The New 2 Do

The Mrs. has been extremely patient. I've been off chasing butterflies with this bus for some months now, and she has silently endured a failure to complete a few 'niggling projects.' But we're about to leave for California in 56 hours (yes, I'm counting in hours) and I think it would do me good to clean up a few of those  outstanding matters before we go, that way she can come home to a house with them completed.

In the mean time, I need to make a long list of things to do on the Bus engine to prepare it for rebuilding. The list is not for the faint of heart. As I said earlier, this is blueprinting: Where none of the dimensions are assumed to be as they should be, so all must be measured.

• Acquire snap gages from HF
• Acquire Micrometers from MM
• Remove and number all of the crank and cam dowel pins, securing them in their own carriers.
• Scrupulously clean the mating surfaces of the case especially at the front and rear.
• Take case halves and reassemble them, empty, back together.
• Torque the case bolts to spec using Brownline TQ wrench.
• Cover the bore holes at the flywheel end.
• Using a strong light at the flywheel end, look down the length of the bore to see whether any light can be seen in gaps between the main webbings or mating surfaces when the case is fully torqued. Visible light at a mating surface automatically rejects the case.
• Using snap gages and micrometers (and less accurate calipers when impossible to use mic) measure and document the bore of each of the mainbearing saddles three times, at 90*, 210*, 320* and then take the average. If any of the measurements are further out than 1/10 of an inch, align bore on the crankshaft bores is indicated.
• Using snap gages and micrometers (and less accurate calipers when impossible to use mic) measure and document the bore of each of the camshaft saddles three times, at 90*, 210*, 320* and then take the average. If any of the measurements are further out than 1/10 of an inch, align bore on the cam bores is indicated.
• Use snap gages to measure the rest of the bores
• Using micrometers, record the thrust of the camshaft and crankshaft bore webbing.
• Inspect for fretting of the metal around the bearing bores

Designed to Scare

This post is specifically designed to scare.

Not you. Me.

This is what is known as an engine 'blueprint' or build sheet. Rather than simply slinging together parts that 'should fit' from the manufacturer, we document what the measurements SHOULD BE on all of the parts, and then ACTUALLY measure every stinking part to make sure they they are how big they say they are on the box, and have the material properties the spec says they should have. Essentially, you trust nothing. It is very time consuming to be paranoid.

Many of the engines that you buy from resellers are assembled from new components that are assumed to be 'made correctly' from the manufacturer and unfortunately, the customer winds up being the Quality Assurance department. So I'm taking the extra time to blueprint. And it scares me because the measurements drive far into the 1/1000ths of an inch range and being out of tolerance by 1/50th of an inch can mean an engine that lasts 1 lifetime or 1 minute.

The following is the specification for the Type4 engine, as well as my measurements of (update: My new VWoC case.) Original GD case specs will be left below in case I ever get the ridiculous idea that I want to rebuild another engine.

Note that my measurements will be in inches because in this benighted country, metric has yet to catch on with the good old boys.

Designation New (mm (inches) Wear Limit MINE


Crankcase bores

+ Main Bearing Bores

- Bearing 1-3 dia. 70.00-70.02 (2.7559-2.7567) 70.03 (2.7808)

- Bearing 4 dia. 50.00-50.03 (1.9685-1.9696) 50.04 (1.962)

+ Flywl seal Bore dia. 95.00-95.05 (3.7401-3.7420)

+ Fan seal Bore dia. 62.00-62.05 (2.4409-2.4428)

+ Cam bores dia. 27.50-27.52 (1.0825-1.0833) 1.083

+ Oil pump Bore dia. 70.00-70.03 (2.7559-2.7570)

+ Lifter Bores dia. 24.00-24.02 (.9448-9456) 24.05 (.9467)

Crankshaft

3 undersize grinds of

.25mm (0.00984252 aka ".010 inches")

.50mm (0.019685 aka ".020 inches")

.75mm (0.0295276 aka ".030 inches")



+ Crankshaft

- Main Journals Diameter

1-3 59.97-59.99 (2.3609-2.3617) (2.35975)

4 39.98-40.00 (1.5739-1.5748) (1.573)

- Con-rod journals Dia. 49.97-49.98 (19677-1.9681) (1.967)


