I'm wondering what the general consensus here on the 1.6L diesels found in the '80s/early '90s VWs is. Are they overall reliable? I remember funola saying that working on them can be a huge pain (you have to remove the IP when changing the water pump?), but how durable are these engines in general? Are there any known trouble spots?

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"Senior Luna, your sense of humor is still loco... but we love it, anyway." -rickymay ____ "Your sense of humor is still loco... " -MBeige ____ "Señor Luna, your sense of humor is quite järjetön" -Delibes

1982 300SD -- 211k, Texas car, tranny issues ____ 1979 240D 4-speed 234k -- turbo and tuned IP, third world taxi hot rod

2 Samuel 12:13: "David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die."

I've had the displeasure of working on 2 VWs for friends. I can't speak to the reliability of the motor you're inquiring about, but I can say after those 2 experiences I will never buy a VW ever as long as I still walk this Earth.



EVVVEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRR!!!!!!

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'84 190D 2.2 5MT (Red/Palomino) Current car. Love it!
'85 190D 2.2 Auto *Cali* (Blue/Blue) *sold*
http://badges.fuelly.com/images/sig-us/302601.png
http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/a...0/sideview.png

I have one... it works... it needs a water pump changed... it's parked...

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John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 560SL convertible
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
2005 Dodge Sprinter 2500 158"WB
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

never found watercooled vws to be particularly fun to work on...

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1981 NA 300D 310k miles

'Keep the Oil Changed,Coolant topped up,and it'll ALMOST mirror the original
Air Cooled Horizontally opposed 4 cyl GASSERS that made VW's fame. Except for the Timing Belt!!!!

"If it's got Clean Oil,Good Coolant and Clean Diesel you won't be able to kill it in 150K miles."
Some of those IDI's are still running from the '80 s @ over 300K !

Howeveah!

I do agree with replys # 2,3 and four!

NOW, an Air Cooled D.I. Gear Driven TIMING Four or Six that's another Universe!!!

"Pigs would have to have InterGalactic operating licenses before that would come about,However !"

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'84 300SD sold
124.128

I have a 90 1.6 jetta and the water pump is on the bottom of the motor outside the timing cover, I can't possibly see how the injection pump would need to come off.

In my case the motor grossly outlasted the body, at 220k the car was super rusty so I swapped drivetrains with a rust free gas car I bought. Haven't finished the swap, if you're looking for a project jooseppi....

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68 280SL - 70 280SL - 70 300SEL 3.5 - 72 350SL - 72 280SEL 4.5 - 72 220 - 72 220D - 73 450SL - 84 230GE - 87 200TD - 90 190E 2.0 - 03 G500

Nissan GTR - Nissan Skyline GTS25T - Toyota GTFour - Rover Mini - Toyota Land Cruiser HJ60 - Cadillac Eldorado - BMW E30 - BMW 135i

I guess you have not replaced the water pump on yours yet? The top bolt (there are 3 of them) on the water pump is not accessible unless the injection pump is out of the way on my 92 1.6 Jetta. I may be wrong but I think a 90 1.6 Jetta is the same. On the earlier MK1 1.6 VW's, the water pump can be removed w/o removing the injection pump. The difference is in the alternator/AC bracket design.

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85 300D turbo pristine w 157k when purchased 161K now
83 300 D turbo 297K runs great. SOLD!
83 240D 4 spd manual- parted out then junked

Not that you didn't already know this, but it appears you are right lol. I went and looked at my car, it looks like the upper bolt is under the timing cover. I did not look too close when I had the motor out of the car. The pump was shiny and tight so I didn't replace it with the motor out. The car had a new head on it when I got it and appeared to have gotten a waterpump and other cooling system items. I did a timing belt because an OEM belt was dirt cheap and it was trivially easy with the motor on the bench, it will be nice to not have to think about it at all. In hindsight I probably should have done the water pump just because but, alas hindsight is 20/20.

My car and the donor car were both 90 GLs, 5speeds with sunroofs. I put in a transmission with a slightly taller final drive out of a gas car. I don't remember the exact numbers but when I did the math it was like 200-300 rpms lower on the highway, and I was not disappointed by the acceleration with the stock shorter gearing so hopefully it will be okay. I saved the original trans in case I made the car undrivable.

