///// 1981 VW Rabbit Pick up - What to look out for / value? /////

[Andyinchville1]

Hi All,

Been doing deliveries that are sometimes bigger than will fit in my wagon and recently ran across a local 1981 VW Rabbit Pick up .... Definitely an oldie but maybe a goodie and hopefully can haul stuff so I don't have to resort to the thirsty E350 or F250 ....

The pick up looks good in the pics BUT the owner says the driver side strut tower is rusted and the driver door rocker panels are rusted ...

Other than that supposedly the engine was rebuilt by his dad before he passed.

Is there anything I should look at in particular one these vehicles ? Its a 5 speed and I think a 1.6 non turbo engine.

Being that the vehicle was a VA vehicle I wonder what plugged up or caused a strut tower to rust out along with the rocker panel on that side ....

What is something like this worth / cost typically ( I did a little searching but not too many results)

 

[JELLOWSUBMARINE]

The shock towers are one of the main rust areas. Over here on the west coast its even getting hard to find a good no/low rust. Past ownership and especially maintenance is EVERYTHING. Timing Belts are rated to mile out at about 1/2 the life of a TDI. The indirect injection (IDI) engine is a hammer and anvil tough brute next to a tender common rail (cr), a lot less power but relatively easy to work on.

For what it sounds like you want, the same money could get you a more reliable 22re Toyota 1st gen p/u

 

[oilhammer]

You don't want that. For a fun hobby car, sure. But for actual working? No. Go find a cheap Ranger or something.

 

[hskrdu]

I routinely watch values for Rabbit pickups / Caddys and it's largely driven by body condition and rust. Nice examples are now very expensive ($7,000 needing interior/paint/electrical, $25,000 for low-mileage / show-cars. Most are between $3k and $9k and still need work. Almost all trucks with "reasonable" prices are rusted or need serious work. Once a month I'll see one with decent body for a "reasonable" price, but as OH said, these are 90% enthusiast cars for non-highway travel. Many are still being used on farms or only driven locally. Unless you want the project itself, you'd be better off with something else- a MkIV Smythe Ute TDI that someone didn't finish is a VW-centric alternative. There was one on FBM south of you in NC (finished but not painted) for $9k, which was a good price given the labor hours. Plus you'd get a 2003 with an ALH and truck bed. Still pretty pricey though.

 

[turbobrick240]

The shock towers are one of the main rust areas. Over here on the west coast its even getting hard to find a good no/low rust. Past ownership and especially maintenance is EVERYTHING. Timing Belts are rated to mile out at about 1/2 the life of a TDI. The indirect injection (IDI) engine is a hammer and anvil tough brute next to a tender common rail (cr), a lot less power but relatively easy to work on.

For what it sounds like you want, the same money could get you a more reliable 22re Toyota 1st gen p/u

Those 1.6 IDI diesels aren't particularly tough at all. The 2L commonrails with the exception of the CKRA are far more robust. Especially if you fit a CP3.

 

[oilhammer]

My 437k mile '91 Jetta would beg to differ. It was plenty tough, and it did so with only 52hp and gearing that had it spinning faster at 80 in 5th than any TDI does in 4th. And it never once had an MIL come on!

I serviced plenty of the old VAG diesels, they were not powerful, but they held up just fine. They probably didn't have the margin of forgiveness that the computer-controlled stuff does, though. But they were super simple and reliable. I always told people that they'd never win any race, but they'd finish all of them.

 

[JELLOWSUBMARINE]

+1 for oh
The options like going veg oil or heaven forbid WMO (pretend you didn't hear that to the sensitive types) . Nice to have the option over a sophisticated cr, although not always recommended. No DPF or urine to deal with is nice feature too.

 

[turbobrick240]

My 437k mile '91 Jetta would beg to differ. It was plenty tough, and it did so with only 52hp and gearing that had it spinning faster at 80 in 5th than any TDI does in 4th. And it never once had an MIL come on!

I serviced plenty of the old VAG diesels, they were not powerful, but they held up just fine. They probably didn't have the margin of forgiveness that the computer-controlled stuff does, though. But they were super simple and reliable. I always told people that they'd never win any race, but they'd finish all of them.

