Club 80-90 Forums

We have just taken our t25 1.9 watercooled for its mot, to a reputable mechanic, who has informed me that the engine has had it.

So can anyone reccommend where is best to look for a recon engine.

Thanks

Andy

Elite seem to get good feedback on this forum http://www.elitevw.co.uk/

How has the engine "had it"

poor compression..., head stud busted?

Agree^^^^, how has it 'just had it' bit of a wooly catch all phrase that.
mike

And not only that, but how can your mechanic tell you the engine has had it after an MOT
Did it fail its gas test

sounds like a pocket dip in the making
mike

yeah.... did it pass or fail MOT and on what exactly???

You have been driving it recently I presume, its not pissing out oil or water etc??

Anyone heard any reports about The Engine Shop? I've heard one from a very reputable source but you can't have too many opinions. Here's the spec

http://www.theengineshop.info/wc_transporter_spec.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hi everyone,

The mechanic who I have used for over 25 years now, he did not put it in for its MOT as he said that it was only firing on 3 cylinders, so would fail on the emissions.

He has done a compression test and 1 of the cylineders was not firing (plugs,leads have all been changed), after removing the head, he said that the piston rings were all shot and has damaged the bottom end (I am not a mechanic so have very little knowledge).

He has said that he can rebuild the engine but after taking into account labour costs, it may be worth looking at a recon engine.

I only brought the van last september and have not used her yet, as I have spent the last 8 months restoring all the interior and bodywork.

Andy

Personally mate.I would put a 2.1 in it.Rather than a 1.9

cheers for the advice Rob, I presume that it fits ok with no modifications needed.

The recon boys usually want your engine in exchange, not sure if they will do a 1.9 for 2.1 swap or not.

There are 3 main sellers of recons that I know of namely Elite, The Engine Shop(TES) and Vege.

All have mixed reviews TBH, if you search on here for those names you will find lots of posts with various amounts of praise, innuendo and rants!

Broadly Elite tend to be cheapest, TES in the middle and VEGE at the top with prices ranging from £800 - £1400. Many people seem to have had good experiences with these company but equally others have had bad - generally I would say Vege had the best rep although recently there have been posts on a number of forums complaining, but this could just be a bad batch or 1 person with a prob.

The costs basically reflects the amount of new parts getting fitted, as your mech has found out parts for these puppys are rather expensive, so the cheaper rebuild will use "good secondhand" for some compnents rather than new. - in a sense you get what you pay for.

There are a few speciailist builders (Laurie Petit - now retired, and Marco Mansi) who hand build engines and have a good rep, (search marco mansi on Brickyard as he had a few engines for sale last year)

Your other option is to buy a second hand "runner" which come up reasonably often on e-bay, here, brickyard, vzi etc. usually looking at paying £450 - £750 but make sure you can check it out first.

All of the above are why some of us build our own engines - takes time and patience, but at least we know what is going into it, my personal experience of stripping a cheaper re-man was that it hadn't been put together very well, but thats just my experience as said others have had good stories to tell.

Bottom line on a reman, is you are taking a 20+ year old engine, replacing a few bits and re-sealing it, but it is still a 20+ year old engine and bits will break! You are really paying for the "skills" of the remanufacturer and the "new" parts they put in.

If I ever bought a reman I would ask for an inventory of parts fitted and a chat to understand exactly what had been done to the engine.

HTH

MM

mm289 wrote: There are a few speciailist builders (Laurie Petit - now retired) who hand build engines and have a good rep

That's HAD a good reputation ... as in PAST tense.

Ian

Options are ...

Known good s/h engine (able to be run and tested) ~£600
Unknown s/h engine ~£200 - £400 NOT a choice I would take again !
Elite - Some good, some bad feedback ~£1000 (56,000 miles and nothing to report on ours)
VEGE - Mostly good but some recent shocking feedback ~£1500+

Ian