Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 20:46:16 -0400
Reply-To: Southard <southard@GIS.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Southard <southard@GIS.NET>
Subject: Reinhardt Saga (long)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Some of you may recall my note in July about my overheating '82 Diesel Westy.
There was white smoke, high temperature and "clanking." After a long tow
home, "Reinhardt" has sat in the garage awaiting my attention.
Well, I finally pulled off the head (had to take a day off from work to focus.)
Are exhaust bolts designed to break off or is it just my technique?
Anyway, here's what I found (not good.) #2 cylinder is a mess. First, while
removing the #2 fuel injector, I noticed something in the hole. Metallic.
Loose, but not removable through hole. Off with the head. #2 piston looks
like it has been hammered. Almost like I had dropped hot solder on top of it.
Clean and shiney (no carbon), and beat up badly. Cylinder has some noticable
scoring, but no gouging. Area of head above #2 cylinder looks like the surface
of the moon. The pre-chamber insert is broken into three pieces and turned 120
degrees and tilted! The metal I had seen through the fuel injector hole was a
broken off part of the insert. The valves actually look fairly good, certainly
not as beaten up as the head itself (they must be harder than the soft alloy
head). They go up and down ok when I rotate the camshaft and appear to seat
evenly, although the seats are banged up too. I couldn't find any evidence
that the head gasket was blown, although the section of the head gasket below
the pre-chamber insert (half-moon shape) was completely gone, as if it had been
punched out. No sign of it. The PO used some sort of sealer when he put on
the head gasket (gasket is dated 7/97). Valves are marked 1, 1I, 2, 2I, 3, 3I,
so PO must have had a valve job done also, right? Engine only has 59k miles
and everything else actually looks real good. Other cylinders look good,
injectors look good, glow plugs look good, no valve marks on other pistons,etc.
So, head is trashed. I had originally thought that maybe the timing belt had
jumped a tooth, but since the other cylinders and pistons look good, I've
scratched that idea. Also thought maybe a valve had broken a spring or dropped
something, but they don't appear to be the problem. I've settled on the
pre-chamber insert. It almost appears that it got loose, spun, bounced around,
broke apart and generally disintegrated. The lack of carbon in this cylinder
makes me think that raw fuel was coming in and not combusting. Instead, it
cleaned things up real good, before exiting as unburned fuel (white exhaust).
The insert did not have that little nipple on it that positions it correctly
so that the fuel injector spray is directed properly. This probably got
knocked off along the way.
Has anybody ever heard of the pre-chamber insert failing like this? Is it more
probable that something did get into the cylinder and hit the insert and caused
it to come loose?
Figuring this out may be academic. Although the block looks salvageable, I've
pretty much reconciled myself to putting in a 1.9l, rather than resurrecting a
1.6l that is already too little power for this vehicle. As I said before, I
have the fixin's from a quantum turbo diesel. If I'm going to do a bunch of
engine work, I might as well improve performance. What are my purchase options
for a 1.9l TD long block?
Thanks for listening. I would appreciate any comments.
Maynard
'82 Westy Diesel "Reinhardt"
'93 EV GL "Klinger"
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