Out of Spec

- #2 & #4 main journals runout 0.02 (.0008)

+ Crankshaft unbalance max. 12cmg

+ Main bearing journal out-of-round 0.03

+ Con-rod journal out-of-round 0.03


+ Crankshaft main journals

(taking housing preload into account):


- Bearings 1 & 3 radial 0.05-0.10 (.002-.004) 0.18

- Bearing 2 radial 0.03-0.09 0.17

- Bearing 4 radial 0.05-0.10 0.19

+ Crank main end play 0.02-0.07 0.15

+ Con-rod journal / Con-rod radial play:     0.1-0.4          0.7


Designation New (mm (inches) Wear Limit MINE


Crankcase bores

+ Main Bearing Bores

- Bearing 1-3 dia. 70.00-70.02 (2.7559-2.7567) 70.03 (2.7570)

- Bearing 4 dia. 50.00-50.03 (1.9685-1.9696) 50.04 (1.9700)

+ Flywl seal Bore dia. 95.00-95.05 (3.7401-3.7420)

+ Fan seal Bore dia. 62.00-62.05 (2.4409-2.4428)

+ Cam bores dia. 27.50-27.52 (1.0825-1.0833)

+ Oil pump Bore dia. 70.00-70.03 (2.7559-2.7570)

+ Lifter Bores dia. 24.00-24.02 (.9448-9456) 24.05 (.9467)

Crankshaft

3 undersize grinds of

.25mm (0.00984252 aka ".010 inches")

.50mm (0.019685 aka ".020 inches")

.75mm (0.0295276 aka ".030 inches")



+ Crankshaft

- Main Journals Diameter

1-3 59.97-59.99 (2.3609-2.3617) (2.35975)

4 39.98-40.00 (1.5739-1.5748) (1.573)

- Con-rod journals Dia. 49.97-49.98 (19677-1.9681) (1.967)


Out of Spec

- #2 & #4 main journals runout 0.02 (.0008)

+ Crankshaft unbalance max. 12cmg

+ Main bearing journal out-of-round 0.03

+ Con-rod journal out-of-round 0.03


+ Crankshaft main journals

(taking housing preload into account):


- Bearings 1 & 3 radial 0.05-0.10 (.002-.004) 0.18

- Bearing 2 radial 0.03-0.09 0.17

- Bearing 4 radial 0.05-0.10 0.19

+ Crank main end play 0.02-0.07 0.15

+ Con-rod journal / Con-rod radial play:     0.1-0.4          0.7

When the lowest price wins

What will you pay for quality?

In the modern hyper-capitalist sense, there is an idea called 'the race to the bottom.' It means, what is the worst quality product that the buying public will tolerate that allows the manufacturer to spend the least amount of money making, while keeping the price artificially high enough so that a worse product made now is the same 'price' as a superior product made previously?

This is the terror of globalization, and no, this is not a political screed. The Chinese manufacturing sector is perfectly capable of producing very high quality products: you wouldn't call the iPhone "cheap and flimsy." Products manufactured in the US of A by ISO 9000 certified companies can be pot metal junk, as long as the process for how to make this low quality junk is well documented.

There are some parts, however, which cannot be substituted with 'less expensive materials.' That's because the less expensive materials fail to meet the specifications required to do the job. They might be the right shape, but that doesn't make their hardness, lubricity, or a dozen other attributes right for the job.

I first experienced this when I was selling audio components for Silo in 1991. That year, Sony had introduced the five disc 'Carousel' CD player which unloaded the whole tray and let you rotate a turntable carrying the disks so you could reload it for an enormous five hours of play time. These things were flying off the shelves, and then Sony got greedy: they replaced some of the moving components with plastic rather than nylon. The units looked the same, and played the same, and within about 50 open-close cycles, stripped that plastic gear that drove the rack which was molded into the tray. The tray won't come out, and now your brand new $200 player has et up $100 worth of CDs that are trapped inside it. All for the sake of $0.005 part that should have stayed a $0.01 part.

So what happens when an entire industry goes this route? Lowers the quality until what was once considered to be robust is a joke? Ask Craftsman. Anyone who works with tools will tell you that the steel, mechanisms, and specifications of a modern Craftsman tool are an embarrassment compared with the same tool made thirty years ago. While Sears will take back your broken tool and replace it with another for free (thus honoring the Craftsman lifetime warranty) it will be of the same or worse quality than the tool that failed.

