I killed my 2.8TDI

[White Elephant]

Well, it finally happened, on the way home from work yesterday I cooked the motor in my GQ. So my xmas break is going to be spent rebuilding the top end.(hopefully just the top end-I haven't inspected the damage yet)

The reason for my post is that I am interested in everyone's opinion on head gasket kits. I'm leaning towards monotorque but thought I would see what everyone thought. Also do you think it would be worth doing rings etc while she is in pieces? I'm going to basically have about a week to pull everything down, get the head off to a head specialist and then put it back together. Your thoughts and comments will be appreciated!

Thanks!

[White Elephant]

So the old girl is all stripped down, had a fun weekend swinging on spanners, but the hard part is done. Just got to get the head off to the specialist for the rebuild, so there will be a few other bits and pieces to do while that's being done. I'll get as many pics as I can while I'm doing the overhaul and will post them up when I can.

[AB]

Thanks for letting us know mate, shame you haven't got any other info from this thread too.

Hopefully you get some feedback on this.

[rkinsey]

I dont know what your budget is but I found a bloke in Melbourne that will do a straight swap for the 2.8 Head. Lifters, valves, CAM the works really. Apparently it includes a new head bolt kit to. All up is $2,000.00

Cheers,

Rob

[rottodiver]

White elephant.... i really have nothing to add to the rebuild but just wishing ya luck and hope it all goes well!!!

Scotty

[Silver]

mechanic mate of mine swore by Monotorque gasket kits - but that was 20 years ago and I have no recent experience.

New head bolts seem to be accepted as necessary. Be tempting to do the rings while you are at it. In days of old, ie P40 and L28 petrol engines, the lore was that the bores would be good for a few sets of rings - dunno about the newfangled TB42s, let alone the leading edge technology you are playing with!

Congrats on getting into it yourself, and all the best with it

Rick

[White Elephant]

I dont know what your budget is but I found a bloke in Melbourne that will do a straight swap for the 2.8 Head. Lifters, valves, CAM the works really. Apparently it includes a new head bolt kit to. All up is $2,000.00
Cheers,

Rob

Thanks rkinsey, that's around about what I'm paying. Figured I may aswell give the old girl a good once over while the donk is in pieces. I've pulled all the injectors out, they're off for an ultrasonic bath, the turbo is going in for an overhaul, I'm gonna pretty up the manifolds, replace hoses, chuck a new waterpump on her, replace the crank seals and anything else that I can think of while I'm in there. It's bit of a spend at Christmas, but she's my daily driver, and I have a few days off over the break, so I may aswell do it now so I can get her back on the road while I have the time!

[White Elephant]

mechanic mate of mine swore by Monotorque gasket kits - but that was 20 years ago and I have no recent experience.

New head bolts seem to be accepted as necessary. Be tempting to do the rings while you are at it. In days of old, ie P40 and L28 petrol engines, the lore was that the bores would be good for a few sets of rings - dunno about the newfangled TB42s, let alone the leading edge technology you are playing with!

Congrats on getting into it yourself, and all the best with it

Rick

Cheers mate, I've always used monotorque when rebuilding other motors, this is the first diesel I've owned so just thought I'd see what everyone thought. I'm going to go with the monotorque, incidentally, Nissan Genuine turned out to be cheaper, but I can't get one in Australia at the moment.

I do enjoy getting into it myself, but finding the time is the killer these days! Nothing worse than having to cram your repairs into a weekend when you can't get parts etc. I've done a few rebuilds in the past, grew up in my Dad's workshop pretty much so I learned a thing or two!

[BennyRenny]

hey,

i just rebuilt my RD28t and had it boared out i got a new head with all my old running gear for $1300 with head gasket inc.

my rebuild kit was $2000 with oversized pistons and rings, and get my crank reground $400 and bored out $200.

if you do a ring around im sure each place will match the others price so try to barter.

hope that was useful


Ben

[White Elephant]

hey,

i just rebuilt my RD28t and had it boared out i got a new head with all my old running gear for $1300 with head gasket inc.

my rebuild kit was $2000 with oversized pistons and rings, and get my crank reground $400 and bored out $200.

if you do a ring around im sure each place will match the others price so try to barter.

hope that was useful


Ben
Cheers Benny, that was super useful, I'm already about $3k in,(including Turbo rebuild and injector service) and now I have to rebuild the bottom end, cylinders 4 + 5 are scored up pretty good. If you could pass on the info of who did the bottom end work I would appreciate it. Incidentally, did you have it all out of the car and take the block etc in or did someone pull it out of the car for you?

Oh and it cost me $2k for a new head casting with all my old gear and a monotorque head gasket.

[White Elephant]

Just wanted to add a bit of what I thought was interesting info for the RD28T drivers out there. As a benchmark figure, and just for a laugh I decided to get a price for a brand spanking bare motor from Nissan. They had one in a crate in Melbourne for the lovely price of...wait for it...$9660 inc GST. I also rang a few places to see what it would set me back for someone else to rebuild it for me and came in at about $8150.

Just thought I'd share so that anyone out there who has a RD28T can have an idea of what you would be looking at if you are unable to do it yourself.

