I was quite relieved this afternoon to find out that I probably
don't need a new engine for my '82 diesel just yet.  I got a
quick response from fellow list member Mark Drillock that helped
a lot.  He was gracious enough to allow me to come to his house
(a convenient 6 miles away) to look at my engine.  Thank You
Mark! :)

Now, the problem.

My 1.6 NA diesel was swapped in from a car by a PO.  The engine
does not return to idle speed from higher RPM unless slowed down
by braking.  The van will cruise at 30 MPH in 4th with foot off
the accelerator.  If I hit the brakes, the engine will slow down
to normal idle RPM.

Possible causes (so far):

  1) Sticky accelerator cable:  Cable appeared to have plenty of
slack when the engine was stuck running at the higher RPM.

  2) Badly worn piston rings:  The van has plenty of power (in
diesel terms).    I let Mark drive it, and he thought the same.
He also thought that there would be some occurrence of oil
blowing up into the oil filler tube if the rings were that bad.
There is none.  It gets 28-30 MPG in mixed driving.

  3) Injector pump needs repair:  My lack of experience with
diesels in general, especially VW is hurting me here.  The lever
that the accelerator cable attaches to was fully seated toward
idle under spring pressure while the engine was racing away at
Mark's.  Shutting the engine off (with the key) and restarting
brought it to normal idle.

  4) ????:  Some other thing I haven't thought of yet.

Also, I will replace the valve cover gasket tomorrow morning to
stop an oil leak.  I need to figure out how much of the 1.5
quarts of oil I lost in less than 200 miles is leaking out and
how much may be going somewhere else (like the coolant).  There
is a little oil in my coolant overflow tank, but not enough to
account for 1.5 quarts.

Please send along any suggestions about what to do next.

Mike Snow
'82 Westy diesel