Meet Ronald Reagan my 244 D24!

[happycamper]

Hey everyone I am brand new to the site but been browsing it a few months now since i got my '84 244 D24 this spring...

My name is Ross I am located near Corvallis, OR and I see there are a few of you from not too far away! So I just got 'Ronald Reagan' (PO named him but it stuck!) this spring... the female PO lived on campus found the ad on CL for a non-running D24... anyways totally lucked out the thing had a couple leaking injector lines... found a mercedes diesel at pick apart and snagged couple lines off it and bent to fit and drove Ronald home!! for $600 (on payments too she was cool.... and cute!) Had about 178K on him then and sitting with 183k now..

Anyways don't need to draw this out too long sure you guys are gonna wanna see pics too... anyways long story short Ronald died in the middle of summer and I was workin 12 hour days so started driving my '70 westy project (only 20k on engine Been driving Felix now for a few months and finally the wetness is here and the farm work has slowed to a relaxed pace... giving me time to deal with Ronald finally!! My daily driver and project need to switch roles again soon... (felix needs new canvas for his pop top)

Currently cleaning garage space so I can start working on him this week and I am sure I will be asking a lot of questions once I dive in. This is my first diesel car but I am a farmer and have worked around diesel engines over the last few years but am by no means an expert! So what happened you're wondering...

Well after driving for a month or so was having starting issues... bypassed temp control so i had manual toggle to activate glow plug relay... didn't help. Replaced all glow plugs and this helped a little...

but then it got impossible to start (cold start thermostat maybe?) so i started using Ether... every day... needless to say he stopped starting with ether after a month or so of that... I have since been reading more about these engines and learning a lot... like to never use ether on these engines!! Also learned of the necessary frequent valve adjustments (which I never did and doubt female PO student did either) must be a VW thing LOL!

Before the starting issues there was considerable blow-by and he burned a quart of oil every 500 miles or less. Always smoked when started and I would let run in driveway till it cleared and drive all day without smoke. Always ran smooth! (But slow

So I will keep posting as I make progress... first thing is valve adjustment hopin to get really lucky here!!!! I am open to any and all suggestions before I dive in but please don't bash me too hard I know I abused this thing I am a noob! And I may be willing to sell if I hit a road block so your kindness may come back around if your in the market for a D24 but I really want to get this thing back on the road at any expense short of a trip to the machine shop!! The car is in great shape otherwise...