This is the race to the bottom that has been happening in the VW aftermarket during the last twenty years. The only difference is that it is accelerating so fast now that parts quality is beyond redemption. VW hobbyists have always been a cheap lot: Don't buy a new one, rebuild the one you have. Limp by, rather than fix it 'right' and variations on that theme. Now, the only thing about an old Volkswagen that is still cheap...is the owner. The prices are still rising, and the parts quality is in the suds, that is, when you can find the parts at all. NLA (No Longer Available) has become the new price.

Unfortunately, this race to the bottom has only been exacerbated by the Hobbyist community itself. If you expect consumable parts (engine, suspension, brake, gaskets, seals) to stay at the same price *FOREVER*, you will inevitably wind up with parts that soak up the inflation and scarcity differential by lowering the quality of the components.

Serious VW hobbyists have taken to hoarding New Old Stock component that are still in the factory box, rather than buying a new component at one fifth the price that is of unknown durability. This fact hit me square between the eyes with a 2x4 this week: The main bearings (part #36 in the diagram) which support the crankshaft (part #1).

These bearings are the ones that take the horizontal pounding of the engine, and as such, wear out. The bearing doesn't actually touch the crankshaft: the crankshaft floats on a 4/1000 of an inch layer of oil as it spins at stock speeds of up to 4800 RPM. That oil is refreshed by pumping cooled oil into that shadow thin gap under pressure.

This is why machinists who know what they're doing can make a decent living: most people have a concept of 'small' as about the diameter of a grain of sand, or 197/1000 inches, about 50x the size of this oil gap.

The crankshaft main bearings, in which the crankshaft journals
rest on a thin skiff of oil and spin at up to 5000 RPM.

As you can imagine, the accuracy of the bearing surface and the accuracy of the crankshaft surface that floats and spins in it (call a journal) is paramount. The aircooled engine design is so forgiving that the most exceptional idiot can assemble an engine out of a box of parts, measuring nothing, and produce an engine that will run. The engine might not run for long, and might grenade itself within a month or the first time they really put the hammer down on the accelerator, but it will run.

When building for longevity however, the builder had better be compulsive about measurements and cleanliness in the assembly area. Even with good measurements, an engine assembled in a dirty shack is likely to have a service life perhaps 50% or less of one assembled in a clean-room environment.

So what was the bad news? How does material quality affect me and this engine build in particular?

Next time.

Was ist das "Boxermotor" mein Herr?

A brief sojourn into the horizontally opposed engine, for the uninitiated.

The video below is a product of Subaru, so obviously it pitches the 1966 beginnings of the Subaru boxer engine. But the more important point is that this video shows why the boxer is a superior design, both from a longevity standpoint, as well as from a performance and practicality standpoint.

Josef Kales, under the direction of Ferdinand Porsche created the Boxer motor, a horizontally opposed four cylinder engine for the 1932 NSU Typ 32 protoype. The engine design was later evolved by Franz Xavier Reimspieß for the Volks-auto, later to become the KDF-wagen under Adolf Hitler's reign, and finally the Volkswagen, risen from the ashes of the Third Reich.

Sadly, Volkswagen AG came to see the boxer engine as a liability rather than a strength, conforming increasingly to other motor-trends such as inline overhead cam engines mated to transverse gearboxes which became popular in the late sixties and early seventies. While VW de México continued to manufacture and sell the venerable air-cooled boxer in their domestic incarnation of the VW Beetle through 2003, Volkswagen AG wanted nothing more to do with the boxer.

Ironically, just as VW was trying to abandon the boxer, Subaru was 'reinventing the wheel' with their new boxer engine which first saw production in 1966. While not the first or only Japanese company to build boxer engines, Subaru has remained at the fore-front of boxer development since it took over the crown from VW in the early 1970s. Today, boxers are used in many cars, including the new Scion (Toyota) FR-S, which uses a Subaru-built boxer with Toyota engineered heads.

It seems that the boxer is going to keep living a long and happy life. With or without VW.

