Club 80-90 Forums

I finally found out the cause of the thick plume of smoke blowing out my exhaust... most likely the piston or piston ring has burnt away... this was confirmed by extreme loss of oil and an oily spark plug with low compression in one cylinder.

The garage quoted me £2800 to replace the engine and exhaust (engine would be a proper VW recon jobby with 1 year guarantee which accounts for about half of that sum).

Sounds a bit pricey seeing as 2nd hand engines go for only £250? But I guess you don't know what you're getting with one of them. I've been toying with the idea of putting a scooby in, so maybe now is the time eh?
If only though, I've just bought a house and am utterly skint! I don't even have a spare £250 right now!

At least the new house has somewhere to keep it SORN until I decide what to do.

I don't think selling it's going to fetch a lot, even though its got an MOT until feb 2011, if its not legally driveable then that probably won't count for much. I spose I could break it and make more money that way but I don't think I could bear to do that to an otherwise solid van...

What would you do?

Well it won't lose money sitting on your drive like modern jelly moulds.

Hi Ambivert

How about trying to fix it yourself, if it's going to be sitting Sorn then you may as well give it a try, you will get all the help you need on here
and will learn a lot in the process, you have nothing to lose and it wont cost anywhere near what you have been quoted.

Jay

I know now that feeling. A valve and piston got inti mate on my JX resulting in a plume of smoke on the M1 on the way to the Bus Stopover. Never usesful but saw it as an opportunity to upgrade so in the process of fitting an AAZ.

I agree with Realize. If you are going to SORN the bus. You may as well look to do the work yourself. Costs nothing to take remove the ancillaries while you pull together the bits you need. You could alway stick some wanted ads on here and Brickyard to see if anyone has a 'spare' Engine laying around which you could buy. You could save yourself a heap of cash.

Godd luck and hope you get back on the road soon.

Well it WONT be a gen VW recon as they stopped doing them 3 years ago... so will be one of the others... Elite/Vege/Remtec/TES

Unless you are lucky its likely a 250 quid used engine wont last long either..

i think elite do a recon for about £1200 fitted, could always upgrade to the 2.1 then
Lloyd

Yeah, I think you're right... DIY is a great idea

The garage said it would be cheaper to replace the whole engine BUT that's only because it quicker and they are charging for their time. However if I'm doing it myself then the only cost is parts, and if all I need is a piston ring (or even a piston) then surely that's much cheaper than replacing the whole thing. Plus I get to keep an engine which I know is otherwise OK. Its not my daily driver so I have plenty of time to get round to it...

In the meantime its in the back garden, so everything forward of the engine bay can function as a nice little summer house / guest bedroom / kids playroom...

And "whilst I'm down there" are there any other parts that would be a good idea to check/replace?

Arguably, if you go at it steadily and measure everything properly (or find an engineer friend who can check all clearances and play) you can build a damned good recon.

CovKid wrote:Arguably, if you go at it steadily and measure everything properly (or find an engineer friend who can check all clearances and play) you can build a damned good recon.

are there any recommended books/sites about this?

ambivert wrote:

CovKid wrote:Arguably, if you go at it steadily and measure everything properly (or find an engineer friend who can check all clearances and play) you can build a damned good recon.

are there any recommended books/sites about this?

get iether a bently or haynes manual covers most of stripping and rebuild, for measuring should be plenty of websites covering it ?

ambivert wrote:Yeah, I think you're right... DIY is a great idea

The garage said it would be cheaper to replace the whole engine BUT that's only because it quicker and they are charging for their time. However if I'm doing it myself then the only cost is parts, and if all I need is a piston ring (or even a piston) then surely that's much cheaper than replacing the whole thing. Plus I get to keep an engine which I know is otherwise OK. Its not my daily driver so I have plenty of time to get round to it...

In the meantime its in the back garden, so everything forward of the engine bay can function as a nice little summer house / guest bedroom / kids playroom...

And "whilst I'm down there" are there any other parts that would be a good idea to check/replace?

Theres no way you'll only need a piston or ring. New gasket set for definate, plus all the other bits you might aswell change like oil pump, water pump (if its water cooled), etc and thats just top end, if youre comparing a rebuild to a recon then you'll want to change main bearings,cam bearings etc

Its all possible and assuming things go well it will be considerably cheaper than a recon, and you know exactly whats been replaced.

To be honest i'd go and get a recon engine through the exchanges as listed above in the post, and replace your engine yourself to save on the labour costs

Changing the engine is a lot less challenging than actually reconditioning one. by the time you have gathered all the spares up, snapped a head bolt etc you'd have spent an amount close to the cost of the recon unit. there are shortblocks available also on Remtec i think!!

my twopence..