Rabbit is dead again :(

[Rising]

Hello again everyone!

Sorry ive been absent for so long. Just after I got everything up and running on the rabbit after doing the headgasket and timing belt change, everything was running great and I was buzzing around in my rabbit content as can be.

 But then I left for two months on a trip and while I was gone a friend of mines Jeep transmission went out and while he was getting it fixed I told him he could borrow the rabbit. He works about an hour and a half away.

So anyway for two weeks he used the rabbit with no problem. And in fact I was darn proud of the little Guy making that big commute with no issues. He said all tthe guys at the airforce base freaked out and wanted  rides in it and stuff.

But the last day he had it someone hit it in the parking lot and tweaked both frame pieces towards the passenger side. But it also snapped the tab off the bottom of the radiator and caused a leak. He didn't notice any of this at first. And so he started to drive it home. And after a little bit he said he was running close to out of gas and looked down and noticed the temperature getting pretty high so he pulled over and waited for awhile and tried tto start it again and it wouldn't. So he had the car towed home.

Well anyway after that incident the car simply won't start. I pulled the lines off at the IP and fuel was squirting out while it was cranking.. and then again at the injectors. The car turns over fine so I don't think he melted it down. It doesn't make sense to be glow plugs since he tries it while it was hot. And the only other thing I can guess is that it lost compression somehow. Can anyone give me some direction?

I'm pretty discouraged since I just put my cars engine back together and finally got it running and fixed the front end. And now basically everything I did is undone

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk 2

[8v-of-fury]

Crap. Lesson one, never lend your classic car to a friend. Especially after you put so much work in to it. Now clearly it is not fully his fault, but are you getting reimbursed for the problem he escalated?

Runs fine while over heating, then ***s it down and a no go after wards? Makes no sense here. However if you have fuel at the injectors and nothing at all has changed, an overheat may have caused a warped head and loss of compression.

[burn_your_money]

It sounds like a headgasket at the least but a warped head would be highly likely as well. The block would be cracked/scored to all nonsense as well.

Sorry

[CRSMP5]

offer guy a beer... as he pops the top.. with all your might.. kick to the sack.... once he on ground.. goto it.. then with straight face ask if his balls feel better... cause your ass still hurts from the plowing he just gave... and forgot the kiss and reach round...

[bbob203]

Id kick dudes ass.

[GTiTDi]

This is why I only lend out my BEATER. not something you put so much time and effort into. Nobody 'borrows' my GTI!

[Toby]

He is not being straight with you. He got it super hot. Hot enough to take the tension out of the rings. Low compression, my friend. Tell the guy to pony up. Good chance rings will make it run again. Probably not as well as it once did. Most likely the guy never noticed the problem until the car got slow as it was dying.

If I were you I would drag start it to see how bad the motor is. You can get them to start with 200 psi compression if you drag them far enough.

And NEVER loan a car to anybody. They seem to think that if you loan it to them you must not car what happens to the car or you would not have loaned it to them. Thats why I never sell a car in time. Every one I did sell on time has been totaled or repo-ed before it was paid off. For the same reason.

[theman53]

It probably didn't show hot on the gauge as there wasn't water there for the gauge to register. It had to wait until the temp of the air in there got hot, which takes a long time. Usually, nothing is good in that situation.

[R.O.R-2.0]

It probably didn't show hot on the gauge as there wasn't water there for the gauge to register. It had to wait until the temp of the air in there got hot, which takes a long time. Usually, nothing is good in that situation.

ive heat seized an engine full of coolant.. the gauge doesnt register a change in temps..

[theman53]

you siezed it with EGT, not running it out of water. Similar but different. I bet if your EGT were the same and you had no water that engine would not be running without an overhaul.

If there is no coolant where the sender is the air will have to heat before the gauge pegs. Gases take longer to heat up than liquids, so it would be really cooked.

[Rising]

Ahhh yes... the news i somehow knew was coming but still had hope wasn't true.

I really felt sick the moment he started telling me... But he definitely would've loaned me his car if the situation was reversed. He offered to pay for the damages but I turned him down. I know that may sound stupid but that has to do with my personal beliefs. He really didn't know any better since the gauges are worthless and he didn't notice the damages. I was ticked at first but I'm over it so now I'm just deciding what to do with the rabbit.

I guess the next step is a compression test or trying to drag start it and see what happens. But even with those results I'm almost positive it is compression like you all say. Therefore the engine is most likely toast. With the front end being redestroyed after I just fixed it. I'm wondering if it might be time to cut my losses and buy something that isn't totalled...

