Former VWDieselParts.com Forum

Quantum-man wrote:
I only torque up to 95lbft. I do it in about 5 stages, ie 10, 25 50 75, & 95. This number may be unneccessary , but I've rationalized that by doing so, I may minimize sideways spread of the gasket.
I retorque when warm, and after 100 miles or so.
As I appear not to be damaging the bolts, I am also free to retorque whenever I feel like it!

All retorques are the 'old way of releasing each bolt in turn before torquing. This reveals those sticky ones that snatch.

For your re-torques, am I correct in assuming that you release the torque on one bolt, then go directly to the 95 ft. lb. setting?

And if you find a sticky bolt, what do you do about it?

caduceus wrote:

Quantum-man wrote:
I only torque up to 95lbft. I do it in about 5 stages, ie 10, 25 50 75, & 95. This number may be unneccessary , but I've rationalized that by doing so, I may minimize sideways spread of the gasket.
I retorque when warm, and after 100 miles or so.
As I appear not to be damaging the bolts, I am also free to retorque whenever I feel like it!

All retorques are the 'old way of releasing each bolt in turn before torquing. This reveals those sticky ones that snatch.

For your re-torques, am I correct in assuming that you release the torque on one bolt, then go directly to the 95 ft. lb. setting?

And if you find a sticky bolt, what do you do about it?

Yes I move from one bolt to the other. I use the same sequence, as for general torquing.

The sticky bolt shows up during the release, so I undo it beyond the usually found double stick.
I believe oil flows under the washer and so that is why it becomes then free to torque back up like the others.

Undoing most bolts previously set to 95lbft, requires about 75lbft, except for the occasional sticky one that may need 100lbft to release, or the few that only need 45 to 50 lbft. I tend not to get so many of those latter ones because I believe they are in part caused by the plastic deformation of the gasket, that increases when up in the plastic range of the bolt.
A bolt that is 'behaving', releases at about 75lbft, and drops down to say 30lbft after about 30 degrees.
I then retorque up in a sweeping motion whilst staring at the torque gauge.
Releasing amount not critical, but I'm trying to treat the bolts equally. Incidentally, I always release coolant pressure on the warm/hot retorques...

Quantum-man wrote:Prompted by my last post, my engine's 'Plastic Bottle Hone' is coming up to 4 years this August, and had been trouble free until last month, when I declared that the engine will be 30yrs old in Nov.

A fault developed after a 30 mile fast run, whereby the car would not restart, after getting at all warm ie, >1/2 mile, not even within a second of stopping. No booster packs, jump starts etc would work, but leave it for a little more than an hour and it would restart after a few turns.

After some experimentation,including finding a burnt off glow plug, and conceding that my compression readings of 180 to 250, may be telling the truth, I dropped the sump, removed the head, and pulled the pistons.

All pistons in good health other than the earlier valve craters. However, the ring's [GAPS] on 2 of the pistons had completely aligned, nearly aligned on a 3rd and less than optimum on the last...

As 4 years ago I had bought 3 sets of rings, I decided to renew them. Wear was varied, but basically from about 4 to 6 thou. has come off the rings over that 4 year period.
Whilst only being about 40000 miles, it has been 95% short jpurneys around town with many restarts.

At the time of the ring job, a lesser man may have been induced to discard the engine due to the wear at the tops of the bore, and the ring gaps of up to 160 thou, at first pointing to a rebore and oversized pistons being required.
Far too expensive and cheaper to get another engine. However, other than the rings and bore, all other bearings seemed as original, and within spec, so the bearings I bought never got used, and the experiment with the low cost rebuild began...

So 4 years on , and the bearings still within spec. No play detected with the intermediate bearings either. No pump wear, and still the same old tensioner. This is probably helped by the fact I never over-tighten the timing belt.
I did have to grind out the increased ridge at the top of the bore, to get the pistons out which I believe is the source of my engine knocking.

Mere deglazing this time.


On reassembly, the car wouldn't start. Trouble turned out to be the experimental Leyland DAF nozzles with their angled pilot jet. Currently breaking in the rings with varied driving, but I assume they quickly bedded in enough to improve on their installed pressures of 230psi across cylinder[remember previously 180 to 250]
Of course these pressures may be artificially low due to my made up compression adaptor made from an injector bottom.

Idling has smoothed better than it has been for the last 2 years. I will optimize the timing when I have solved a diesel leak-off leak. I might make a sound track to compare the improvements over previous years.

I know this thread is kind of old so I thought I'd wake it up again. I basically did the same procedure with my 86 Golf diesel. I used a dingleberry hone to degalze the bores. They were all in very good shape. The rings that came off the old pistons probably had a 1/4 inch gap in them. I figured that must be the reason it's using so much oil. So I bought new standard pistons and one size over rings, bearings, new oil pump and a reman head. I ground the rings to each bore to the minimum ring gap. It was good and tight when I got it all back together. But I'm still having oil consumption issues. About the same as it was before I tore it apart. I'm adding a quart every 150 miles or so. I don't see it coming out the tailpipe. It's all black smoke once the car gets to normal operating temperature. I'm just wondering if it takes a little time for the rings to seat good or could it be something else.

Did you put 30% cross hatching on the entire bore to stop the rings from spinning and lining the gaps up. Did you mic the entire lenght of the bore. I always try for at lest 2 or 3 ten thousands of an inch tolerance. This is not as hard as it sounds it's quit doable with practice. I've never tryed it with a plastic bottle hone or deglacer. I'm more of a Sun non-spring loaded real hone or horizontal boring machine type of guy.

surfcam wrote:Did you put 30% cross hatching on the entire bore to stop the rings from spinning and lining the gaps up. Did you mic the entire lenght of the bore. I always try for at lest 2 or 3 ten thousands of an inch tolerance. This is not as hard as it sounds it's quit doable with practice. I've never tryed it with a plastic bottle hone or deglacer. I'm more of a Sun non-spring loaded real hone or horizontal boring machine type of guy.

Unfortunately, no we didn't. We just ground the oversize rings to each bore and checked each ring in the bore in several different spots to make sure we had the same ring gap throughout the entire bore.