Hacked II: Getting a 1983 245 Back On the Road?
I have returned. Work on the 144 is still ongoing, and I'm keeping up to date and occasionally dropping by the new owner's to help him out and check on his progress. Currently he's pulled all the carpet and removed all the rusty floors. A lot more than I accomplished in my two years owning it, but he has more space. That's my excuse, anyway.
So I got another car. I've been working on-and-off importing this rust-free '83 245
diesel from the US. It's been a long time in the making, but finally, it's in my garage and ready for me to ruin.
Why this car, specifically? I dunno. It was presented to me at a very reasonable price and I just had to have it. And so I do.
Getting it off the trailer was the easy part. I've never driven a manual 240 before and had no idea how the reverse lockout worked. The truckers that delivered it told me they thought the reverse gear was broken. I later found that wasn't the case - but not after having backed it down the hill and onto the street using only the brakes.
The interior is... remarkably nice. The driver's seat is a little torn, but at least it
has an interior, unlike the 144. All the bits of missing trim are in the back. The seller had warned me that the car had a really bad mildew smell, to the point where he was unable to continue driving it (allergies). Might just be me, but I never noticed any terrible smells. At least, not as bad as with the other car.
The uh...big issue with this car is a massive fuel leak coming from the injection pump at the front. It's the reason I couldn't drive this all the way from VA, and had to organize transport instead. I have the seals to fix it, so we'll see how this goes.
Many spare parts included. The seller let me know that the M46 was probably going out, so he included a spare.
Ah, yes. The D24. So much metal is used to make 76 horsepower. The engine bay is really surprisingly clean, albeit with some slightly sketchy wiring. That lamp wire goes to a secondary fuel pump, used to prime the main VE pump when it runs itself dry.
Plans? I'm not really sure yet. I was fairly convinced that I would be swapping out the diesel fairly early for a gas engine (and thus starting a possibly permanent jack stand build a la 144). Looking at how clean the engine bay is and how well it runs (minus the leak, of course), I'd be tempted to leave the D24 in there. My only issue (and the reason I can't develop an attachment to this engine) is the timing belt. Last I checked, you need an entire Volkswagen service department to change the belt, and a lot of weird, D24-specific tools. The current belt (to my knowledge) hasn't been changed in probably at least the last 30,000 miles, and I'm a bit scared of driving it too much on that belt.
I guess we'll have to see how it works out.
I'll also probably have to beg a mod to change the name of my thread, wish me luck!