Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 20:07:52 -0700
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Oil dipstick pushed out of the tube
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I run into this all the time.
Generally there are two clues or things you can look for.
One is a yellow stick-on sticker on the top of the block, left and forward,
under the intake manifold runners there, that says 'rebuilt for VW by VW of
Canada' ...........sometimes I see those.
And you can get an idea about whether the head gaskets have been done by
looking for excessive sealing goop on the rubber 'water retention gaskets' .
Or you might see an MV code ( 2.1 ) engine where 1.9 was stock........it's
been changed since the original engine.
I have several that I don't know the real miles of.
the rest you can guesstimate from tests, like compression.
here's a good one - Oil Analysis !
That'll tell you what the general health of the engine , Very useful
investment.
If they say no coolant in the oil, no fuel in the oil, and all metal levels
are pretty normal..........and you've check that compression is pretty solid
............that's a clean bill of health.
If we wanted to afford it...........i.e. invest the $
regularly............like say..........every 20,000 miles, or every two
years ............something like that......
you watch for trends and changes ..........if ring or bearing material
levels went up abnormally .............that would be a bad sign. If they
are roughly the same over several oil analysis checks...........that's a
long term clean bill of health.
Shoot........I might even do one on one of my vans !
Now that would be a good selling point to go with a van - a good oil
annalists report !
It's rather mandatory or common at least in aircraft, and big trucks too I
think.
Scott
turbovans
----- Original Message -----
From: "Allan Streib" <streib@cs.indiana.edu>
To: "Scott Daniel - Turbovans" <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Cc: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2008 7:36 PM
Subject: Re: Oil dipstick pushed out of the tube
>I don't really know the mileage on the engine. The odometer, which
> works, shows 244K miles. But, when I bought the van the seller said the
> engine was not original.
>
> Allan
>
> Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM> writes:
>
>> leak down test too, might be a little more useful than a compression
>> test.
>> I don't regard 'compression' and 'oil control' to be 100 % related.
>> You can have pretty good compression in a compression sometimes, yet not
>> have great oil control,
>> 'specially on a many-miles engine.
>> How many miles on the pistons/barrels/rings, anyway, on this one ?
>
> --
> 1991 Vanagon GL
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