Happy Father's Day

When last we left our hero (me) I had just purchased a set of tins from Gary LeBlanc of Suburban Engine and looking down after the transaction to see what else was at hand, I saw a pair of grey boxes marked AMC.

I nearly choked. Inside were *new* AMC heads which had already had their wear components replaced! I inquired and Gary chuckled hollowly. "I've been trying to sell these for the last nine months. Everyone's scared of them. They ask me, 'Who did the valve job? What are the materials? Did they do everything?'

"I can only say what I know: I've had them on my flow-bench and all four valves are sealed tight to their seats. No leaks. I don't know if it is a 45 degree cut, a three angle job, or lapped to a perfect fit. But I know it don't leak. There's been die grinding just beneath the spark plug bore on the inside of the combustion chamber. No one does that if they're not CC'ing the head. And no one bothers to CC a head that they're just slapping together. Who ever built these used a new casting, replaced all of the wear parts, CC'd the head and then meticulously marked each valve for what sides the heads should be installed on."

When I found my voice again I asked why he didn't just use them. Surely he's still doing Type 4 engines. Gary demurred that his reputation was all he had, and if he put that set of heads (which he did not know who built them, nor what quality of parts they were assembled with) on a customer's engine and the thing et itself in 20,0000 miles, his reputation would be damaged. Also, how do you warranty or vouch for something that you don't know where or who it came from?

"Oh no," he said, stridently. "I might put it in my own car, because if they grenade the engine, it'll be me who's pushing it. But not in a customer's car, and I won't offer any guarantee on these heads to you, either. They may be the work of a master inside. Or they may be a fluff 'n buff job. I don't know and I've got too much to do to play with them to find out. If you want 'em, they're $100 apiece."

At this point I struggled to keep from wetting myself. $200 complete? $200?!?

When I started this quest for new heads, the first stop was the figure $1600, which caused all of the blood to drain out of my head. That was two new AMC castings with the wear parts replaced with the finest materials and reworked by one of two master builders: Adrian at Headflow Masters in Vista, California or Len Hoffman at H.A.M. in Athens, Georgia.

Having decided that I was willing to live with less than the perfect best, I shopped for the 'next best' which I assumed was new AMC heads alone. $800 for a pair was the best price I ever found. And I could drive around with my fingers crossed that I wasn't going to drop a valve seat and bugger up the engine.

Then, having discovered that Adrian at Headflow Masters would rebuild an original VW Type 4 head if it didn't need welding, I contacted him for pricing on this. I have two butt-ugly Type 4 heads that I could take to Adrian and for $700, have the $1600 hand worked quality on stock castings. Still, we're talking about a lot of green. Not that I begrudge Adrian the money for his labors. It's the dual embarrassment of not having such monies at hand, and having to fly to California with these two dog-eared, gooey cylinder heads in my luggage to deliver them to Adrian.

So now, suddenly, I found myself at a dilemma: These heads show every sign of having been carefully rebuilt by someone who *really* pays attention to detail (the CCing of the heads) and are in prime condition and seal well.

Am I willing to buy a pig in a poke?

I asked Gary for twenty minutes to think about it. He laughed and said I was the first person to properly take the heads out of the box, inspect them, ask questions, and notice details about them that said a lot about the machinist who must have worked them. Everyone else just stared and then walked away. I said I'd be back in 20 minutes either way.

So wandered off to find a few of my friends. Chris (fuser on thesamba) was vending from his work bus which had monster truck suspension and required a rope ladder for passengers to mount. I had bought some bits from him earlier in the day and we had chatted about thesamba and some of the bits I was buying. So I asked if he knew Gary from Suburban Engine.

Gary? Everyone knows Gary. Quality Brother. What's up.

So I told him about the mystery heads. And his face fell. And then I told him the $200 price, and he started pulling hairs out of the back of his hand. "If I had known," said Chris tensely, "That Gary was selling run-ready Type4 heads of any stripe, I would have kicked you in the shins then outrun you to buy them. But since you've asked me about them, I'm honor bound to answer your question. Don't just stand here, you jackass, get back over there before someone else buys them!"

Which pretty much made up my mind on site. The final kicker was when I strolled up to Gary and said I'd take them, he said archly, "You got any kids?" Which kind of knocked me off my stride. What did this have to do with....?

