piston

[tony 0]

just been to the garage this morning with my g60 corrado , was told that either one of my pistons had cracked or melted, had a few quoted for the job , has anybody been unlucky enough to have had to do this and what sort of price should i be looking at , cheers

[Scott 0]

I wouldnt say it was common..

 

I assume the garage has taken the engine apart to come to this diagnosis ?

[GazzaG60 0]

id be interested in WHY a piston cracked too.

 

bad injector

 

timing.

 

boost too much

[tony 0]

i took it to the first garage this morning and he did a pressure test , 1, 3 and 4 were 145 and 3 showed as 15 , he said because there was very little compression and the state of the plug and the blue smoke belting out of the exhaust he said he was most certain that it was either a cracked or melted piston but he did not do anything else apart from a compression test , you will have to bear with me as i am not to clever on cars, cheers for the reply

[Banana Man 0]

Could be the piston rings that have got worn as this could be were the oil is passing, piston failure in the G60 is very rare!!! How many miles has it done????

[tony 0]

the car has 115,000 miles on it , it has been well looked after , full history and the likes , it has had a stage 2 rebuild from jabbasport , sns stage 5 chip , i bought it off john tdi on this site,

[tony 0]

had car into the garage today who took the engine to bits , the piston is cracked but apparently there is no other damage , i have been quoted £500, for the job including gaskets , timing belt , oil pump and the rest of it , any ideas if that seems to be a good price or not, cheers again

[Dubcharged 0]

Ouch. When did you buy the car? Cracked piston is very odd, usually if something was to go then it'd be a ring or an edge would show signs of lean out in which case the valves would also show some damage.

 

Just curious as to the chip, did you buy the car with it in there?

[Jon TDI 0]

Hi Tony,

As you know, I was shocked when you told me over the phone.

A cracked piston sounds like a worst-case scenario. Get the lads at the garage to show you the piston. Most common things to go wrong are piston rings or a valve.

 

Dubcharged, I left the chip in the car when I sold it.

[Toby 0]

The same happened to me. I melted #2, and #1 was on the way. £500 sounds cheap, but then if they're just replacing one piston.... I put in a full set of JE Forged pistons imported from the US as it was not a lot more than a stnd set over here and it seemed like a good idea!

If you're replacing the oil pump, the 2.0 8v is a straight swap and pumps a bit more round.

As for why it happened - I haven't narrowed mine down to one thing, but a combination of a few possibilities.

Stick with SNS and get an Air Fuel ratio gauge and see how things look when it's all back together. You may then need to look at injectors/their wiring harness, timing, plugs etc. etc.....

[Dubcharged 0]

Also, its advisable to replace the fuel pump. The 8v pumps are not very good. Its best to go to the breakers and pick up the 16v unit with the swirl pot and mounting brackets.

[tony 0]

thanks for the response, much appreciated, i noticed about a week ago when oil vapour started to pour out of the k&n filter on the crank case breather that jon had fitted, the car started to sound as if it had like a slight missing sound in low revs , did not think much of it as i thought changing back to the original pipe work would do the job, once i did that the vapour had obviously stopped but then a couple of days later it began to blow blue smoke out of the exhaust , gradually got worse but was unable to get the time off work to have it looked at, eventually got it to the garage where they carried out the compression test, since then i have a friend that works in ford jennings where i live who took of the head and sump , he told me that the piston had gone from the bottom, he said that it was not the norm, he said he checked the crankshaft, conrods and other things which he said were fine, said it needs a rebore and now awaiting a price off a garage that should be tomorrow( i hope), he said about a £1000 off the top of his head, sorry if ive bored you with all of this info but while i am typing i am not thinking about the hole it will put in my pocket, not to worry , does this sound more like a realistic price? thanks again

[tony 0]

plugs looked fine apart from number two which was gunged up with like a thick oil,

[Toby 0]

Regarding the rebore - double check, because I thought that with mine, but it seems the bores on our engines are quite resilient. HAving checked the tolerances I got away with a hone, as things weren't too bad (compression is perfectly OK now too), but you may have done a bit more damage than i did.

 

Rough prices - stnd spec and size pistons over here £400?, head gasket set £50?, stretch bolts £20?, big ends & bolts £50?, rebore £100? plus all the sundries and a fair bit of labour ... £1000 is a fairish estimate. (TSR are pretty competitive on parts)

 

If you do need a rebore you may want to overbore to 1.9L and use 9:1 comp ratio JE's. A lot of the guys on G60 forum on VWVortex.com seem to have gone down this road.... Either way, if you do go for forged pistons, speak to Rodney at JRC Motorsports in the USA, good prices & very helpful. My standard spec & size JE's were about $500... watch out for the VAT when you import them though - or a find a way round it..???

 

Hope this helps.....

[tony 0]

spoke to numerous garages today and no one wants to entertain it, the lad who has taken off the head and sump said that his place will take out engine and send off the bottom end to a engineering firm that they deal with, pistons , rings and the rest of it, then they said they would get it back and fit back inti the car, they said that they would charge £500 labour , they said they would get a price off the engineers tomorrow , obviously i supply the gaskets , timig belt , filters ,oil and the likes, do you think it would be worth just boring out one piston and putting in a new seal and doing it that way or is it not advisable, i asked the lad who is going to fit the engine if that was possible but he said that the engineers would probably not guarantee it , any ideas , thanks

[Andi 2,147,483,647]

I would keep looking on the garage-front.

I'm sure you can find a place that will do it all - rather than you having to source this, them sending off that, etc.

 

You just need a garage with an engineering mechanic - I know a couple down here (do Turbo conversions, etc etc) - I'm sure they would be more useful - as long as they know VWs.

 

Sorry I can't be more specific, but don't know anywhere up 'north' like that :(

[Toby 0]

Don't just rebore one! You need to do the lot and get four new pistons, rings, gudgeon pins, big end bearings & bolts (and maybe little ends too).

Like Andi said, keep looking on the garage front... or if you can't do it yourself, perhaps use a mate that knows cars and attack it together (except the engineering bit) - It's not a totally impossible job for the home mechanic!!!.....

[tony 0]

what is the risk of just doing one piston and just putting rings on the others, thanks for the replies!

[tony 0]

spoke to the engineering firm this morning and they said that even with overhauling the bottom end they would not guarantee it as they do not know the cause of the piston blowing, so i think this seems to be a bit of a gamble , as much as i like the car i dont really want to spend this kind of money on a job that could come back and haunt me weeks down the line if it is not done properly, i have to apoligise for all the doom and gloom , i bet i have got a couple of violins playing out there now !, cheers again

[tony 0]

i have got the car in a lock up now still needing the job done , i would be grateful if somebody can point me in the direction of a good garage who will be willing to carry out the work as i have had no luck in the north east as of yet, i am willing to take my car down or up the country ( not too far!) if need be to get the car sorted, if anybody can recommend anyone it would be appreciated, cheers

[tony 0]

managed to get an engine from a vw breakers in lancashire, getting sent to the garage that will be fitting it ,£522 inc vat and delivery and £210 inc vat for fitting, success i hope at last, they said that it has come out of a j reg g60 with only 42,000 miles on it, he said that if i wanted i could go and have a look at the car that it has come out of if i wanted to be certain that it is what he said, he has given me a 2 month guarantee with it , does this sound okay?

[VR6 0]

Sounds ok.

 

42k seems very low - I'd personally go and check out the donor car.