50 HP is pretty anemic, and the torque wasn't impressive either. They didn't need to be very tough with that low of an output. Derate a 2L commonrail to 70 HP and it will run forever.

 

[oilhammer]

I think you mean de-lete a commonrail and it will run forever. Heck, you can even crank them up an extra 30hp while you're at it!

 

[turbobrick240]

That too. But just compare the conrods between the two generations of VW diesels. Night and day.

 

[oilhammer]

I think it's more like night, and ... later on that same night. Not really sure what you are talking about there.

I mean, the AHU is quite literally the same engine family as the old IDI diesels. They even share a few parts. The ALH is an evolution of that design, certainly better in every way... but the connecting rod design is essentially the same. The cracked rods came along with the PDs, which the CRs (and all the gassers after the AEG) use as well.

The big change the CR engines brought is the DOHC multivalve setup (which technically there were PDs like that, too, we just never got them here). Any CR shortcomings, as far as I am concerned, revolve around the fragility of the emissions systems, and in some cases the prolific use of more and more plastic engine parts. Which isn't a diesel thing, or even a VAG thing. Frank says the CR heads are "dainty", which may be, but they don't look any "daintier" than most any other modern twin cam engines to me.

One thing in particular on the EA288 engines that would give me cause for concern, although I have not yet seen any issues with them, are the use of roller bearings on the balance shafts and the oil runner belt for the oil pump. Roller bearings were a normal and expected thing to need to be replaced on some older Porsche engines and some motorcycle engines. But in both cases, these engines were designed and built for performance, with a heavy nod towards actual racing. Longevity was not a concern. And the Ford engines have shown us that the oil runner belts may be OK with the chemistry of the crankcase oil environment, but not the thermal loads. Which seems to have a tendency to literally "cook" the belts to the point they start to disintegrate and ultimately plug up the oil pump pickup and starve the engine for oil. This is why you're not likely to ever see one of the few 1.0L 3 cyl Ecoboost engines actually make it to the 150k mile service interval for the belt. They usually blow up before then (and even if one did, nobody is going to lay out the cash to have the 10+ hour job done on a clapped out 150k mile Fiesta).

But maybe VAG is better. I've had 1/4 million mile CVCAs through here already, and they seemed perfectly fine, aside from the leaky front sealing flange... which is of course made from, you guessed it, plastic.

 

[turbobrick240]

A CJAA conrod is substantially beefier/stronger than an ALH conrod. And an ALH conrod is substantially stronger than a 1.6 IDI conrod. Put them both in a hydraulic press and test to destruction/deformation . You'd be surprised by the difference in strength.

 

[Andyinchville1]

Thanks for the reply guys I'm going to have to read them a little more thoroughly

I was just doing an update to this post I did go out to see the truck and it had a pretty good amount of rust around the driver side shock Tower ....

Additionally when looking underneath it the rocker panel sheet metal was more or less gone on the driver's side door and looking a little further in the floor pan looks like it was kind of eaten up also ....

On a normal pickup truck with a body on frame I wouldn't be so worried about things but I'm thinking some of the ribbing under there must be structural in nature not just the simple flat sheet of floor pan to put in like on a normal truck or what I call a normal body on frame truck.

The truck has 167,000 mi so I guess in a scheme of things that's not a lot of miles....

The driver side a arm looks like it probably needed to be replaced also because of rust..

Due to how low the vehicle sits on the ground it was very hard to see all the rust but from what I can see it looked like a fair amount of rust under the driver's seat area not so much on the passenger side but it still had a fair amount...

The owner was telling me that floor pans are available and I know on the older bugs floor pan seem to be seemingly regularly swapped out for whatever reason I guess they get eaten up pretty badly

If it weren't for the rust I probably would have jumped on it more easily.... But now I have to do a little thinking.

There was a fiberglass cap on the truck which the owner said was worth a lot of money because supposedly a lot of people are looking for it ... To be honest I could take the cap or not take the cap I was more concerned really with the basic truck.

