Purchased a used TDI Engine

January of 2012 - I was doing my near-daily search on Craigslist for interesting stuff. I happened to see an ad for a VW TDI ALH engine from a wrecked car. I wasn't planning on starting this project any time soon as I had just purchased a business 3 months prior. Anyway, I scored the complete engine minus turbo plus the wiring harness and ECM for $900! It was only 1.5 hours away, so didn't take too long to pick up.

The engine was not ready to fire up, though. It had around 215k miles on it. Not sure why, but the engine had cylinder head problems. Appeared to have overheated a few times, but hard to say. Several of the lifters were cracked and damaged. One lifter had more or less disintegrated and severely damaged the lifter bore and camshaft. This engine would need a new cylinder head.