First winter woes in '85 jetta 1.6d

[somolovitch3]

If you are cranking for more than 30 seconds at a time without letting the starter cool down for at least one minute, you will fry the starter.

See a few of the posts on rewiring the starter, (LARGE WIRE CABLES!)

I use a DuraLast 65-DLG...The post are backwards for the standard cables, I use some 2/0 weld cables for to feed my starter, with the ground lead tied to the Starter bolt at the top. The only start problems I have had are/were do to a blown head gasket and only 3 cylinders working.

If you can get AC power to the vehical, you can use a ceramic heater under the engine to pre heat.. well everything.... in the engine bay.

[ericgoum]

So I finally broke down and had the Jetta towed to a mechanic to check it out. After a few days he got in touch with me and confirmed my fears. It has low compression. He said he was getting reading between 225 and 275, I asked him what is normal and he said 300 is minimum. Is this correct? I know I have read about it before but can't remember exactly what it should be.

I then asked how much it would cost to fix...1500$!!!! I said I would have to think about it and hung up. Now, I only paid 1700$ for this car in the first place and although it has saved me 1200$ in gas since my last car that is still crazy expensive and quite out of reach for a non-working student. Are there any suggestions on what I can do or how hard/expensive it would be to do on my own assuming I have a pretty good garage to work in? It almost seems that I could buy a working engine on ebay or somewhere else for cheaper and just drop it in...am I crazy for thinking like this?

Its not everyday you find a diesel like this on the road or even for sale and I'd love to keep saving money by driving this diesel. I do have a 1980 bmw euro 635csi that is about ready to run but I only planned it to be a weekend driver not a daily...it'll probably only get 20mpg at best which sucks compared to the jetta....any help would be most appreciated!!

Thanks in advance,

Eric

[jimfoo]

It's not hard to rebuild one in my opinion, and way cheaper than $1500. If it isn't too worn and you just need rings(I'd do bearings as well) I doubt it would be over $200 including all needed gaskets. Maybe a bit more if you did all seals. I'd get total seal rings myself as even if you have some wear, they should still seal well.

[rabbitman]

According to bentley the wear limit is 398PSI, mine are all around 375 and it runs perfect. I don't know how easy it is to find these engines were you live but it's worth considering. You could just get a "cheap" one to put in your car and rebuild your's little by little.

[ericgoum]

I decided to go ahead and rebuild the engine. When taking it apart the middle ring on 3 of the 4 pistons was broken. I guess that helped the hard starting eh?....The valves also needed to be reground or replaced, I left that up to the machine shop.

Anyways, it really has been fun rebuilding the engine and just happened to correspond with my spring break. At the moment I am waiting for a machine shop to finish the head and block. It was actually cheaper to get oversized pistons so I had the shop bore the block out to match. With any luck the engine should be back together this weekend. I have a few questions though about what to do when done.

I have been searching on here for a proper break in procedure as well as proper oil to start with. It seems from my search that synthetic oil is not good at least in the beginning...that true? What sort of driving should I do to make sure the rings get seated well and that I have a happy "new" engine? When can I expect the engine to be fully broken in? Any other thoughts on the subject that I didn't bring up would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again for all help on the matter!!

Eric

[jtanguay]

I decided to go ahead and rebuild the engine. When taking it apart the middle ring on 3 of the 4 pistons was broken. I guess that helped the hard starting eh?....The valves also needed to be reground or replaced, I left that up to the machine shop.

Anyways, it really has been fun rebuilding the engine and just happened to correspond with my spring break. At the moment I am waiting for a machine shop to finish the head and block. It was actually cheaper to get oversized pistons so I had the shop bore the block out to match. With any luck the engine should be back together this weekend. I have a few questions though about what to do when done.

I have been searching on here for a proper break in procedure as well as proper oil to start with. It seems from my search that synthetic oil is not good at least in the beginning...that true? What sort of driving should I do to make sure the rings get seated well and that I have a happy "new" engine? When can I expect the engine to be fully broken in? Any other thoughts on the subject that I didn't bring up would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again for all help on the matter!!

Eric

synthetic oil will 'glaze' the cylinder walls before the rings are broken in (they conform to the shape of the cylinder) so you actually want them to wear a bit.  do this by using something like rotella T 15w40.  and you also want to drive it hard to load the rings, and keep changing rpm's if you can.  (driving on the highway with constant rpm's won't seat those rings anytime soon, and driving too fast won't do much good either)

[ericgoum]

So I finally finished rebuilding the motor this past weekend and my god what a difference in power/torque. I had no idea these engines would pull so well.  I can actually keep good pace with cars around town, usually I don't drive that hard but I gotta break it in some how :wink:

The car actually starts up like a car should...immediately. I wanted to thank everyone for the help when I had questions.

Thanks!!!

Eric