[Vwdiesel] adventures in engine pulling

[Terry Briggs]

Well I finally got to yank the 1.6 out of the '84 jetta. It had sunk 
into the dirt it sat so long, finally wrapped a chain around the B 
pillar and tossed the chain over the roof and pulled it up on it's side 
with the tractor to get at the axle shaft bolts, repeat for other side. 
Get it all disconnected, yank it out the top and haul it hanging off 
the bucket of the tractor to the shop. Happy camper so far, wasn't too 
hard to do really ... get it blocked up and start to pull the timing 
covers, for some reason I wanted to check the block heater, tilted it 
over a bit and yep, it had one, thats when I noticed the block was 
cracked ............ crack runs from the block heater almost to the 
head, not a happy camper anymore .... :-{ 4 hours of work down the 
drain. So now I don't have a rebuildable engine, just a 300lb boat 
anchor. So now I'm ordering a gasket set to replace the head on my '86. 
I'll just yank the head from that 1.6 and put it on mine and rebuild 
mine this spring/summer when I have more time and much better weather. 
Unless any of you think that there is a chance the block could be 
welded, but I doubt it really could, cast is a pain to weld to begin 
with, add in an oil and coolant saturated and it gets even worse. in 
the mean time, anyone know a good shop that can check my current head 
to see if it's salvageable.