I would have preferred the turbo, but I'm sure compu85 can clarify, the non turbo was 59HP, the turbo was 68, and the ecodiesel turbo was like 62HP.

Someone mentionned the VW motor that came in Volvos, the D24. A friend of mine, upshift on here, has a D24T 740, or 760. That motor gets a bad rap, two timing belts is annoying, but far from the undoable task some people online claim it to be. He spent a small fortune on timing tools and his car runs an absolute treat. I beleive most of the tools will work on a 1.6 so when my water pump dies, I know where to go to pull my pump and retime it.

So, jooseppi, why do you need just the motor? Hopefully not for a Benz swap lol.

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68 280SL - 70 280SL - 70 300SEL 3.5 - 72 350SL - 72 280SEL 4.5 - 72 220 - 72 220D - 73 450SL - 84 230GE - 87 200TD - 90 190E 2.0 - 03 G500

Nissan GTR - Nissan Skyline GTS25T - Toyota GTFour - Rover Mini - Toyota Land Cruiser HJ60 - Cadillac Eldorado - BMW E30 - BMW 135i

So you don't think the motor would work in my 'SD ?



I was mainly interested in swapping it into a Japanese compact from the '80-'90s for a super-economical winter beater. Specifically, the car I am interested in the 4WD Tercel SW made between 1982 and 1988.



They are bulletproof, dirt-simple wagons that can go places that nobody would expect to see a subcompact wagon in.





They can also carry heavy loads. This is SirNik84's T4 (Tercel 4WD in shorthand) hauling an engine for a '97 Civic and a T5 tranny. Granted, he has installed air shocks.



The cars came with a 6-speed manual transmission with five normal gears and one extra-low gear only available when 4WD mode. The 4WD is shift-on-the-fly. The cars are quite '80s, with plaid interiors (only some years), stodgy designs, and lots of black plastic exterior trim (including the rear license plate surround, which is known as the ATM). The stock engine is a 1.5-liter single-barrel carb 4-cylinder that makes 63 HP at 4800 RPM. Vroomvroomoom!!

I've liked the cars for a long time and have more recently had the idea that a VW diesel in a T4 would be a blast. I Googled it and found that someone had already explored the idea but gave up when he bumped into having to figure out a clutch/flywheel solution. I then thought of how JB3 welded together two input shafts for his W201 5-speed-onto-OM616 project and thought that the same should work here, allowing me to easily overcome that hump. The other two major things I can think of off the top of my head that I would have to deal with would be the engine mount arms (I don't even know how the VW engine is mounted, but the VW is transverse and the T4 is longitudinal) and fitting the tranny to the engine (adapter plate).

The OM601 is a more powerful but less economical and heavier option. I don't even have a T4 yet and my fabrication skills (nonexistent, will be developed this spring on various projects) are nowhere near able to tackle this project, but it's something I might do over the next couple of years. MA allows a summer-winter swap that I could put the T4 and Mercedes on -- $25 to swap registration between vehicles, designed for people with, say, a convertible and a 4WD.

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"Senior Luna, your sense of humor is still loco... but we love it, anyway." -rickymay ____ "Your sense of humor is still loco... " -MBeige ____ "Señor Luna, your sense of humor is quite järjetön" -Delibes

1982 300SD -- 211k, Texas car, tranny issues ____ 1979 240D 4-speed 234k -- turbo and tuned IP, third world taxi hot rod

2 Samuel 12:13: "David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die."

I wonder if a PO overheated it as a result of some sort of cooling system failure?

__________________
"Senior Luna, your sense of humor is still loco... but we love it, anyway." -rickymay ____ "Your sense of humor is still loco... " -MBeige ____ "Señor Luna, your sense of humor is quite järjetön" -Delibes

1982 300SD -- 211k, Texas car, tranny issues ____ 1979 240D 4-speed 234k -- turbo and tuned IP, third world taxi hot rod

2 Samuel 12:13: "David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die."

My first car was an 83 VW jetta Diesel. No turbo. I can say this. Those cars ATE headgaskets. The 5 speeds seemed to have some issues after about 130k. Rear main seals had a bad habit of going too requiring new clutch and pressure plate. I put 3 head gaskets on mine. An Injection pump (shaft seals notorious for leaking). 2 5 speeds. I bought it at 120k and drove it to 160. Oddly though I really miss that car!

