Death Rattle from 85 TD

[Smkin85Turbo]

I have an 85 Jetta that I just had serviced. I had the timing belt replaced along with the fuel filter, air filter, glow pugs and relays, transmission mount and an oil change. Before the work was done it idled poorly and it still does. It almost seems like there are no motor mounts and the engine is bolted solidly to the frame. I had an experince mechanic look at it and he thought the timing belt was instaled corectly and thought that it had good power. How do I check the motor mounts and is there anything else that could make this type of brain ratling idle?

[subsonic]

Heres how to check them.

1. Are they original?

        YES

Change them, they have done thier duty.


         NO


How old are they, how many miles are on them?

[vanagonturbo]

excellent advice.

[jtanguay]

since it is mechanical lifter engine, did anyone adjust the valves??? this can give a pretty sloppy idle as well.

i remember my old '86 solid lifter 1.6TD being a rattle monster.  i literally thought the car was going to rattle itself to death.  it kept getting worse and worse and slowly began to even itself out to a nice 'death rattle' which didn't seem to worsen (the next step would have been my engine falling out or something  :lol: )

i have suspicions that it was the valves that needed to be adjusted, but i'll never know since some lady ruined that car.  :cry:

[Smkin85Turbo]

The valves were adjusted about 30,000 miles ago. I was looking in the Bentley manual and it looks like you need to get shims to do the adjustmnet? Is this a technical job to adjust the lifters?

[burn_your_money]

Checking them is as hard as putting that cylinder at TDC on the compression stroke and then sliding a feeler gauge between the cam and the shim