[Vwdiesel] Valve Adjustment

[Nate Wall]

Friday I adjusted the valves in the new TD motor I just put in the '85 Jetta. I
put about 300 miles on it and thought I "would just check a couple of clearances".
The valves seemed pretty noisy. Well I found out why. All clearances were at least
double specs., i.e., exhausts were all at about 0.036 and intakes were at about
0.022 inches. (.018 and .010 are the specs). This was at operating temp too. I was
able to use the shims from the old motor and a few I had laying around to get them
all back into specs.

What's odd is that almost every shim in the head was the thinnest one on the chart
(marked 330). There was even a #220 installed, and Bentley does not even list them
as that thin. I think the head must have been recently rebuilt (there is a nice
fresh/shiney VC stamped in the head) and the thinnest shims were used in the hopes
that the valves would wear in. Well anyway, the motor that runs great just runs
that much better now. More power and much quiter.

I used to think that TDs had noticeably less power/performance than the gas VW
engines, but w/ this new motor, I'm reconsidering. It's really fast! The turbo
just spools right up now, wheras before there was considerable lag (I'm using the
old turbo and pump from the old motor, the turbo was rebuilt 40,000 miles ago). I
think my old motor was sick for a long time!

--Nate