Two questions...

Photo from another website -- added a circle on the tailpipe (click for larger image since I can only attach thumbnails):




Sparkplug info per the owner's manual:

Denso FK16R-A8
Manual says to "Use only iridium-tipped spark plugs."

 

One of those little exhaust pipes, like a Ford Model T.

After the automobile going to those huge big block engines for decades, it it finally returning back to its roots.

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I thought I heard on What Drives Us that the fuel tank is under the rear seat or somewhere there about, or I could be confused with one or both of the batteries?


Posted from my iPhone via the Tapatalk app.

 

I'm 99.9% confident I read that the battery is under the rear seats. I'll look it up again when I get a chance (this post is from my iPhone). Also, I can't imagine the NHTSA allowing a gas tank under a seat.

How is the tap talk app? I've just been using Safari.

 

Rybold,

You can't imagine a gas tank being under the rear seat? Read on. I used to have a 1978 Volkswagen Rabbit (admittedly a diesel---but I can't imagine the fuel tank layout being any different between the gas job & the diesel).

For some reason that I can't remember any longer, I had to get into the fuel tank for something & I had to lift up the bottom rear seat cushion to expose the top of the tank. I had to turn a metal locking ring that held down the cap assembly with its attached fuel pickup & return tubes & the fuel guage sending unit.

There was a very heavy-duty rubber/neoprene sealing ring & I believe the fuel lines were double hose-clamped to assure no leakage. Again this was a DIESEL Rabbit & NOT gas powered, but I don't really think they would place the fuel tank any differently for one fuel over the other.

Now that I'm writing this (again so long after the fact), I'm trying to remember if I had to remove a cover plate from the floor pan first to gain access to the sending unit/pickup& return tubes (to remove it to get directly into the fuel tank).

Can anybody who might have done this on a Volkswagen Rabbit, confirm if there was a floor pan cover plate to remove first to get to the tank below, or if the tank top was inside the passenger compartment directly under the bottom rear seat cushion? It was about 20 years ago that I did this & at age 62 my memory of this one-time event is a little foggy. Thanks.

Ken (in Bolton,Ct)

 

^ Ahh, Volkswagen Rabbit That was my dream car when I was a kid in the 80's. I wanted one sooo badly LOL!

 

My first band new car was a 1977 VW 2 Dr base model Rabbit
Diesel, 4-speed Transmission. Paid I believe about $4,500.00
total with Connecticut sales tax.

Gas mileage was a true 50 plus mpg on # 2 diesel fuel which was a lot cheaper than regular gas by a good 10-20% sometimes even more.

Than the 2nd Fuel Shortage appeared. Gas lines were several blocks long with huge land yachts waiting in line for hours for a few
gallons of gas.

Not me and my Rabbit. No lines for # 2 Diesel fuel and it was a lot cheaper than gas and could get all I wanted. I could have also sold that little rabbit during that time for a good $2,000 more than I paid for it but I didn't, and kept it for another 10 years with over
220,000 miles on it.

 

It was my dream car too. In fact I bought a brand new 75 Rabbit, the dream turned into a nightmare. I never bought another Volkswagon, and in my circle of friends I'm the resident car nut. I managed to unsell a lot of VW's. I guess I got my revenge.

 

alfon & Gurple42,

Well, I too was very happy with my brand new fuel sipping '78 Rabbit diesel "C" model at first. Yes, it averaged about 45 to 50 MPG for my driving use (even got 58 MPG on trips) & diesel fuel USED TO BE way cheaper than regular gas (now it's MORE EXPENSIVE than premium gas). However that happiness soon turned into extreme disappointment.

Early on the glow plug relay failed (unbeknownst to me), & a mechanic's suggestion to shoot some ether into it (to get it started for the trip to the dealer for troubleshooting) wiped out the complete valve train. The factory service rep happened to be there when my car came in & asked me why I went against VW's warning never to use ether to start the diesel. He said it was right in the owner's manual, so I brought ALL the car's manuals in (including a shop manual I had purchased at that dealer) & he couldn't find any such warning & said it might have been in a later edition or in a service bulletin. I asked why VW hadn't seen fit to send out recall-type notices & warning stickers for the manual, air cleaner, & elsewhere under the hood & he just said it would be too expensive (what about my expensive engine repair for the price of a couple of 10 cent warning stickers?). He then said "from now on stick STRICTLY to the owner's manual & just because it doesn't specifically say NOT to use something, doesn't mean that it is O.K. to use it". WHAT??

When I was looking over the repair bill when my car was ready to go, I noticed a charge of $4 for anti-freeze & I asked if they only needed one quart & recycled the rest of it that was in the block & the radiator (since the "REQUIRED-IN-THE-MANUAL" phosphate-free anti-freeze was $16/gal in the parts dept.). The service writer/manager said they drained all of my old coolant & gave me a full gallon of the regular stuff (full of phosphates which tended to eat away the water pump or the $400 radiator). I asked why he didn't use the anti-freeze specified in the owner's manual & he told me NOT to believe what's written in the owner's manual. WHAT???

Sure, he want's you to come in later to pay for a water pump job or radiator replacement. I know there was a big profit margin for a radiator replacement. Each fall around Labor Day the parts dept. would have a "tag sale" where all the parts were about 50% off (to get your car ready for winter & drum up some extra business). At one of the "tag sales" the guy in front of me had been waiting just for that reduced price to replace his radiator. He got it for $200 & I'm sure the dealer was still making a profit on it.

