Need some 617 thoughts

[DieselPaul]

This car is owned by a friend of a friend, they called me and asked if I wanted it. I, do not. But a good friend of mine and I are working on producing some homeade biodiesel. I bought a 1990 Jetta Diesel 1.6 to use as my bio car (don't want to risk my 300D on the junk) and my friend dailys a 7.3 Powerstroke F250. He needs a coupe hundred dollar commuter car he can run on bio, the 7.3 is also too nice to use as a guinea pig. What do you guys think of the problem? It sounds like the shop that diagnosed it didn't know much about diesels. Could it just be the ALDA reference line is gunked up and the valves are out of adjustment? I can buy the car for less that $800 is the only reason I am interested. What can I look for? I was planning on looking at it this weekend. He mentions it looses oil due a leak, but then says low compression. My thought was start it up and see if it blows blue smoke at idle, if it just blows blue smoke its compression or turbo which at the several hundred dollar buy price, aren't worth screwing with. But if it doesn't smoke, then look for the leaks. $50 in gaskets and a valve adjustment is definately worth fixing.

For those of you excited at $800, feel free to go buy it for $800, but I've been told it is much rustier than it looks.

http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/cto/1692513387.html

[rrgrassi]

Looks like a parts car to me.

[kerry]

The 'oil leak causing low compression' sounds like voodoo diagnostics to me. If it starts and runs, low compression shouldn't be limiting the top speed. It sounds like a fuel delivery problem of some kind. If it were me, and I had an interest in it, I'd run a compression test to see what is going on.

[DieselPaul]

I am going to try to take a look at it when I am down in Cincy this weekend.