Sure. Two kids, a nine year old boy who couldn't care less about my bus and my six year old daughter who loves it so much she wants to move into it even though its been up on jacks for six months.

Gary smiled. "Happy Father's Day. Gimme $150."

So through the generosity of others (both financially and informationally) I've just jumped the whole process ahead by WEEKS, and cut my engine rebuild cost almost in half.

Happy Father's Day indeed. Thanks Gary. Even if the heads don't work out, thanks.

Paydirt

I just got back from the 25th Annual Litchfield Bug-In in Connecticut. Great camping, friendly people, and most of all, a chance to sync in real space with some of the people that I have only met on thesamba.com forums. I'm really impressed by their generosity, and willingness to share information with plebs like me who are beneath their touch. They've been a tight organization for a long time. But they're still sharing, and that rates props in my book.

But with those niceties dispensed with, I'm excited to share the really big news: I absolutely cleaned up at the swap meet. My mate Don commented that there was so much Bus stuff there that he was convinced a few Buses exploded and scattered parts everywhere.

I went up with a very specific list of parts in mind, which I had published on the samba:

• 021-119-362-C Front Right Tin with Fuel Pump Cutout 72-74
• 021-256-332AU Hot Air Fan Pipe Right 72-74
• 071-256-051 Hot Air Pipe LH HeatX to Air Flap 72-74
• Left Front Lower Warm Air duct 72-74
• 021-256-205K Heat Control Valve Flap Flapper
• Walk through passenger heat vent cover
• 211-707-311-KCH chrome rear bumper 73-79
• 73-79 Bay Window Windshield

And of course, I was looking for other parts that I knew I needed but thought it unlikely to find there:

• Replacement RH hot air pipe
• New under cylinder ducting for the engine (on of mine took a bad hit and was partially torn off)
• New Windshield.
• Replacement Cold air ventilation controls handle
• DPD Air Conditioning Fans and Evaporator
• A replacement set of seat covers, complete.

Well, a fellah can dream, can't he? Certainly I wasn't looking for a pair of fresh Type4 heads. Those things are rare as hens teeth.

Of the stuff on the list above, I came up with the following, though I paid partially by walking my feed down to the stubs and getting a really lobster like sunburn while digging through greasy boxes and looking at parts:

• Right Front Lower Warm Air duct (no fuel pump cutout. Rare 1979 one year only design) $15
• Hot Air Fan Pipe Right (this sucker is simply unobtainium.) One dollar. $1 for a part that usually sells for $60-70 each when all grimy and dented. Hoowah!
• Hot Air Pipe LH HeatX to Air Flap. One dollar. $1!!!
• Left Front Lower Warm Air duct $15
• Heat Control Valve Flap Flapper (take three and use the best two, MSRP $125 each) $5 each!
• Walk through passenger heat vent cover $10
• Replacement RH hot air pipe $3
• Under cylinder ducting for the engine $20

So all told, I waltzed through spending a grand total of $80 and flushed out almost every engine accessory part that I need for the bus. Well, excepting those heads.

But wait, there's more. The night of camping, I pulled up at Stanagon's bus where Stan Wohlfarth already had a lot of tin laid out, and chatted with him while I pawed through the tin. That's where those two $15 pieces came from. He didn't budge because I didn't haggle. I NEEDED that tin. There are some people who, when presented with a price will counter-offer like a nervous tic. I'm not one of them. I don't need to get the BEST deal, and I don't need to steal them. I just want a reasonable deal. I need what I need and I'm willing to pay what I must to get them. If he had wanted $100 each, I would have kept looking, but I would have taken a bucketful of reference photos first, the better to encourage the internet hoarders to give up their parts.

Stan mentioned that he didn't have his full collection to vend there, his buddy Gary LeBlanc (business partner, really) from Suburban Engine was coming tomorrow morning and he'd have more of the 'precious metals' to sell. I had corresponded with both of these guys when looking into having a replacement engine built. Both of these guys were mentored by 'Boston Bob' Donalds who was one of the finest Type 4 engine builders on the East coast, but who died about five years ago, leaving them to carry on his legacy. Both Gary and Stan are what you would expect of a mechanic and a machinist. But they are genuinely great guys and rather than hoarding their knowledge, they share it with anyone who asks, even though they could make more money clutching the information to their breast. But they learned from their mentor, who gave what he knew to them freely, the knowledge continues on in vintage cars still on the road. There's a parable there, somewhere.