I noticed that the truck had not been used or at least inspected since 2010 so that's been a number of years that it's been off the road

I wanted to see if the engine would crank up but it was missing a battery and the owner was saying something to the effect that he didn't really want to crank it because he didn't want to suck all the bad fuel or potentially old bad fuel into the engine which I guess kind of made sense but I told him that diesel usually doesn't go bad per se unless it gets water or algae or something like that in it ...
I'm tempted to call him again before going up there tomorrow and suggesting that maybe we could or I could disconnect the fuel hose and run it into a small container of fresh diesel fuel and stick a battery in and at least hear the engine run because I haven't even heard that much yet...

He claims his dad had it running last year but my thought was it was running last year why can't we crank it this year but at some point supposedly the engine had been rebuilt although I can't say I could tell that it was rebuilt because the engine still seemed fairly dirty and covered with oil and grease here and there not a massive amount just I guess natural dirt...

Anyways thanks for the input so far I'll read them again a little more thoroughly and I'll try to do some research online seeing how much these little weld-in parts might cost although not being a welder I would have to ask my friend to do some of that..

Thanks

 

[turbobrick240]

I would just assume that it doesn't run if he's resistant to attempting starting it. Did you pull the dipstick and look at the oil condition? If it's milky goop, that's generally not good. My first truck was a Jeep Commanche- another small unibody pickup. But they sold a lot more, it had more truck attributes, and you'd probably have better luck finding a decent one. The Toyotas, Nissans, Mazdas, Rangers, S10s, Ram50s, etc. were all good little trucks too. Plus rear drive is more fun.

 

[Mozambiquer]

I've had two of those, one 1980 early westy with a 1.5d and the other a 1982 with the 1.6.
I drove the 82 everywhere, and daily drove it an hour one way to work daily for a couple years. I still have it, but the rust had gotten too bad..one of these days I plan to really dig in and get it fixed right with a front end swap.

 

[J_dude]

Thanks for the reply guys I'm going to have to read them a little more thoroughly

I was just doing an update to this post I did go out to see the truck and it had a pretty good amount of rust around the driver side shock Tower ....

Additionally when looking underneath it the rocker panel sheet metal was more or less gone on the driver's side door and looking a little further in the floor pan looks like it was kind of eaten up also ....

On a normal pickup truck with a body on frame I wouldn't be so worried about things but I'm thinking some of the ribbing under there must be structural in nature not just the simple flat sheet of floor pan to put in like on a normal truck or what I call a normal body on frame truck.

The truck has 167,000 mi so I guess in a scheme of things that's not a lot of miles....

The driver side a arm looks like it probably needed to be replaced also because of rust..

Due to how low the vehicle sits on the ground it was very hard to see all the rust but from what I can see it looked like a fair amount of rust under the driver's seat area not so much on the passenger side but it still had a fair amount...

The owner was telling me that floor pans are available and I know on the older bugs floor pan seem to be seemingly regularly swapped out for whatever reason I guess they get eaten up pretty badly

If it weren't for the rust I probably would have jumped on it more easily.... But now I have to do a little thinking.

There was a fiberglass cap on the truck which the owner said was worth a lot of money because supposedly a lot of people are looking for it ... To be honest I could take the cap or not take the cap I was more concerned really with the basic truck.

I noticed that the truck had not been used or at least inspected since 2010 so that's been a number of years that it's been off the road

I wanted to see if the engine would crank up but it was missing a battery and the owner was saying something to the effect that he didn't really want to crank it because he didn't want to suck all the bad fuel or potentially old bad fuel into the engine which I guess kind of made sense but I told him that diesel usually doesn't go bad per se unless it gets water or algae or something like that in it ...
I'm tempted to call him again before going up there tomorrow and suggesting that maybe we could or I could disconnect the fuel hose and run it into a small container of fresh diesel fuel and stick a battery in and at least hear the engine run because I haven't even heard that much yet...

He claims his dad had it running last year but my thought was it was running last year why can't we crank it this year but at some point supposedly the engine had been rebuilt although I can't say I could tell that it was rebuilt because the engine still seemed fairly dirty and covered with oil and grease here and there not a massive amount just I guess natural dirt...

Anyways thanks for the input so far I'll read them again a little more thoroughly and I'll try to do some research online seeing how much these little weld-in parts might cost although not being a welder I would have to ask my friend to do some of that..

Thanks

My opinion:
If you need a truck, go get a truck.
If you want a very cool rare project that needs a lot of work and you don't intend to abuse it, get the VW.

