Dave
Is your engine venting OK?
Mine vents to a catch pot and I get a surprising amount of water and mayonnaise in it

As far as I know it vents ok -

No water or mayonnaise though - Actually seems really healthy 

Tried to find CSP relief valves, in stock at a decent price from CSP Germany but need to buy £200 worth to get them shipped to UK Thanks to my favourite MP for that.
All uk sites I could find with them are out of stock, many at over double the CSP price.
Most available ones are listed as "High. Performance" so probably made of butter with stronger springs.
Got some another way from Kingfishet.

Just for information:

My engine is a 1600 VW Heritage unit that I purchased in December 2012. When I changed the my relief valves several years ago I fitted the CSP items show below



The strange thing is when the engine had been built by VW Heritage the front valve was the earlier type show below



Anyway the CSP items have worked perfectly since fitting so no problems.

I wonder why they fitted the earlier type control valve when it was built?

Probably what they had on the shelf Chris

Water/mayonaise........    This was to be found on most vehicles of yesteryear. It is a mixture of water vapour and oil mist. The most common place it was found was on the underside of the oil cap, metal ones especially so.
The most significant thing this mayonaise sludge indicated was that the engine was simply never run up to "full temperature" frequently enough and for sufficient length of time to boil water from the oil sump. The oil/water mist condensed onto the underside of the oil cap as well as within the rocker cover/s.

On a type one engine with a single carb, for example",  within the oil filer section, just before the breather pipe connection, was a wire mesh "mist separator". On other, water cooled engines this mesh was within a container. The mesh was to do as it says and "strip" most of the oil from the mist and drop it back into the engine the remainder going into the carb air passage and back to cylinders 1 & 2 to be burnt during the combustion strokes. If you have the mesh fitted, and you should, ensure you have, it can get clogged up and become useless if covered in the sludge.
There is an important moral to this story.... Run your engine up to full temperature -  preferably on the road rather than just in the garage over winter.
Why you may ask..... Well you do not want any more water in your oil than possible,

Mine gets plenty hot enough.

Has the grooved pulley so pumps air in which then extracts to a catchpole to condense, that's where the water and some mayo collects.

Engine itself is clean of mayo, none on oil filler or in rocker covers.

The exposed engine in a buggy means breather hoses and alike suffer from wind chill so rarely get hot enough in cool weather an oil temp sender in the sump plug hole will only register a temp when stationary because of the air flow.

My take on this is that VW designed it to pump air in to slightly pressurise the case which then vents to atmosphere via the filler neck breather.
By definition it's a occasionally damp in th UK so trace moisture will go in, a bit more if you drive through floods or ford's, as if 

I fitted breathers to the rocker covers, as well as a sump extension, as on tight fast roundabouts I had oil pressure drop. My fault as I might have been going a little faster and tighter than in the Beetle design spec.  On top of that once it had happened it could take a long while to drain back, venting solved the latter problem by breaking the vacuum,  sump extension the former. It was either that or buy a flat cap, trilby and a pipe and be sensible. 

My breathers pipes from rockers and oil filler go to a condensation box on the firewall, this drains to a catchpot with a level indicator,  drain plug and a filter on top to atmosphere.
Every few hundred mikes I get half a cup of oily water and a spoon of mayo drain out.
So I think it proves its working well as there will always be trace moisture in the case when you switch off which will condense on the oily metal and make a little mayo. I get none in the oil filler and a tiny bit in the top corner of the rocker covers, can barely see it.
Over engineered, yes  but that's just the way I like it.

Finally started on this and went to drain the oil, realised it's a bigger job than I thought as extended sump has to come off.

Quote from: Doon L001 on February 16, 2026, 10:54:55 AMFinally started on this and went to drain the oil, realised it's a bigger job than I thought as extended sump has to come off.

Strange? The regular sump plate and strainer should be fitted to the bottom of the extended sump so no harder or messier than usual.

As usual you're right David
The plugs are outside of where the extended sump sits, just hadn't looked properly. I'll blame it on poor light in the garage.

Next opportunity is Thursday when Lynn's at work and her car isn't in the garage, then I'll have room to jack it up and get at it.

May have found root cause, magnet is missing from the sump plug

With luck the magnet is resting in the sump oil still collecting shreds of metal. If you replace the magnet then the new one might 'catch' the detached one as if it slides about ?

I'll take the plate off and give it a sweep with a magnet on a stick.
Take the pump cover off and check in there.
If I can't find it have to try and poke through the first set of galleries.