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1978 Mercedes 240D
1981 Mercedes 240D
1982 Mercedes 240D

Usual reason is the timing belt was left too long and parted company. Anything more than an idle there will be damage. The cars with hydraulic lifters seem to fair even better if the belt goes out at idle.

It probably is still a twenty dollar part and fairly easy to change if one is uncertain of when it was last done. There is one model where they tried to boost performance with the non turbo engine around 90-91. They fooled around with the gear ratios and as a result I never liked that model.

The turbos never used that odd gearing setup. My feeling is that the better quality units where 85-87. Eventually they clad them with too much problematic plastic. It was so bad I felt the reliable toy company probably supplied it. Their cooling system from the factory is about the best I have ever seen. Those cars should be okay operating in the Sahara desert. Also they had the best heater set up I ever had. Very fast to get heat and all too soon it was so hot it could almost burn you. The tdi diesels where a total joke in comparison. That's what I like about volkswagon products. One extreme to another.

I've owned a few of VW's diesels, 1.6 Turbo from 84, a 2.4 Turbo from 1986 (was in a Volvo) and a 1.9 TDi from 2003. I found them not that hard to work on, injectors and stuff, were all pretty easy. Timing belts on them all, is a sore spot. Durability wise, though they were all pretty good, over 200,000 miles on with no real major issues, proper maintenance though. These are my first M-B diesels, and there are number of things I find more difficult on these, than on VW, mostly to do with oil distribution, I mean those oil cooler lines? and the turbo oil drain? total PITA repairs. The odd thing with the 61X engines, is that they seem to work even if they are horribly abused.

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1983 W123 300TD US spec Turbo engine, with Euro bumpers and manual climate control, and manual transmission.

Don't let the hard to work on scare you. You will learn to cope. If it has no terminal rust issues and the mechanicals are sound, go for it. $800 sounds like a super deal.

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85 300D turbo pristine w 157k when purchased 161K now
83 300 D turbo 297K runs great. SOLD!
83 240D 4 spd manual- parted out then junked

I owned both a 1990 1.6L VW Jetta GL diesel (naturally aspirated) and its older cousin, a 1980 Rabbit 1.5L diesel. Here's what I can tell you...

The 1980 did start and run. The seller drove it 50 miles from Somerville to my house in Worcester. The brakes were almost useless. I replaced a lot of parts, but never got that fully sorted out. I think I may have had a bad booster. The engine had unknown history, but I owned the car from late 2008 to mid 2009 and it did run.

That car's two real problems were rust (the main reason I sold the car without doing much to it) and a completely worthless electrical system. Only half the electrical items worked, and there was a short somewhere which drained the battery if left hooked up. Engine seemed OK, but I did not know its history.


I had my 1990 Jetta from November 2010 to March 2011. The body was in pretty good shape, and it ran pretty well. The 5-speed manual transmission had one of the most satisfying-feeling shifters I've ever experienced. The engine seemed basically solid, but suffered from the common problem of destroying alternator belts every few hundred miles. There's something in the design of the belt drive on these cars that, when aged, destroys alternator belts. Nobody has successfully solved this, except for a few people who have transplanted serpentine belt setups from later VW diesels.

The constantly-shredding belt made the car unreliable for me. Also, the suspension kept wanting to come apart. New shocks didn't help much. Maybe if I'd used higher quality parts, but I was used to putting cheap parts on my old Subaru (the cheap aftermarket stuff for Subarus actually tends to be pretty high quality).

Also, when I sold the car, the buyer suspected a head gasket leak. I wasn't aware of anything, but I let him use that as a bargaining chip because I wanted and needed to get rid of the car.

Mine had around 200K miles on it. I've seen similar cars with a LOT more miles. Having been around Volkswagens a LONG time, my impression is that they will reflect Mercedes diesel longevity, but require a lot more in the way of maintenance and repair. It seems to me that it's WAY more expensive to keep a VW running (reliably) that long. Plus, at the end of the day, it's still just an overpriced Volkswagen.

Don't get me wrong, I love Volkswagens. I've had my Vanagon now for almost 11 years and have no plans to get rid of it. But, the key to buying an old VW seems to be to find one that's nearly perfect, and then keep it that way.

I don't mind reviving a basket case Mercedes, but would never again try to save a basket case VW. Just my $0.02.