Can a good VW gasoline mechanic work on an IDI engine?

[French75mm]

Hi everyone,

I just joined this forum, and this is my first post here. Nice to meet you all!

I recently acquired a Mk2 1.6L NA Diesel Jetta w/ a 5-speed transmission. The car runs and drives, but it definitely needs a few things done: timing belt, water pump, seals, brakes, and cooling system. However, I am having a hard time finding any mechanic that is wiling to work on a car this old, let alone a diesel car.

After weeks of search, I was able to find a mechanic that worked on Mk2 gasoline Golf and similar gasoline cars quite regularly. The catch is that he doesn't usually work on diesel cars.

My questions are as follows:
1. What are the maintenance items that are specific to an IDI engine that should be done only by a VW diesel mechanic?
2. What are the maintenance items that can be done by any mechanic that is familiar with old VW cars?

Also, please share with me what maintenance items should be done after the purchase.

Thanks a lot!

French75mm

[fatmobile]

Timing belt job is different than a gasser but is pretty straight forward,.. with different marks.
 Resealing the injection pump might be over a gasser mechanics head but removing one and sending to get sealed is pretty easy.
Injector swap is pretty easy.
 
 Timing good is probably not something he could do.
The rest is much like a gasoline engine.

[ORCoaster]

Yes, that mechanic could do all but the timing belt.  Those take special tools to measure the amount of cam movement in the injection pump. He most likely would not have that.  He would need the knowledge of how to get the belt on and tighten it and it isn’t hard to do just different that what we Americans think.  It is German engineering and is logically different from my mind set but I did learn how to do it.

Suggestion: if you plan on owning this car for any length of time buy a Bentley service manual for it.  That is the best investment you can make for the money.

This forum will help with the details and there is a write up on how to do a timing belt in the archives somewhere.  Vincent Waldron wrote it long ago and it told me what I needed to know when I needed a belt change years ago.  Now I can do them in 30 or 40 mins. 

Thanks for joining us.  Keep us up to date.

[Dennis Froelich]

Welcome to the house of old school diesels!!!

[BleachedBora]

Bentleys are very hard to find. I just checked all my vendors and they are out. You could get a 24 hour subscription to Erwin - it goes back to Mk3 so you'd get AAZ but 1.6 info is hard to find....
https://vw-us.erwin-store.com/erwin/showHome.do

[ORCoaster]

I see Bentleys on Craigslist a lot.  Just might be your year and model they are selling.