Michael:

The post about head gasket failures is heat related. VW diesels are
incredibly tough little critters.

It all depends on how the engine is driven and how it is maintained. If
you are going to install a TD in your Vanagon, I would *highly*
recommend an exhaust gas temp gauge (pyrometer). You can cook a
turbo-diesel if you stay hard on the turbo (full boost) for extended
periods of time under load.

Treat it nice, and expect well over 60K miles of driving. I'm sure
Martin can add to this as well.

Michael Avrea wrote:
>
> Hi all and thanks for those who responded to my previous posts on this
> subject!
>         I was all but decided on going for the swap to the 1.9TD when I ran across
> this post on the VW water-cooled newsgroup. Has anyone else heard or
> experenced this problem with the TD?
--
TomC
tcarrington@relitech.com
http://www.relitech.com/tomc/tomvw.htm
85 Vanagon Crew Cab
82 Vanagon Westy diesel=>gas conversion
65 Notchback