 

[P2B]

If the strut towers are gone it's a basket case IMHO

 

[J_dude]

If the strut towers are gone it's a basket case IMHO

Not if you snag a perfect Cabriolet* to bastardize like this guy:

Not gonna lie I kinda don't like the way he cut that clean car up but I guess it's for a good cause. Had to watch the video on 2x speed though, he talks too slow

*which I have...

 

[P2B]

If you snag a perfect MK1 you should build it, not cut it

 

[J_dude]

If you snag a perfect MK1 you should build it, not cut it

Well, I mostly agree, but if you can save a pickup?
Anyway, probably simpler to do the whole front clip like this guy:

 

[Mozambiquer]

Well, I mostly agree, but if you can save a pickup?
Anyway, probably simpler to do the whole front clip like this guy:

Thats what my plan is for my rabbit truck I have right now.

 

[oilhammer]

A CJAA conrod is substantially beefier/stronger than an ALH conrod. And an ALH conrod is substantially stronger than a 1.6 IDI conrod. Put them both in a hydraulic press and test to destruction/deformation . You'd be surprised by the difference in strength.

Tell us you don't know much about these engines, and have no experience with them, without actually telling us...



(hint: some of us actually HAVE worked on these, and DO have LOTS of experience with them...)

Like the Tesla dealers that don't exist, here's a line up of VAG diesel rods. Different? Yes. Substantially night and day? Nope.

Left is a rod from an ME 1.6L, middle is the ALH, right is a CJAA. The only substantial difference is the CJAA (like all the PDs, as well as the AZG, AVH, AWM, AWP, and pretty much any VAG gas engine 2001+) is the "cracked" type. Which is more a manufacturing technique but also helps with rigidity. It is also beveled at the top because of how they changed the piston (meaning, it actually has far LESS metal at the small end). Crank end sizes are all identical. It has a slightly larger crank journal, which again means it has LESS metal on that end, too. Because VAG's adherence to the 88mm bore spacing that ALL these engines share means they physically cannot make it any bigger or it'll start smacking into things.

 

[turbobrick240]

It's pretty obvious just by looking at those that the 1.6 rod is much weaker. You don't need a college degree in material science to determine that. Thanks for making the effort.

 

[oilhammer]

It isn't obvious.... you must be looking through a very different pair of glasses. And "rods falling off" wasn't a thing on any VAG diesel, ever.

No effort required, I work on cars every day, have parts mostly easily accessed... although it did take me a minute to find that ME rod.

If you want to see some wimpy looking rods, look at some gasoline engines, especially Hondas.

You need any more Tesla dealer pics? I'll be down by the new one this weekend.

 

[turbobrick240]

That would be great! I guess EVs are really taking off around there. I was in S. Florida last week and they were everywhere.

 

[Andyinchville1]

+1 for oh
The options like going veg oil or heaven forbid WMO (pretend you didn't hear that to the sensitive types) . Nice to have the option over a sophisticated cr, although not always recommended. No DPF or urine to deal with is nice feature too.

HA ... WMO is the way to go ... I've had a centrifuge since diesel hit $3.00 and STILL have NOT run my first gallon ..... I am planning on cleaning out the shed this weekend to try to start setting it up ..... Diesel here is $4.19 .... I'll start with the truck fist since it is twin tank (start on diesel / end on diesel) and the Jetta gets 50+ MPG so probably not alot of quick savings BUT The trucks are thirsty!

 

[turbobrick240]

That's where the IDIs shine. They may not be quick, but they are simple and quite tolerant of fairly trashy fuel. I used to routinely dump the used sump oil from my 2.4L idi VW/Volvo into the tank.

 

[Metal Man]

I saw the thread title and thought the first reply had better be strut towers. I had one in the early 90's and that was a problem then.

 

[JELLOWSUBMARINE]

I saw the thread title and thought the first reply had better be strut towers. I had one in the early 90's and that was a problem then.

The cowl is up there high on the list. If leaking thru they create issues with the fuse box and underdash wiring.

 

[turbobrick240]

I saw a surprisingly solid one in the back lot of Austin VeeDubs about 7-8 years ago. The paint was half gone and faded, and the interior cooked, but the metal was all there.