Are these engines as bad as everyone makes out?
I bought my van as an impulse purchase and I'm now scared it's gonna die on me at any minute. It has a comprehensive history although no mention of coolent changes anywhere so I will be doing one shortly to the correct type and mixture.
Everypost about these engines is all doom and gloom.
Come on someone give me a sucess story about these things!
Nick
1.9 DG
Moderators: User administrators, Moderators
-
Hacksawbob
- Registered user
- Posts: 4444
- Joined: 11 Oct 2005, 07:11
- 80-90 Mem No: 1168
- Location: Lancs UK member 1168
No they are cast iron, bullet proof, power units 
er well not exactly, well maintained they are OK and just about powerful eneogh to push a van about. they like oil cahnges (what vehicle doesn't) and correct coolant. I have lavished attention on mine which was rebuilt two years ago and it still has a leak, 
I think it is some kind of zen lesson in not becoming attatched to physical objects or something, I still worry too much about it even though I worry less than I used to. You tend to get two extremes of people, The VW stockers, and the modifiers, the stockers love the engines the way they were designed including all there foibles. And of course the modifiers 'want that thing out of there' and replaced by some 200BHP monster so they can presumably get to the campsite quicker. 
As for the VW design, it is flawed in a number of areas the most quoted is the bimetalic construction which lends itself to rusting, other engines were designed around the same time which didn't (dont) suffer the same problems, but rather than re-engineer the whole engine they modified the existing Aircooled engine to run on water. SO get a good one and keep it that way, or ditch it and start reading the modified engines section.
er well not exactly, well maintained they are OK and just about powerful eneogh to push a van about. they like oil cahnges (what vehicle doesn't) and correct coolant. I have lavished attention on mine which was rebuilt two years ago and it still has a leak, I think it is some kind of zen lesson in not becoming attatched to physical objects or something, I still worry too much about it even though I worry less than I used to. You tend to get two extremes of people, The VW stockers, and the modifiers, the stockers love the engines the way they were designed including all there foibles. And of course the modifiers 'want that thing out of there' and replaced by some 200BHP monster so they can presumably get to the campsite quicker. As for the VW design, it is flawed in a number of areas the most quoted is the bimetalic construction which lends itself to rusting, other engines were designed around the same time which didn't (dont) suffer the same problems, but rather than re-engineer the whole engine they modified the existing Aircooled engine to run on water. SO get a good one and keep it that way, or ditch it and start reading the modified engines section.member 1168
They pull nice and smoothly, if a little slowly. carb is easy to sort out once you've spent a little time understanding it. keep timing bang on to avoid cooking. make sure no air locks in cooling system to avoid cooking. use rev limiting rotor to avoid spinning engine too fast. and a whopping 18 more bhp than a DF. parts are (relatively) easy to source for DGs too.
skell
1984 AAZ twin slider 'velle
1984 AAZ twin slider 'velle