Help: Just bought an 85 Jetta Diesel

So normally I stick to the Ford truck IDIs but had to give up my nice little car to the wifey that I'm splitting up with so I needed something with mileage.

Started looking and found an 85 Jetta Wolfsburg 4dr 5spd diesel with only 139k on it. I've got three kids, and will be commuting a 110 mile trip often in the future so this seemed perfect.

So picked it up for $800. Had expired tags and had been sitting so I just rented a tow dolly and brought it home.

When I test drove her she sounded solid, but was smoky, but no blowby and fluids looked good so I figured I'd take the leap.

After some fresh fuel and treatment she runs great and sounds really good. Starts up great. Still some smoke, but I think it's just the crappy fuel and I have seafoam in the engine and such so until I put in new oil and drive it some I won't know for sure but I think I'll have to use my new injector pop tester on this car like I did my 93 truck.

So my question is this. It is dripping oil when running. Basically from the rear most, passenger most bolt on the oil pan. The guy gave me an oil pan gasket for it but there is oil all up in the timing belt cover so I wonder if I'm gonna have to deal the rear main seal or whatever it's called on these things. I just don't have experience with these things like the trucks so I'm hoping someone here knows the drill on these engines.

He also gave me a clutch so I'm wondering if I have to pull the engine to do the seals anyway. Kind of wanted to get her going cheap and quickly just for a while with the low miles and maybe do more of a rebuilt later, but at the same time it looks like I could do a lot on this car a lot quicker than a 6.9/7.3l IDI.

Any sort of estimate, on the time and cost to pull the engine and do head gasket, seals, timing belt, and clutch. I suppose if I just make up my mind and do it it won't take that long.

Also it seems the steering rack might be leaking. Do I just need to do new hoses like the trucks or is it more commonly a seal in the rack?

Of course it is electrically possesed, but for now I'll forgoe that proceeding as I'm pretty good with electrical stuff and this one is complex with whatever the POs have done.

Any help is much appreciated. I've got a ton going on right now and don't have time to moonlight the internet on VWs right now and we all know about the search function on our beloved oilburners site.

This has the 1.6 liter NA correct? We drove the wheels off of these VWs before having kids (wife now addicted to Mercedes.)
Oil pan is easy. It needs threadlocker on all bolts to hold. I have only done clutches and seals on these by dropping the tranny out the bottom so I cant comment on the engine pull. It doesn't take long to drop the tranny, and you dont have to mess with the front suspension like you do on some FWD cars. My recollection is both the tranny and the engine have drive in seals similar to the IDI. BTW replace the input shaft seal when you do the clutch, they are notorious leakers in my experience.
Unless you have a real need, I would avoid pulling the head. My experience has been that when these aluminum heads get hot (even just once) they crack, but continue to run fine as long as the head is bolted down. I have never pulled a VW diesel head that I was able to put back on , so unless you are prepared to replace the head, leave the gasket alone.
In general these are great commuter cars that last forever.

Thanks. Just the kind of stuff I was looking for. It is a 1.6 N/A. Starts right up with a low battery.

There really isn't an indication of a bad head or gasket, I just thought if they were prone then I might just do it. I don't really want to go to grand extents right now. Just hoping I can get some miles out of it for a while then see how the future goes. So I hearing that the gaskets aren't so much the weak spot as the actual head itself? I'll be communting in it to and from the boondocks so right now I just want reliability.

I guess I should try doing the oil pan gasket first and see where that leaves me. There's so much oil I can't tell what's going on. The care came with a tranny mount bushing and it feels like a got some front end work to do of some sort so I guess I'll jack er up and see if she's a boy or girl.

I'm used to being able to just roll underneath a truck and take a look.

So it sounds like alot can be done with the engine in. Just have to dive in I guess.

My experience is the heads only fail if you remove them. They seem to run forever cracked with no problems. I would do the pan first and see what happens. The tranny is so light that when you drop it from below the hardest part is getting the car high enough so that you can roll out on the creeper with it on your lap.

I've took out 3 or 4 of these engines but they were in rabbits. they weren't too hard except for the one that had no hood so all the bolts were rusted and didn't come out,
that one I had to drop out the bottom!

I did take a video of it running but have been moving and everything is upside down.