When I met Gary on day two, Stan reminded Gary who I was and then I noticed some of the stuff Gary had brought. New bottom tins. I need those because a rock had torn mine up. So I bought them for $20 for the pair, and offered high because they were in great condition, but Gary insisted on taking less. How odd.

Then I saw them. The clouds parted, the Angels sang, and I saw in the possession of Gary LeBlanc, Proprietor of Suburban Engine....

To be continued...

Balancing act

A boxer engine is a strange beast: Simple in the number of parts but requiring fiendish attention to detail when assembled, they don't require counter-weights to offset reciprocating forces; the opposing pistons and connecting rods do that job. They also have a low center of gravity since the cylinder heads are hung off of the ends of the engine, rather than perching on top of a bored out 'block' of iron.

Obviously, this means that the boxer is a lovely engine for racing (thank you, Mssrs Benz and Porsche) fantastic for handling (Subaru bows here) and the more effort that is poured into making the reiprocating masses equal, the more like a sewing machine the engine runs. In a race engine, this is the difference between the imbalances causing the engine to fight itself and losing the race or blowing through low 9's in the quarter-mile.

For the layman and non-racer, a zero weight bias means an engine that may get forty percent more miles before a rebuild is needed. Not bad, for a little care and feeding.

Volkswagen, working in the mass market of the 1960's and 1970's didn't have the material science to get the pistons and connecting rods to a close tolerance. Just piles of components with a paint daub on them to say what weight range they were in. Just use four components from the same weight range, and you were within 5 grams of balanced, which seems awfully close...right?

But spin that engine at 5000 rpm and suddenly those five grams are multiplied in their reciprocation (Accelerate out to the end of the 71mm stroke and then quickly decelerate it to a stop...then PULL! the piston back in that 71mm, then slow it down to a stop, then PUSH....and so on. Those 5 gram differences are suddenly like an elephant hanging on the end of the connecting rod journal. Literally forty or fifty extra pounds of effective weight imbalance at 5000rpm. So those few grams difference REALLY matter in the final analysis.

If you're rebuilding your own engine, it behooves you to get the tolerance of your pistons and connecting rods to less than one-tenth of a gram. How? Weigh all of them, find the lightest one in the set, and then grind a little off of each of the rest until they all match. Let's go to the video:


At some point, there is a diminishing return of benefit. Yet any boxer engine can benefit but this kind of care and attention. The good news is that the AA 94mm piston's I'm going to be using come out-of-the-box in almost perfect balance. (Who said that Chinese products are all junk. You can be ISO9000 certified and produce junk, as long as you document your process for how to make junk. Origin is no sign of quality. The iPhone is made in China. I don't hear anyone moaning about the quality of the components there.)

So really, it is only the connecting rods which will close tolerance work either on my part, or pay a machinist who knows what they're doing to produce the 'sewing machine engine.'

Future Features

Like all good gearheads, I have to have a list both of what needs doing, as well as what I want to do 'some day.' In that sense it is just like owning a house.

For my house, I collect ideas in a 'design morgue': pictures, measurements, blah blah of what might be interesting to do some day. I can pull these out later and it takes a lot less to put the whole thing back in my mind.

With cars, its a little more complex, not only because many of the ideas require very careful measurement and engineering, but also because vendors come and go, business change hands, and products are in stock, out of stock or just plain disappeared in the sands of time.

So I'm going to write down a bunch of features that I hope to use in the future, and do so here where I can get back to them.

Megasquirt Fuel Injection. To do modern, crank-fired fuel injection (where the computer controls when to fire each spark plug, not a spinning distributor, with its advance curve determined by vacuum and weights, etc) you need a trigger wheel so the ECU knows what point of rotation the engine is at, like so:

In the above example, the trigger ring replaces a washer of the same thickness, but of only the diameter of the hub. Unfortunately, replacing this washer would rule out the use of Air Conditioning. Why? Because when the AC compressor is installed, the tiny pulley that drives it replaces this same washer. One or the other, or find a 'third way.'

