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sanchius 
Samba Member
Joined: May 03, 2007
Posts: 1455
Location: IN
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 Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 8:26 am Post subject: Bad 2.1L aft oil leak. Fixed with <$20 part |
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After a year or so of good behavior, my 87 2.1L started suddenly leaking oil badly from the rear of the engine. Really badly.
I didn't have time to debug it, so I monitored the level carefully, adding more oil when necessary and kept driving for a couple weeks. That worked fine, but the oil leak was getting rather embarrassing. Finally I got some free time, so I took off the syncro underengine protection structure and cleaned everything up, but still couldn't tell where it was coming from. I figured the worse; that it was the aft (pully-side) crank seal. Ugh...
One of my commute routes takes me past Wild Westy in east Boulder. Lucas was kind enough to take a quick look at it and said it probably wasn't the crank seal; check the high rpm oil sender next to the water pump pulley. Mark at Wolfsburg Autowerks in north Boulder had the sender in stock (and showed how to change the other possible culprit,the upper oil cooler seal, without removing all the little cooler i/o oil hoses: pull the center shaft, change the seal, replace the shaft). The sender was the easiest for me to do, so I changed that 1st and it fixed my oil leak!
I really need to put in a plug for both of these fine fellows. Both Mark and Lucas have been extremely helpful, assisting me to keep my daily driver syncro going through the years. I consider myself very lucky to have them nearby and I can't say enough good things about them. |
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Ahwahnee
Samba Member
Joined: June 05, 2010
Posts: 9810
Location: Mt Lemmon, AZ
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| Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 10:41 am Post subject: |
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Oh brother... bad enough I have to imagine how life must be in beautiful Boulder with a Syncho, now I have to hear about not 1 but 2 great sources for service, parts and help.
Seriously, glad you got it fixed so cheap & easy -- I will keep those guys in mind if I'm ever in a jam on the front range. |
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sanchius
Samba Member
Joined: May 03, 2007
Posts: 1455
Location: IN
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| Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 11:45 am Post subject: |
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| Ahwahnee wrote: |
Oh brother... bad enough I have to imagine how life must be in beautiful Boulder with a Syncho, now I have to hear about not 1 but 2 great sources for service, parts and help.
Seriously, glad you got it fixed so cheap & easy -- I will keep those guys in mind if I'm ever in a jam on the front range. |
Actually, it's worse than that, Verner's has always done right by me as well. And I can walk to his shop from work if needs be.
I once rented a good known ECU and Dizzy from him when I was chasing down what turned out to be an intermittent Hall sensor failure. Not only did it allow me to track down the problem, it kept me on the road for the week that it took for the replacement part to arrive. Like I said before, these guys are great! |
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Wildthings
Samba Member
Joined: March 13, 2005
Posts: 50352
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| Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 11:53 pm Post subject: |
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| With winter coming on you might want to go back and change the o-ring on the cooler next. Those o-rings don't like cold weather all that much. The two little hoses also are pretty short lived as they get baked by the exhaust. |
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insyncro
Banned
Joined: March 07, 2002
Posts: 15086
Location: New York
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| Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 6:57 am Post subject: |
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The sensors have a pressed metal cap over a plastic core.
With thousands of heat cycles in there life the two parts separate allowing oil to pass.
FYI, I have picked up Syncros on eBay for pennies on the dollar with "cracked block and bad oil leak" in the description.
I replaced the sensors and have run them for many more miles.
This is very common.
Glad to hear you up and running again. |
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tencentlife
Samba Member
Joined: May 02, 2006
Posts: 10078
Location: Abiquiu, NM, USA
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| Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 6:39 pm Post subject: |
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Seeping followed by spewing OP switches have been a well-known VW oil leak problem for decades, they all use the same style of switch, and they will get to leaking eventually. At about $5 apiece, you're quite a silly fellow if you don't replace them every so often. The alternative is <shudder> chilling to contemplate.
And let's not hear any whining about the one below the water pump, ooooh, it's SO hard to get to. Get yer man-panties on and dig in.
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sanchius
Samba Member
Joined: May 03, 2007
Posts: 1455
Location: IN
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| Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 5:28 am Post subject: |
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| tencentlife wrote: |
Seeping followed by spewing OP switches have been a well-known VW oil leak problem for decades, they all use the same style of switch, and they will get to leaking eventually. At about $5 apiece, you're quite a silly fellow if you don't replace them every so often. The alternative is <shudder> chilling to contemplate.
And let's not hear any whining about the one below the water pump, ooooh, it's SO hard to get to. Get yer man-panties on and dig in. |
Yeah, I really regret not changing the OP switches when I had the engine out a year ago fixing the leaking flywheel side main engine seal. But it was dead simple to replace the OP switch with the engine in place. I did update the cooler seal and hoses when the engine was out, so I am good to go there.
Next fix is the driveshaft output seal on the front of the syncro trans that's been losing a drop every now and then. I checked the trans venting a year ago and the stock banjo-bolt & hosery is all still in place (http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=344159 ), so it shouldn't be overpressured. But just to be safe, I'll retest the venting with some air this weekend. |
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sanchius
Samba Member
Joined: May 03, 2007
Posts: 1455
Location: IN
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2015 9:17 am Post subject: Re: Bad 2.1L aft oil leak. Fixed with <$20 part |
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| way back in 2010, sanchius wrote: |
| ...my 87 2.1L started suddenly leaking oil badly from the rear of the engine. Really badly... |
The used engine I tossed in my syncro a few weeks ago started exhibiting an unacceptably large aft oil leak
(http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=261706&start=861).
It was very difficult to tell exactly where it was coming from due to all the pulleys, pipes and tin back there and renewing the oil cooler -> engine gasket last weekend didn't solve the problem
I was searching thesamba archives for the next suspect and I discovered this thread I created almost 5 years ago, which I had completely forgotten about.
It detailed fixing just such a leak by replacing the high pressure oil pressure sensor located between/below the water pump and crank pulleys.
The thread described my current symptoms exactly and yesterday morning before work, I took 20mins to swap in a replacement sensor and oil leak solved!
It was really cool to have the past me solve the problem for the present me and demonstrates the value of writing up your repair procedures, even if they are minor.
Last edited by sanchius on Wed Aug 26, 2015 10:30 am; edited 2 times in total |
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oceanair
Samba Member
Joined: June 09, 2013
Posts: 720
Location: Victoria, BC
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2015 10:07 am Post subject: |
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Are these the same switch in a 1.9?
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hdenter
Samba Member
Joined: October 14, 2008
Posts: 2754
Location: San Luis Obispo, CA
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2015 11:22 am Post subject: |
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Sort of, the 2.1 has two switches. One is in the same place as the 1.9 for low RPM pressure and then there is a second one at the back of the motor for high RPM pressure. They are talking about this second switch in this thread so far. Both switches are made the same way and can fail in the same manor. However the two switches have different springs/diaphrams to trigger them at different pressures. You don't want to confuse them. The same kind of switch is on the golf motor. When it failed, it squirted oil right down the sight hole and strait onto the clutch   
Hans
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