Next the alternator failed at a very early age also and had to be replaced.

Shortly after that the engine block cracked (near a head bolt). The dealer's diesel mechanic said he saw a notice while he was in VW's diesel training school that said there were a bunch of poorly cast blocks that were all cracking & if your engine/VIN number was on that list, you'd get a free engine replacement. The service writer/manager denied any knowledge of the list or any such information notice. On the sly (so as to not get that mechanic in trouble) I went back & spoke to the mechanic again & told him what the guy up front had said. Their mechanic said he saw the same notice come into the dealership & get posted into their binder of service bulletins, so I went back up front & suggested they check their binder with all the service bulletins. The guy refused to do so (kinda like if they opened it up, it really would be there & I would see it & start demanding the repair job be done for free), so I ended up paying myself to get the car running again.

I called VW headquarters right away & confronted them with what I had been told by the mechanic & the service writer/manager & they basically blew me off too. Just a few months after that engine replacement, the block in that 2nd one cracked too, again at a head bolt (both times allowing coolant into the crank case & engine oil into all the rubber hoses, thermostat, water pump, & heater core). So another expensive clean out of the cooling system & hose replacements & the 3rd engine. In just a few more months again, that 3rd one cracked & took the whole corner of the block off, just dangling by the head bolt.

At that point I learned that I wasn't the only one going through problems like this. It seems that VW chose not to add any more head bolts to beef up their diesel conversion. In boring out their 1.5 gas engine to 1.6 for the diesel (weakening it slightly), then upping the compression ratio from roughly 8 to 1 (gas) to 24 to 1 (diesel), all that added stress with no additional hold downs (head bolts), was allowing the head to flex upward (blowing head gaskets) or breaking the blocks at the head bolts (as in my 3 cases). By comparison, the Peugeot gas engine I think had 12 or 14 head bolts & their diesel had 23 head bolts while VW had only 10 head bolts for both the gas & diesel versions. I even also heard that some of the dealers were themselves breaking blocks when torquing down the head after a simple head gasket replacement. Think of it, you bring your diesel in for a leaking head gasket (not too expensive a repair) & you wind up paying for an entire engine replacement (MUCH more expensive a repair).

By this point in my diesel Rabbit's 45,000 measelly miles, I had spent more in repairs then I paid for the car new (which I think was about $4,600 out-the-door, so I parked it for a while. I made the decision to convert it to gasoline rather then keep pouring good money down a pit to keep it as the original diesel I had purchased new. So I bought a little bit older gasoline engined parts car (running good, but the owner was moving & didn't need a second car any more) instead of just a junk yard gas engine because I needed all the extras like the pollution control items & the different fuel system, coil, etc. [by the way, you could never find a junk yard diesel engine because they all had broken blocks---that's why the dealer's repairs were so expensive (new parts)].

Anyways, I parked the parts car next to a tree beside our driveway to wait for some warmer weather to do the conversion job myself outdoors, but before I could get started removing what I would need, we had a very windy rain storm & the tree came down. Being parked right next to the trunk, the wheels were driven into the ground & the car was crushed so its entire height was about one foot (floor pan to roof). Needless to say, that conversion plan was scrapped because i had just spent more good money for a car full of parts that I could no longer use. So then I decided to just let it sit & rust (in case anybody would come along & offer me some money---anything would be better than nothing at that point---to hopefully recover some of the expense of part & trim upgrades & some custom stuff I had installed while it was running).

No takers ever, so alas, that's how my first new car ever would live out its short life of 45,000 miles as a money pit & then a pile of rusting scrap metal. We didn't have the internet back then in 1978 to research what previous buyers were experiencing in the way of problems (the VW Rabbit diesel came out in 1977, so I had waited a year for them to work the bugs out of THEIR new technology, but I guess I didn't wait long enough. After that, it was a long period of used cars that I could look up the repair history of in Consumer Reports before buying. But when I saw the first reports of the Prius hybrid, I was bitten.

Fortunately, before buying my 2nd new car ever, the internet was here & I was so scared of making another poor choice involving new technology that I did over a year's worth of research before taking the Prius plunge & ordering one. At that point (2005) the average wait to receive your car was 6 months (my local dealer had so many on his waiting list & such a small monthly allotment that his wait to receive a Prius was 27 months), so I began to doubt my decision. However I was able to find a much more cooperative dealer with a much larger monthly allotment in Massachusetts that was only charging MSRP (rather than a $3,000 to $5,000 markup like was common back then---and they weren't loading the Priuses up with lots of mandatory extras either). I did have to wait 6 months (with the 1st dealer), but after I left him & found the better one in Mass., he got me the exact car I wanted in only 6 WEEKS.

Sorry about rambling on for so long here, but I really was excited in the beginning about my new VW Rabbit diesel (like alfon was---I'm glad you had such good luck with yours), but my excitement quickly dimmed into a nightmare (just as with Gurple42) & I shared all my negative experiences with many co-workers & acquaintances & probably UN-sold a lot of VW's too. However, I don't think VW has tried to improve their image & quality very much since way back then, so they still will NEVER be a contender for my business ever again.

Ken (in Bolton,Ct)