The potential 'third way' is to machine reliefs into the surface of the flywheel on the crank side, and then install the Hall Effect sensor in the front case flange, either in the inspection port on the left side or on the factory timing sensor on the right. Viola! Instant trigger ring.



Or as long as we're operating in the realm of fantasy, where just writing it can make it possible, perhaps on the edge of the flywheel, just behind the starter teeth and mount the Hall Sensor in a drilled and tapped hole in the Transmission Bell Housing.

Any of these solutions can be yours if 'The Price is Right.'

Not to mention a MicroSquirt computer or Megasquirt brain to read the crank position trigger, plus injector control, Manifold Absolute Pressure (MAP), (Intake Air Temperature) IAT, (Idle Air Controller) IAC.

Air Conditioning: My darling spouse wants nothing to do with a vehicle that has no AC. Then again, she wants nothing to do with a TV without a steroid laced DVR (which I built her) so I suppose I am a victim of having been a good provider.

Gilmore Enterprises
10870 49th St. N.
Clearwater, Florida 33762
(727) 573-2944

Apparently one call does it all. You provide the Bus and $2500, and they provide the AC. Sanden compressor as well as the evaporator and condenser. They do a good job. But THEY do it.

Oops.

Well, oops.

I got the case apart. The flywheel end was pretty much gummed together at the seam and the cam plug was a friction fit glueball.

I did not pry on the case halves, even after they were 1/8" apart and still not separating. Rubber Mallet only.
Pull...thump.thump.thump...
Pull...thump.thump.thump...
Pull...thump.thump.thump

Snap.

Dammit.

All of the bearing surfaces look sane, and the crank floated nicely in the bearings.

My intention is to pull the five trouble-making oil gallery plugs out, that way the galleries get partially washed by the parts washer when it goes into the machine shop. Also have the shop weld up that busted off flange. (I've even heard of some JB Welding it, though I don't think I'll go that route.)

Comments and suggestions before this goes in for its bath and measurements? I'm probably going to bring the case halves with me to Litchfield just to have those with a more studied eye go over it with me.

M

Plan Your Work

After an entire week of chasing vendors around the bed (and under it, and over it) to find out what magical sauce is in their products to justify their prices over their competitors (and then checking that against anecdotal and first hand experience of other consumers) I am... finally.... done.... spec'ing... this... engine.

You'd think this wouldn't be hard for a stock engine. You'd be wrong. Just because the specifications are stock doesn't mean that the new products that will go into the case and mesh together are NEW. You might wait a life-time to find all NOS parts to assemble your 'perfectly new' VW engine.

So you must re-use some parts, rebuild others, and have replacements made for yet others. There is always the nagging temptation either to upgrade (more power!) or otherwise 'improve' on stock.

I have largely resisted. Yea me. My concessions to modernity are:

1. The factory 1977 exhaust system is a disaster. It has 14 different joints that it can leak from, spread over 11 components. By installing the early heat exchangers, the number of joints drops to 7 and cab heat improves at the cost of slightly dirtier exhaust.
2. There is no source for NOS camshafts. Nada. They don't exist, unless it is in reground form. Why in the world would I use a forty year old hunk of metal that has already gone through thousands of heat-cool cycles? Hasn't metallurgy moved forward in forty years? So I'll maintain a stock camshaft profile on a new billet.
3. The best balance job on the stock engine components was rods and pistons to within 5 grams of one another. My goal will be to get to less than .5g. There is no reason this shouldn't be completely possible based on a man having enough patience and grinding discs. Less wasted wear, more longevity.
4. To my knowledge, the factory engines were not spin balanced. If Vince's Machine Shop in Clementon, NJ can handle it, I'll have them balance the whole rotating mass (crank, flywheel and clutch cover with a possible look into the impeller fan) so that I have a 2000cc sewing machine when we're done.
5. No one makes the factory exhaust. The original parts are rare, and difficult to deal with. However Ernst does make an exhaust for the 411/412 that is available both with and without an EGR fitting. I'm going for the one with the EGR fitting. I'll get the darn thing working someday...eventually.
6. The heads will have to be rebuilt or replaced with AMC castings and then rebuilt again. No thanks. If I can have my VW castings reworked, I'll just do that. This will include upgraded valves, guides, seats, retainers and keepers which are the wear components which cause a bus to spit parts and embarrass the owner.

