Well a girl at the wife's work has an '81 diesel for sale, probably get it for $700 or less. Very little rust, well maintained, 325000 km interior excellent, sunroof needs battery.
Well, is it worth even looking at it. I have read many previous postings about the Volvo/VW diesel and they seem to be controversial to say the least, has anyone had an '81? Will it last for a year or two? Is it a good candidate for a Converse 5.0L kit?
'84 245 Mulvawagon 230000 km

Tranny fluid in the fuel tank.
Tranny fluid in the fuel tank.
Tranny fluid in the fuel tank.
Tranny fluid in the fuel tank.

Heh. Cleans up the pistons nicely, and works as fuel in an emergency.

I was just at the Converse site and they specifically say it's a great candidate for the v8 mod. Already has the heavy duty cooling necessary for that v8, and all you need to add is the fuel pump system from a gas engine car. :-)

Don

There is a D24 diesel and there is a D24T turbo-diesel. I have the D24T and like it a lot as a road car, a non-turbo seems a bit more sluggish--and manual is better than auto. I would not recommend it for stop and go driving.
Find someone who knows VW diesels if you need help, they are the same pistons and design, just different hole counts in the blocks and heads. Almost all the maintenance is changing fluids and filters, once in a while timing check with belt replace. If it is hard to start cold and starts right away hot, glow plugs are gone. If low on power and compression ok, check valve adjust. Not much more do except drive it.

I'm not going to b.s. you on reliability because I have no firsthand experience with fixing the diesel, but I've ridden in one, and it's SLOW. This may seem obvious, but this goes beyond the typical definition of a slow car. Keep this in mind, you may want to kill yourself if you're not used to a car which takes over 14 seconds (used its probably closer to 18) to make it to 60. If you're even slightly annoyed by how slow an auto trannied B23 or B230 240 is, you'll be horrofied by the diesel. That said, it's a perfect candidate for a Converse conversion.
--
Isaac Babcock - '83 245DL 'Borkie' and '83 244 turbo project

As far as engine conversions go, would a VW TDI engine from a 1996-1997 Passat or 1997-1999 (a3) Jetta fit?

Anything is possible, but that would be extremely difficult. Since both the passat and jetta are front wheel drive cars and the 240 is a rear wheel drive, many modifications to the frame would need to be made. Were I to try it, I'd pull the entire front subframe from a Passat, and try whatever I could to get it to mate up to the general area where the front crossmember mounts on the 240. Not worth the effort unless you're crazy.
--
Isaac Babcock - '83 245DL and '83 244ti, "Sounds to me like I am right.." -JakeJ

Main reason for asking about the TDI conversion possibility is that the Volvo diesel is a VW diesel (remember that all VW diesel cars except for the Vanagon were FWD) with two extra cylinders. So there is the possibility that the motor mounts would be in the right place to turn a TDI engine (from an a3 or b4 type VW) 90 degrees... On the other hand, if the mounting points are different, then it could be a lot more effort.

Forgive having insulted your knowledge of VW's. I didn't think about that before. What cars did VW make in the early 80's that could hold the 6? The quantum? I know that engine swaps from A3 to A2 golf/jetta chassis are common, as well as A2 to A1 chassis. It seems as if A3-B1 would be difficult, but you might want to find a junkyard with a rare B1 chassis, a 240 chassis, and an A3 chassis, and see what the dimensions are. If you can figure all that out, I guess it would be possible to fit.
--
Isaac Babcock - '83 245DL 'Borkie' and '83 244 turbo project

See if shell let you drive it around for a day or two and see how much oil it uses, and if loosing ANY coolant, and haw it cold starts, Using a little oil OK,(sticky rings they almost all have them ) that can be cleaned( email me later if you want to know how).
Keep in mind you will need to buy about $500(US) worth of special tools to fix it , even if you don't do your own work , if you break down on the road no mechanic is going to spend the money on tools to fix it properly.( thats how I found mine in a junkyard after PO had a simple breakdown and it didn't get fixed properly,took me 2 months of TLC to get it running right)

These are very dependable engines IF maintained properly, if not they are very unforgiving
I love my '84 diesel.
If you like tinkering , get it if not, stay clear.

Did you use Amsoil motor flush to ungunk the diesel? Are you using the bypass filter system? I wish I could find one that has been properly maintained. A rare find that would be. I like tlj's idea of the VW TDI engine in a 240, FWD to RWD,but I have heard of 5 cylinder 850 engine being installed in a 240. Wow!

I tried the Amsoil flush first but it wasn't quite stout enough for a quarter million miles in a neglected diesel ( I sell Amsoil , but the flush is for normal engines and moderate cleaning)What I finally found that works is Ol Schlamm Spulung, made by Liqui-Moly ( you put it in and drive lightly for about 300 km then change it, Instructions on can are in German only). Mine was burning a qt every 30 miles when I got it , .first flush got it to 160 miles a qt. after a few more flushes an a breather trap I'm going over 800 miles on a qt and running better every day.( using a qt every 1000 mi on these engines is not out of line for new )

The compression increased so much during thefirst flush with this stuff that the old starter would no longer turn the engine fast enough to start and I had to replace it.

I'm running the Amsoil 15-40 diesel & Marine oil now. I have not installed a bypass filter yet. the oil is continually cleaning and I think I would probably be changing bypass filters every three weeks right now , so I'm just running a lower change interval( about 7000 mi, I know , the owners manual on these things said 7500 mi on regular oil...Thats why they all have stuck rings .1500 mi max on regular oil. The folks at Amsoil recomend 7000-10000 on Synthetic for this engine) and flushing before each change.

It runs great and gets 36-38 mpghighway or in town( rural area I can idle around town all day
in OD)
I love this little thing , If I ever have some spare cash to blow , I'm going to try to find a decent 740 turbo diesel wagon with an automatic for my wife , to save a few bucks on commuting and some wear on her '90 240 wagon.

I don't know if I'd like one of those new VW tdi engines , too much electronics.
With these old things , the whole car could short out and all you'd have to do is run a jump wire to the fuel solinoid , jump the starter, and you're rolling.

I was a passenger in a 740 diesel for a test drive several years ago. It had the automatic, supposedly got an all time record 47mpg one time somehow.That seems a little high based on your numbers with anM46 tranny. Your mileage may continue to increase as the engine gets cleaner.

Usually about 40 mpg is tops. but if someone had a tight one and cut the mixture back a bit , I could see 47 mpg as a possible.
I had a Rabbit diesel a number of years back that consistantly got 60-65mpg on fairly flat 2 lane highways, it would drop to 50-55 mpg in the mountains( I was commuting about 85 miles a day at that time)

The only bad thing I've noticed about the oil consumption going down is that my fuel milage is staying constant even with the extra compression , because before a large percentage of what was carrying me down the road was the extra oil in the mix.( I had leaned the injected amount down when it was burning a lot of oil , but when the oil burning slowed down I found myself down in the gears a lot and had to richen it back up a bit to get the torque back.)

Thanks for the advice...I will be driving the car this week end. The 5.0 L Ford conversion suggests to have a diesel or a V6 for the extra spring capacity. I plan on bastardizing a Brick in the near future, so I may just buy it if the body is in good enough condition.

84 Mulva

You may decide tha you like driving around with that diesel engine, but if not and you do a v8 conversion............parts? :-)