The only other thing I can think is trying to find a cheap running engine to swap in. But it would have to be pretty far on the cheap scale since I spent almost all of my project money actually fixing the car the first time before it all got undone again... What do you guys think?

[CRSMP5]

talk to crazyandy... he will give inspiration... seems he keeps paying 2x on each thing he has done trying to build his... id have been on rooftop by now if it were me...

[R.O.R-2.0]

i think, that if my friend burnt my car down, i would make him pay for a new engine.. thats just me.

i dont have thousands of dollars to rebuild my car, that is now totaled, AND BLOWN UP..

either that, or find a new friend..

[Toby]

I have to agree. If you borrow something it is your responsibility to return it in the same condition. If it would have been his, would he have driven it until it would not move another foot? It did have gauges and idiot lights that he ignored, after all.

[Rising]

I have to agree. If you borrow something it is your responsibility to return it in the same condition. If it would have been his, would he have driven it until it would not move another foot? It did have gauges and idiot lights that he ignored, after all.

While I must agree on a general principle, I believe in grace. My God has forgiven me so I forgive others. But even still I have to correct at least two misconceptions that seem to be floating around this thread:

1. He stopped the vehicle when he saw that the temperature was getting pretty high. It did not stop itself. As far as I am concerned if I would have been driving it I'm not sure I would've noticed it either, and since someone else is at fault for damaging the vehicle I am not going to lay on him the misfortune of paying for two cars (remember his car was in the shop when this happened) when he didn't do anything irresponsible with the vehicle.

2. He offered to pay for the vehicle. He is not some deadbeat who everyone should be screaming at for him ruining my car and just saying "Tough luck". He apologized vehemently and insisted on paying to put a new engine in the car for me. I Turned Him Down. As far as I'm concerned the matter with him is settled. I'm sorry if I painted him in a horrible light I was extremely frustrated at the time of writing the first post. But I must emphasize that, not only do I believe that he handled the situation with a reasonable amount of care, but he tried to pay to fix the problem that he created unintentionally. So I don't need any more posts telling me to go kick him in the nuts over this. I put myself in this situation. So call me a fool if you must but right now I'm just trying to figure out how to get out of it   Now back to car stuff.

Update:

Today I finally returned home from another trip and had a chance to play with the rabbit. I took it out and had my dad pull it behind his truck to see if it would start. With a little convincing, it started up and ran rough. I had to provide some throttle to keep it going at first but after maybe 20-30 seconds it idled with the cold start lever out. Now remember before I loaned the vehicle out it already had a little bit of trouble running and idling when cold since I did my Headgasket and had only roughly timed the engine. After letting the car run for about a minute at most, I shut the car back down and tried to start it with the starter. It fired right up again. This is making me seriously consider my glow plugs as a partial culprit (at least for not starting at all) since when I tried to test one i couldn't get even a bit of heat out of it. I thought it might just be my testing ability at first. But after watching a few Youtube videos I was doing everything correctly I believe.

So my questions are these:

1. The engine seemed to run fairly ok after it warmed up even a small amount. So I'm curious if this engine is salvageable? I guess the only way to know for sure is to do a complete tear-down/rebuild to which i ask my next point.

2. How hard is it to rebuild one of these engine? I'm a fair shadetree mechanic, did my own headgasket/timing belt jobs , replaced my transmission ect. But i've never torn an engine completely down. Though I've been wanting to try my hand at it sometime anyway, so even if i decide to scrap this engine i'll probably tear it down and play with it to familiarize myself with it.

3. Cost/benefit analysis of tearing this engine apart and trying to replace some parts and get it up and running again vs. buying a used engine and possibly even a td since i'm looking to turbo this car anyway. (keeping in mind that I'm not exactly broke but not rich either considering my wife will probably kill me if i have to put much more money into this car, but i'm positively made of time since i'm out of a job right now.)

4. Anyone know what size compression tester fitting works on these engines? I've got a compression tester that has an 18mm and a 14mm fitting but both are too big for the glow plug hole i believe.

That's all for now. I think the rabbit still has a pulse (I drove it back into the drive way ) but it's going to take some work to get back on the road... any help from you guys would be greatly appreciated! Everyone has been really great and supportive of my endeavor from the beginning with this little guy and I even appreciate all of your outrage over the situation! I just hope I can get this guy back on the road!