Date:         Thu, 11 Jul 1996 12:28:28 PDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Shawn Wright" <SW@smus.bc.ca>
Subject:      Re: 'Diesel' water cooled story

On 11 Jul 96 at 12:37, john wakefield wrote:

>   The rest of the trip was just "another day at the beach."  Speed 
> limited by my willingness to go no faster than 220 degrees F produced 
> steady progress back to our University home.  
>   Now, while I no longer have my notes, I did compute an average MPG of 
> right around 18, used only one quart of my Mobil 1 synthetic, and drove 
> both legs of the trip straight through without motor failure except for 
> the EGR incident, which only took the carb due to the simultaneous heat 
> load, in my opinion.
>   So one of these little water cooled motors in excellent shape, running 
> synthetic oil, and not allowed to overheat for one instant, will do a 
> hell of a job.  Just thought some of you might like going along for this 
> trip.
> 
>     Respectfully submitted,
>     John Wakefield
> 
Great story!

Which compels me to reinforce how durable the inline 4 is:
Four years ago we bought a house which needed a lot of work. I 
really needed a pickup, but all I had was my 85 Jetta, a hitch, and a 
*very* strong homemade trailer. I proceeded to carry a total of 10 
yards of bark mulch with it, 2 yards at a time. This was no problem, 
even for the non-turbo original motor. Then I decided the weed patch 
beside the drive really needed some gravel so I could park there. The 
local gravel pit in Maple Ridge let you shovel it yourself for $10 a 
load. Well I needed the exercise, and being cheap, I piled as much as 
I thought safe, then just a *bit* more, on the trailer. Without the 
side boards, I figured this to be just over a yard of gravel. Luckily 
this was a Saturday, so I didn't get too many strange looks from 
truckers. Luckily I thought, the exit from the pit is *downhill*. 
Well, I slid merrily down the hill towards the weigh scale to pay for 
my load. Geez I thought, good thing I don't have to go too far as I 
asked how much I weighed. The operator casually said "oh, just over 
5600 lbs..." I gulped. "Are you sure??" He says "Yeh, give or take a 
100 or so." 

So I gave him $10 and spent a minute or two estimating how much time
would need to gain speed, while I waited for a break in traffic to
pull onto the highway. Once moving I realized I needed to start
gaining speed to climb the hill into town about a mile away. All
went well, and I was able to do about 50-60 km/h most of the way.
Aside from incredible braking effort, and a bad clutch smell backing
it up my driveway, the little 1.6l diesel performed flawlessly for
another 4 loads of gravel after this!

ps: The engine was still running fine 2 yrs later when I swapped for 
a turbo at 280,000.

Shawn
'88 Westy 332k (Kyra)
'85 Jetta TD 350k (Jenni)