The URq that had the oil drinking addiction - ended !

[Andrew Asher <andrew.asher@pnz.co.nz>]

A while ago - November last year my 86 wr URq developed valve guide
"type" problems - with huge clouds of blue smoke on the over run and
then once warmed up ( but never cold ) it would pump HUGE clouds of blue
smoke at idle.

Apart from the embarassing oil smoke the car ran like a new one ( what
ever they were like ).

The compressions were all even and indicated no problem with the
cylinders - a cylinder leak down test showed nothing untoward

Well -  we pulled off heads - We replaced valves , valve guides and then
a turbo just for the fun of it, but all was to no avail.

We even used a bore scope and saw with our own eyes, OIL running down
from behind the inlet valve on #5.

We pulled the head off again - we X-rayed it and guess what - nothing
was wrong - SO..

Eventually the engine came out - and what do we find - Broken rings on
#5 and #2.  An earlier discussion with Phil on this list suggested that
the bores can go oval at the bottom - guess what - all 5 bores were
oval.

Anyway we bored 5 nice new round holes and slipped in 5 shiny new mahles
along with all that other stuff you do to the cranks and bearings etc..
End result is its back to its old self.

A new exhaust manifold and a clutch kit mailed out from Kim at "quattro
sports" in the UK ( and yes I would reccomend his company for quattro
parts ) and Bobs your Uncle.

All in all the engine failure on my q was my biggest nightmare - the
bill topped $NZD 13K including manifolds and clutches.  As my daily
driver, having the big red monster off the road for close to 4 months
hurt the most. 

Moral of the story - If ya cant afford em then dont have em.  There is
in my un humble opinion no such thing as a small repair on a car as
complicated as a URq.

Thanks to all of you on this list who offered help and assistance - I
was at one time, when trying to diagnose the problem, looking for an
Xfile episode that was on possesed cars.


Andrew
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Andrew Asher 86 URq
mailto:andrew.asher@mail.com
http://members.tripod.com/~andash
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