[White Elephant]

It's Alive! Finished the rebuild on Thursday night and she fired up first kick after bleeding the injectors. Took her for a nice 50km test drive and all is well...phew! Ended up costing me about $4300 all up, but I saved myself a swag load of coin by doing it myself. I didn't end up getting too many pics because I was on a mission getting the job done, but I will post up the few that I did get when I can!

So I did, bearings and rings,(deglazed the bore as opposed to rebore) new head, new water pump, new tacho sensor, turbo overhaul, injector service, timing belt, replaced a few hoses and cleaned everything up, exhaust manifold and turbo dump pipe painted in aluminium finish flame proof paint. So it's all preety now as well. I will get a some photos of my rig as well as the overhauled engine complete to show you all!

[growler2058]

Bloody oath mate good job glad it worked out well

[White Elephant]

Bloody oath mate good job glad it worked out well

Cheers Growlers, it was a bit of a mission, I don't think I've ever taken so much bark off my hands and elbows, but the sense of self satisfaction when she fired up was all worth it!:thumbup:

[growler2058]

I bet it was I was stoked when i fit my Lokka hahaahaha

[White Elephant]

I just thought I'd pop an update in this one. My apologies for not getting any of the photos up as yet, I'm back to the grind now and time is short...anyhoo...the motor is running sweet after the rebuild, I've managed just over 500kms and she's settling in nicely. I will drop the oil and filter this weekend and put some good oil in her. Only one issue since getting the ol girl back on the road and I should have thought of it when doing the rebuild.(hindsight is a beautiful thing!)

For anyone who has a radiator with plastic tanks, if you cook your motor, get a new radiator as well! The plastic goes very brittle and gives way, I found out the hard way! I was just Lucky that I wasn't too far from home when the stub for the top radiator hose busted clean off and spilled my coolant all over the road! I managed to get her home without cooking the motor again (phew) and got a new Copper/Brass radiator from Natrad the next day. $440 for a 2 row, was thinking about putting an alloy one in, but I've heard conflicting reports so I went with what I knew.

Anyway, I just thought I'd pop that bit of info on here just in case anyone has a similar problem and forgets to pressure test the radiator or what not.

[White Elephant]

Ok, so I'm finally getting around to putting up some photos from when I rebuilt the motor.

This is the block just after I pulled the head off...nasty. I managed to get the scoring out by simply honing the bore with a medium grade cylinder hone, I used Kero to lubricate rather than cutting oil. I did however have to cut the ridges out of the top of the cylinders with a ridge removal tool before I could get the pistons out because I didn't want to damage the pistons-saved a lot of dollars because the pistons were all fine once cleaned up.

[White Elephant]

I do apologise for the lack of photos, I was just on a mission getting it done, didn't want to grease up the Mrs camera either...:jawdrop:

This is a little bit better view of some of the scoring...I think. They weren't even a thou deep so after I deglazed the other cylinders and honed the scores out of 4 & 5 I just put standard bearings and rings back in. (There are multiple grades depending on how much you take out of the bore, for those who don't know)Seeing as though it wasn't a rebore, standard works fine.

[White Elephant]

And this is the new head (casting) with all my old valves, springs, lifters etc installed. I had a head specialist do this for me just to make sure everything was done properly and all tolerances etc were correct. It cost me $2k flat, which included a multi layer metal Monotorque gasket(around $300 on it's own) The head specialist seemed to think that the old gasket wasn't the correct one for a Turbo motor either, so if you do a rebuild make sure you get the right gasket and pay attention to the number of holes(edge of gasket firewall end)because that indicates the grade of gasket that you will need to put it back together(unless you are intstalling your old head casting shaved, and/or block machined) otherwise you need to check tolerances and may need a heavier gasket.

[Bigrig]

Don't worry about photos mate, some video of the pride and joy breathing to life will suffice!! lol

Bloody good job mate - not something everyone can do (me included), so you should be proud of your efforts!!

[White Elephant]

And these are the last of the pics I actually took. This is the head installed, after rebuilding the bottom end.(which you can do without taking the motor out depending on the damage, if you have any questions drop me a pm) It is always a good rule of thumb, that if the head comes off, replace the head bolts aswell, they do stretch(if that's the best term) over time and if you put the old ones back in the head may not torque down correctly. Make sure you either run the old bolts through the bolt holes to clean the threads in the block, or use kero and an appropriate tap(as I did) then blast the holes with compressed air before you put the head back on. This will ensure that the threads are clean and the head will torque down correctly. I will post some pics of the reassembled motor when I get a chance to take some, and I promise I will put some pics of the old bus up as well...eventually!

[White Elephant]

Don't worry about photos mate, some video of the pride and joy breathing to life will suffice!! lol

Bloody good job mate - not something everyone can do (me included), so you should be proud of your efforts!!

Cheers Bigrig, was a bit of a grind, I'm lucky enough to have spent a lot of time in my Dad's workshop as a young Fella, he was a Mechanic, Spray painter, and panel beater(after he got out of the service) so I managed to learn a few things over the years. THANKS DAD! hehe. He's retired now, but the knowledge I got from him is invaluable, needless to say I had him on the phone a few times while rebuilding the donk!