I've been making my 110 mile round trip with it a few times and it's doing pretty good.

First tank was only high 30s for mpg but that was with a few weeks of running it in the driveway and around the block to test things and such.

I'll update and post a vid soon.

Heya, plywood. I'm normally over on the Ford IDI board also, but am on here accidentally. My buddy helping me w/my head gasket job has an '86 N/A Jetta.

His suggestion is to check the dipstick tube o-ring. Sez it often pukes much oil from there. Ultra-black RTV will fix it nicely, but clean the parts well.

Also, sez he, the valve cover gasket often distorts; some of your leakage may be from there.

(One more suggestion: a secondary fuel/water separator/filter is a great idea if you intend to keep this car)

Aw, you got him started, : mileage should be at least 42 on the n/a engine.

Haven't had easy internet access lately but I have been getting about 40-44 MPG with the Jetta for about 7-8k miles.

Valve cover gaskets are common leakers. Valves require checking/adjusting every 15000 miles on this engine, most get a reusable rubber gasket, but they will leak over time.. Do yourself a HUGE favour. run a treatment or two of auto rx and take care of any seal problems and clean out the rings and get your compression up to ***** and then get that thing on some seriously high end synthetic oil so you dont have to adjust the valves quite as often. Adjustment requires removing a shim and measuring with a micrometer, and replacing with a thinner shim when valve clearance fails. Eventually when they wear too far, you get to a point to where you can no longer get shims any smaller, then its new head time.

Removing a head on one of these things is an art. it must be done with EXTREME care and VERY slowly by breaking the bolts loose just very slightly one at a time in reverse of torque pattern , if this procedure is not followed, cracking is a given ( in other words, if you go after it with a rattle gun, you will trash the head)

There are a number of specialty tools required to time the pump , set the cam, install the timing belt etc PROPERLY on these engines. DO NOT EVEN BEGIN TO ATTEMPT THESE PROCEDURES WITHOUT THESE TOOLS! You can purchase them fro www.baumtools.com, www.samstagsales.com www.vwdieselparts.com of if your German isn't too rusty or you are handy with an online translator, hit up Ebay Germany for some great deals on used tool sets and valve shim sets.. some people get lucky and actually get one of those engines to run after working on it without the proper tools, but by the averages, most end up in the boneyard. They are VERY unforgiving of not following directions. Treat it right , and it will treat you right.
I own a few of the 6 cyl versions of that engine and used to specialize in them ( my favourite car is my 86 Volvo 740 turbo diesel wagon , that critter has the 6 cyl D24t VW LT engine and ive worked on plenty of those 4 cyl jobs.

I was going to say the same thing any 1.5/1.6 I've had leaked. The valve cover gasket is 2 pieces and the 2nd part is right where the cam shaft exits, so you can imagine this is a common place to leak. If I were you I'd make sure your blow bye is under control and not pressurizing your valve cover and then buy a rubber gasket conversion kit. It is one piece and reusable. You will end up taking the valve cover off quite a bit for timing belt changes and valve lash adjustments ect... and if you need the timing tools I have the complete set that I'll sell since I got rid of my last VW IDI last fall (kicking myself).

RLDSL said:

I own a few of the 6 cyl versions of that engine and used to specialize in them ( my favourite car is my 86 Volvo 740 turbo diesel wagon , that critter has the 6 cyl D24t VW LT engine and ive worked on plenty of those 4 cyl jobs.

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omg im so happy to hear someone talk about that car.. i owned 2... 129mph diesel that you wouldnt really know was a diesel till you hit idle...

longest rad hoses in automotive history hahaha

f that rear timing belt :-D

Make sure you know when the timing belt was changed - if they break they *will* cause serious problems.

As mentioned changing the timing belt requires special tools, procedures and care. Not impossible by any means, just need to be careful.

Also, be caution where you gets parts - there's someone that was selling complete junk Chinese parts for these diesels on ebay for a while.

Interesting to hear you guys mention the 760TD - I had a couple of those several years ago - a sedan, nice 760 wagon, and a factory reman shortblock I built up and sold as a conversion kit - fun cars!

Got a BMW 524TD now - also a fun car to drive.

I've had a fair amount of experience working on the injection pumps on these cars (Bosch VE) if you ever need to work on that.