Club 80-90 Forums

If you (like me) have been a bit confused over the difference between a Water Jacket and a Cylinder head gasket (and have never had the head off your engine)

Then read the following (with nice pics too)
http://www.gowesty.com/library_article.php?id=107

Enlightening - and now in my bookmarks

Book marked it too Mikey, so what next, are you going to have a go or get the engine changed and take the advice concerning coolant renewal?

Distilled water? Seriously, am I meant to be using distilled water?

Angelo - looks like the garage are going to drop the engine - we will see what the surface of the head looks like - if it really is just the seal and there isn't much/any corrosion we will look at replacing I guess - if however irretrievable - need to consider recond heads?

Of course this assumes the studs are OK.

I guess I should have a compression test just to get some idea of the engine is OK - but we weren't having any probs at all beforehand. Oh - and I had changed the coolant - using VW coolant - correctly mixed only a couple of months ago - but can't vouch for the other 18 years!

FLower - there is another discussion on distilled water - and talkign to chemisty peeps deionising water whwere corrosion is to be avoided at all costs DOES sound a great idea.

Mikey, I'm very interested on how all this pans out, its only a matter of time before I will be in the same situation and it will be decision time for me too. We both have engines with reasonable mileages (and running well) so making the decision whether to repair or exchange is a really tough one. Mine has full VAG service history up until 6 years ago and I cannot see any coolant changes in the receipts or work carried out.