[Vwdiesel] Synth oil

[James Hansen]

Hi All:


Something wierd happened to me.  The 89 Jetta (the one with 530000kms) had a
bad exhaust manifold leak.  This just developed over the last while, after one
particularly stupid thing I did- basically drove at WOT for ten or so miles in
5th on gravel into huge wind- didn't really realize that I had so much pedal
on, but after this, noticed the rap rap of an exhaust leak which turned out to
be on cyl #1.  Dumbo me I thought, pooched the manifold, or gasket at the very
least.  Okay, tonight I finally felt up to getting to it, looked at underside,
black carbon all over as i expected to see, but lower #1 exhaust stud was
backed off.  I thought I pulled a stud, which would suck mightily, and figured
I might as well try to tighten it, not expecting much in this department
however.  I got a wrench on it, it tightened easily, to spec, and now doesn't
leak.  Go figure.

All I can think of it might be is the very very slight seep from valve cover
gasket above with the Shell 0-40 synth winter oil caused it to loosen. Make
sense?  Is synth that stable that it can loosen bolts that have been rusting
for the last 500000? (they don't look too terribly good, when they come off,
they are off for good as they just barely offer purchase for a wrench). I'm
still amazed at this.  If this is the case, shooting synth at manifold bolts
some miles before removal would be a good idea. Anyone else have their manifold
bolts loosen up like this?  Hmmm...
-James