I'm the same Timpanogos Slim you may have seen on other fora. on the vortex and a few other places i am simply ericj.
Just bought a 1984 jetta coupe diesel, non-runner, sight-unseen, 250 miles away, for not much money. Around 130k miles.
It'll be my first diesel and my first mk1. 4th VW (had a mk3 jetta 2.slow, mk4 gti 1.8t, current daily is a mk5 gti)
My first car was almost a diesel rabbit, but that deal fell through, and eventually i bought a fiat 124 spider. So i got used to having to tinker before i can drive very early on.
The tale of the car i bought last night seems to be that the guy who owned it before the guy i bought it from threw a lot of money at it running away from the dark truth that the bottom end has lost compression.
Allegedly, the head and injectors were replaced when a failed injector was spraying diesel sideways resulting in a melted portion of the head.
It also has a new starter, a new alternator, all new filters,
It appears to have a new or rebuilt injection pump, as well as an in-line electric pump behind that.
But it had to be tow started, and in cold weather it wouldn't keep running if you tried to idle it. The seller tells me that a compression test had numbers near-to-under 100 on all four, which more than doubled with a little oil poured in the cylinders.
My plan is to pull the engine and trans, separate them, disassemble the bottom end, and have a machine shop i trust give me their opinion on whether i can just hone the cylinders and throw in new rings or if it needs to be bored out.
If it has to be bored out, I'll either find a better block or make it happen. I'm undecided.
I'll have the same machine shop go through the head and do whatever needs done. This is their bread and butter day to day work, and like i said, I trust them. fwiw, Clegg Automotive & Machine in Orem UT. VERY busy engine rebuild shop, and so clean you could eat off of just about any surface in it. Their engine builder is a good friend of mine.
Eventually I'd like to throw a turbo off a 1Z or AHU on it. Actually I'd really like a vnt15 but VNT control, the more i read about it, seems like something i need sensors and an ECU for. And i can do that, but it's daunting. I will probably run in the rebuild in the original NA configuration and then turbo it after the rings are seated and it has proven to be reasonably reliable.
I've never done anything this in depth before. Hope I don't annoy the piss out of y'all.
Topic: Hi There (Read 3217 times)
