

[KJH]

Hi all,

I am toying with buying a syncro as always wanted one, and my eventual aim is to get a TDI powered conversion - so here's my question....

Do I start with a diesel, then convert to TDI, thus moving the battery and suffer the lower gearbox ratios, or is it more cost effective to start with a 2.1, with the battery in the correct place for a TDI conversion, and have the slightly longer gears more suited to TDI?

I am right to say that to house the intercooler in a TDI conversion, the battery is often relocated?

Is a gear ratio change inevitable which ever route I go? I wouldn't want to change differentials as well if possible...

I know there is some messing around with fuel tank / bellhousing etc for diesel conversion from petrol, but there are far more RHD petrol busses than TD as far as I can see....

Any thoughts appreciated....

KJH.

[Ye Olde Syncrospares]

this is a easy one,start with a diesel 100%,cj.

[KJH]

Thanks CJ - do you come across many RHD diesels?

[syncroand101]

Agreed - having gone from Petrol to Diesel TDi - there is a fair old list of parts!

Buy Diesel!

[Aidan]

petrol and lpg unless you plan on being abroad a lot imho
but if you want diesel start with a diesel, I can change the 3rd and fourth gears to suit it when you want at a later date.

[syncroand101]

petrol and lpg unless you plan on being abroad a lot imho .

Or want the refinement of a modern electronic TDi engine... although @ 110p/l.. but the possibility of 38mpg...

[jed the spread]

petrol and lpg unless you plan on being abroad a lot imho
but if you want diesel start with a diesel, I can change the 3rd and fourth gears to suit it when you want at a later date.

interesting point. i have been playing fantasy syncro in my mind for ages now and although i am not sure of the price for a tdi conversion i can imagen you wouldn't get much change from 3k (feel free to correct me if i am way out)

so you have the price of the van say £3500 for a decent 1.6td panel van, then spend say £3000 for a tdi conversion so you can get similar mpg and power to a 2.1

total = £6500

a decent 2.1 panel van with lpg will cost roughly the same maybe a tad more say £3700. it will have much more power than the 1.6 td and will do around the same pound for pound on fuel i would have thought.

total = £3700

now round Europe you are falling over lpg pumps and they are everywhere in the uk. this brings me to Aidan's point about over seas. if you do go to say morocco for example and you cant get lpg will you spend the difference on petrol rather than deisel over the time you spend over their, be it the once or multiple trips.

£6500 - £3700 = £2800

this is just something i have been thinking of for a while now although my situation is i don't want to sell my 2 wheel drive camper and i don't want 2. a pick up would be a good toy or a crewy or even a panel van but because of were i live i would have to pay £100 per day to drive a diesel anyhow in a couple of years time.

jed

[syncroandy]

Get one of each !

Seriously though, if I still live within the M25 in 2010, my diesel pickup will cost me £200 each time I want to drive anywhere, due to the LEZ.

Anyone in a similar position who can't re-register their diesel Syncro as a 'motor caravan', will have to either pay up, get rid of it, or put in a petrol motor instead (LEZ only affects diesels).

[bigbluebus]

from limited experience, but you did ask . . .

I struggled along with a lame 2.1 on lpg for 18 months and i'd never ever ever entertain a petrol T25 ever again

I converted my first camper from 2.0 aircoled to 1.6 diesel using a right old hotchpotch of parts and yeh, it went wrong from time to time, lost it's water a few times, but 9 times out of 10 I managed (and i'm a numpty) to repair it at the side of the road. Cut a hose here, patch up a fuel line there, fill it with water, bingo, up and running.

Contrast to the fickle 2.1 on LPG. It refused to behave for longer than ooo 10 minutes. Power? What power? On the motorway it was useless. And when it broke you could almost see the fear in the RAC mans eyes as it sizzled in it's own juices

LPG, yeh, a great idea, if it's set up 100%, the wind doesn't blow at a funny angle, and you can be arsed planning your journeys around LPG places. Personally I found it a bind to hunt down the back street garages selling it. At weekends, more often than not they were closed.

Then, as the case with my syncro, it needed super plus. You'd be surprised to know how few 'off the beaten tracks' garages (i.e the lakes, cornwall, wales) actually sell the stuff.

So you end up wasting fuel driving to some remote LPG station and / or end up filling up with petrol anyway. The MPG benefits soon dwindle

Get a TD, run it till it dies whilst cunningly building up a stock of 1.9 TDi parts

[Simon Baxter]

What he said. ^^

[andysimpson]

waterboxers are in my opinion the worst engine vw have ever made and they have made some "pooh".

[Simon Baxter]

What you seem to find is that most people who know what they are on about T3 wise run Diesels.

Just run through the traders..

have a read of the "Waterboxers are gay" thread, kinda a good lighthearted read even if some do take umbridge at the passing insults to their beloved wasserleakers.

[Syncro G]

Whilst I myself prefer diesels, and am happy driving an underpowered, original spec 1.6TD syncro, I must confess to having had a well maintained 2.1DJ in the family for 18 years. Don't know how well it would work in a Syncro gear wise but with the auto box that bus had it worked very well (maybe slugish by modern standards but wasn't that bad when new (we owned it from new).

WBX's have their issues but if they were all steaming piles of "pooh" I don't think ours would have managed to rack up about 170k miles with little faults, it doesn't seem to be the only one. If you look at their contemporys I don't think the WBX was that bad, but they aren't new anymore. Neather are diesels, infact many diesel vans are cheeting these days having breathed on later engines fitted! Maybe more petrol vans would do too if suitable donors were more readilly avalable. Eather engine has its querks, and faverate ways to fail, just like most bits of engineering. At least the bottem ends of each don't tend to let go regularly or the cam belts snap if you rev them - thats what I call a "pooh" engine and some makers have built such engines in the past!

I feal sometimes people take the petrol bashing a little too litrally on here, ie read it as people having a go. Untill you've met someone who says "petrols are gay" you won't be able to picture their grin as they say it.

From compairing my diesel to the old petrol though, there are alot of detail differences between them. If the end game for what you want is a high powered diesel, a factory diesel is a better place to start.

[andysimpson]

At least the bottem ends of each don't tend to let go regularly or the cam belts snap if you rev them - thats what I call a "pooh" engine and some makers have built such engines in the past!

1.9 waterleakers are ok bottom end wise but 2.1's have a nasty habbit of throwing rods out. My last 2 waterboxers have died of intermitant oil pressure loss.

[KJH]

Thanks all for the replies. Appreciated....

Now I just need to find one!