[Vwdiesel] Blow by test?

[William J Toensing]

I previously lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota moving to California in 1969 at age 36. In addition to the cold winters, the effect of the salted winter streets destroying cars of the '50s & '60's motivated me to move to Calif. Frequent trips back to Minn. in the '70s showed that cars from the '70's & early '80's didn't fare any better. The amazing thing I found in Calif. was that '50's cars highly prone to rust in Minn. in less than 2 years are still seen rust free today in Calif. The worst cars of the '50's were 1957 & '58 Plymouths & Dodges, rusting out in less than a year. Out here, the sun will bake the interior upholstery & rubber weather stripping whereas back in the rust belt mechanical parts & upholstery will
often survive past the time the car is junked out. Therefore, if someone could figure out a way of bringing good upholstery & mechanical parts including engines out to the west coast & return with rust free bodies, fenders, doors, etc. I can see the possibility of someone making money at this. It pains me to see rust free cars going to the crusher that could be more cheaply restored than rebuilding the bodies of rust buckets back east. In Europe there exist diesel versions of cars that I am sure get junked due to accident or rust out. If someone could save good diesel engines & related component parts & ship them to the USA I suspect a market would exist would exist here. I understand there are versions of Jeeps & Chrysler/Dodge minivans exported to Europe that we cant get here. The Ford Focus is not available with a diesel engine but I understand the diesel Focus is widely sold in in Europe. All Asian cars currently sold here are not available with diesel engines & have not been available to my knowledge since 1986 but have diesel availability in comparable models in Europe. 
Bill Toensing, Nevada City, CA