[Vwdiesel] Cracked Block?

[Nate Wall]

A few years back I put new rings in the old TD motor in my Jetta.
Immediately after that I noticed a very slight coolant leak, but it was
impossible to determine the source, because it was somewhere BEHIND the
inner timing belt cover. Just coolant, no coolant in the oil and no oil in
the coolant. I figured I got a little piece of crud under the head gasket
when re-assembling. I was meticulous w/ re-assembly, so I thought.
Alumaseal stopped the leak. Well when I replaced the motor I found the
leak. It was BEHIND the injection pump bracket. There was a crack in the
block running through the threaded hole that the extension piece for the
timing belt cover nut screwed into and it ran up to the right front head
bolt hole. It was a hairline crack. There was lots of coolant residue
encrusted around it.

The block must have cracked from the head bolt torquing. Several of the
bolts binded and had to be forced to torque down. They made that nasty
creaking sound. I was also careful and sucked all the crud out of the
holes. I have a picture of the crack, if anyone is interested.

I put 50,000 miles on that engine w/ the block cracked!

That's my experience.

--Nate

Val Christian wrote:

> I have a 91 Jetta 1.6, with a coolant leak in the vicinity of the water
> pump and the crankshaft.  I replaced the waterpump based upon the
> mileage it had been in there (175k miles), but found that the old
> pump appeared to be just fine.  With everything back together,
> coolant poured into the engine, comes out near the area between the
> waterpump and the crankshaft.
>
> There is no oil to coolant nor coolant to oil contamination, nor is
> there any sign of burning coolant.  The head gasket seems just fine,
> although I can't completely inspect the perimeter near the timing belt
> area.
>
> At the time I replaced the water pump, I elected to also replace the
> timing belt.  I looked for water leaks, and found none.  However, in
> retrospect, there was warpage of the lower timing belt cover.  Perhaps
> where the leak may be.
>
> Has anyone seen a block crack such as this?  Any insight or ideas to
> share?
>
> Thanks.
>
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