So those are my changes of note. Nothing is for increased power. Everything is for increased reliability based on three years of study. The final parts list looks like this:

• Stock Type4 GD 2L crankcase
• Stock 71mm stroke crank, repolished journals
• Rebuilt stock connecting rods
• Webcam 142 grind (stock) camshaft  & Webcam Lifters
• AA 94mm Pistons & Cylinders (13cc dished heads)
• OEM VW heads rebuilt by Headflow Masters with standard durability upgrades
• All bearings, gaskets & seals by either Kolbenschmidt or Reinz
• All new Gates Barricade fuel hoses (E10 compatible), Gates vacuum hose with GeeBee Decel, Breather & Sboot custom mandrel hoses (to replace factory NLA parts)
• Stock 70amp Bosch Alternator (factory)
• New Injectors (Sorensen)
• Rebuilt throttle valve assembly
• 72-74 heat Exchangers
• Stock German 411 Ernst exhaust w/EGR fitting

If you think that this shouldn't be too painful because VW's are just cheap cars....you couldn't be more laughably wrong. They were cheap cars... in the 50s and 60s. Before the Smog Man came swinging the Scythe of yearly EPA regulation changes. Before Volkswagen of America disowned the aircooled vehicles in an attempt to put their watercooled offerings forward.

I have pinched pennies on this gig until the Lincoln screamed. If I bring it in under $2000 with me doing all of the labor and assembly, I'll be amazed. If I come in under $2500, I'll be relieved.

Tar Pit

Well, I have socked a Tar Babe right in the mouth.

(For those unfamiliar with the term, see Wikipedia.)

I've now dug down into the case and can clearly see that there is going to be no top end rebuild to save this. I've generated a list of components to be replaced, and it is considerable: Pistons, Cylinders, Rings, Heads, Connecting Rods, rod bearings, crankshaft journal bearings, camshaft, cam gear, valve lifters, camshaft bearings, every blasted seal on the engine, and the spark plugs, too.

Poo.

So pretty much the only part of the original engine that is staying is the crank and the crankcase itself. Even those are not a lock.

That being said, the Type4 crankcase is a stout sucker. I was concerned about possibly needing an align-bore on it (to true up all of the crankshaft bearing saddles before installing oversized bearings.) I was told by some old hands (this one in Mission Viejo) that the saddles are unlikely to need attention until at least 300k miles. Wow.

So here are some horror pictures of the teardown:

After removing the 2/1 cylinder head and getting the cylinders along with it, I gave the mess some more acetone (throttle cleaner) and whanged on it (carefully) with my rubber mallet. No budge. So I thought back to the heat that got these glued on by carbon blow-by in the first place, and applied propane torch heat to the head.

Which lit it on fire. (Throttle cleaner is flammable. This was outside. Only idiots set fires in their own garage on purpose.)

Which was what I was expecting. After 45 seconds or so it burned itself out, and I whanged on one of the cylinders again. Clunk. And the other. Clunk.

And that was when I saw the literal 'hot mess.'

The #2 exhaust valve is missing a pie shaped wedge out of it. No wonder I couldn't get compression on that cylinder.

Also, the surface of this valve adjuster should be gently rounded:

Yowza. I was able to pull one of the cam followers (valve lifters) out of the case with a magnet and look at it under strong light. They should have a slightly crowned top, so that when two are pressed together you see daylight all the way around the contact face.

What I got instead was so worn out that it was CONCAVE, rather than CONVEX the way it should be. What do the tops of these rub up against? This lead to a horrible suspicion that was quickly confirmed by a look at the camshaft.

2/1 cam lobes

4/3 cam lobes

Even a knuckle head like me can see that these are SHOT.

I pulled the heads for the other side and then performed the same 'light em on fire' operation on the cylinders to unstick them from the heads. Pretty much the same story on the other side.

At this point, I have pulled the reins back in. My workspace is not arranged such that it would be wise for me to go much deeper into this engine as I will have to. I'm going to need to provide a very clean environment to work in, and that is going to mean a week of evening cleaning the garage before I'm there.

So while I do that, I'll leave you in bated breathe on whether the heads are salvageable, if the case is usable, and how much it is going to cost me for that laundry list of components that must be reconditioned or replaced.