This applies to Mk1 & Mk2 8V engines though it might apply to others as well. Having owned Roccos for many years I have amassed some useful tips along the way. This one has caused 2 folks I have met, to incorrectly scrap the car in one case & buy a re-con engine in another ! It also happened to me, but another enthusiast (at the breakers, where I was pricing a replacement engine) told me what to check, as follows.

Symptoms are all that you would expect of an engine with worn or damaged, pistons / rings / bores. Oil & oil vapour blowing out of the filler cap, dipstick hole etc. Air filter wet with oily mess. Air filter casing wet with oil. Oil smoke from the exhaust. General oil leaks.

Now I know some of you are thinking yeh yeh, blocked breather - well yes that can cause this but that is so easy to check I won't talk about it (much). This is similar but stranger until you understand it.

To check the breather, you can blow (with your mouth) down the cam cover breather pipe in either direction and no resistance is felt, indicating no blockage.

The 8V motor (most variants) have, inside the cam cover where the breather pipe connects, a "chamber" that has inside it a couple of steel plates with many holes drilled in it.

This, I understand, is an "oil vapour / droplet condenser" system.

What happens is this. Many of the small holes get blocked up with a horrible, fairly hard, oily, carbon like deposit, and though some air can pass down the breather, when this happens, oil droplets can also pass through without being "condensed" and returned to where they came from, and find their way into the air filter unit, and then into the motor.

The cure - Remove the cam cover. Don't bother trying to flush it clean, nothing I tried worked. Either buy a (NEW or you might inherit the same problem !!) cam cover. Or if money is tight, do this ( I did this after advice from my breakers yard friend and it worked a treat )

PLEASE PLEASE be CAREFUL - this involves petrol & fire !!! - do it in a safe place and observe all precautions.

You need about 2 pints of petrol and basically what you do is pour some (half a cup approx) into the above mentioned chamber, and set fire to it !!

You need to keep doing this for quite a few times - PLEASE TAKE CARE - after a good few "top ups" - PLEASE TAKE CARE - the horrible deposits will go a dry grey colour, and can be removed by tapping the chamber with a small hammer - you can tell if it's cooked enough because a grey powder will "rain" out as it is tapped. If it doesn't, then it needs more cooking.

I suppose careful use of an oxy acetylene torch might do the same thing and be safer, but I didn't have one. When it looks nice and dry clean, wash it all to get rid of ALL particles of anything, and re-fit it and with luck your knackered engine will be fine again (unless it DOES have knackered pistons & bores of course !!).

Note - The later cam covers have an oil anti-splash shield type affair, presumably to prevent all this trouble in the first place.

More practical Scirocco tech tips to come !!

Good luck - JB - N.W. - UK

Also - I have done this a number of times. Instead of using petrol I have used a gas blow torch (hand-held plumbers type). Simply set fire to the oil deposits inside, wait for the flames to go out and cool down as above. - Brunty