Re: Kubelwagen's engine meltdown
Posted: Sat May 18, 2013 7:38 pm
No idea on Claude's Buggies, but I am enjoying this thread. It is nice to see folks helping each other out there!
Tech and Community Help For Air-Cooled VWs
http://www.itinerant-air-cooled.com/
http://www.itinerant-air-cooled.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=11415
I'd be dead in the water without all the help I've been getting - thanks everybody! I am learning a lot and looking forward to building my engine back up. WestyFrank and I have thoughts of building another once this is done.drober23 wrote:No idea on Claude's Buggies, but I am enjoying this thread. It is nice to see folks helping each other out there!
I had good luck removing the pilot bearing from my engine with a Lisle model 13750 Hydraulic Lifter PullerGypsie wrote:My thought is to take the donor engine as a unit and slip it up into his rig without doing much to it as the engine sounds pretty good and has had some diagnostics that had good results.
1. The pilot bearing is rotating in there, and it feels like some (maybe all) the pin bearings are turning in the cage. Can this pilot bearing be run as it is having been behind a torque converter plate not being used for anything. I am concerned about possibility of seized bearings that will cause problems or damage to the transmission shaft. Will this need to be replace before install? If so any tips on getting it out without the specialized tool?
The electronic ignition harness from the CA van is actually separate from the FI harness, and is easily seperable from it. I would highly recommend using the electronic ignition instead of the points system. It makes for a big improvement in sparking. You'll need to tease the CA FI harness terminal out of the coil connector, and you should find the harnesses separate at that point. You won't need the OXS relay (black cube), and the idle speed control module is optional, as it is easily bypassed by plugging the harness connectors together (this is a part of the tune-up procedure anyways). You should only use the advance side of the distributor vacuum advance can, and tune it to 7.5 deg BTDC @ 850-950 RPM as per the Federal Vanagon spec (or Colin's alternate tuning for max advance at 3000 RPM, whichever you prefer).Gypsie wrote: 2. The Donor engine, and harness, is a California model: can we use it as a federal set up and just set aside the unneeded connections (ie use a standard svda dist w/ points set up, and coil). We are hoping to avoid having to pull all the electronic ign. stuff out of the donor van. The reason being is Mike wants to send off his harness for rebuilding to rectify a loose injector connection (FYI-the #3 injector connection on Mike's rig has an intermittent connection issue that has been "fixed" by "pushing it down on there real good" and the #3 had the piston scuffing....Hmmmmmm). Any issues with the harness and the ECM? Should we use the AFM from the donor (ie will it be ok set up without the electronic ign?)
Sears had a link for the Lisle tool for $31. It's quite possible that the bearing in there is a pristine OE one, as you surmise, but the dust and grime which has accumulated over 30 years may render it unusable, unless you can get it sparkly-clean.Gypsie wrote:I had good luck removing the pilot bearing from my engine with a [url=http://www.centurytool.net/13750_Lisle_ ... s13750.htm]Lisle model 13750 Hydraulic Lifter Puller
Thanks for the tip. couldn't find a price for that one that one but did find this one (http://www.ebay.com/itm/KD-HYDRAULIC-LI ... %26ps%3D54) I think we may try pulling and replacing this just to make sure something doesn't seize up. Though I wonder, since this is a short term swap (and likely a reinstall in the donor rig to fix it up for resale) can the bearing be refurbished on the bench. The bearing may not have seen any usage as it was behind the torque converter plate just sitting in there gathering dust.
The electronic ignition harness from the CA van is actually separate from the FI harness, and is easily seperable from it. I would highly recommend using the electronic ignition instead of the points system. It makes for a big improvement in sparking.
We disconnected every thing from anything that was mounted to the van itself. The electronic ignition components are still in the donor rig. These should be gathered and installed with the engine? My recollection is that there are four components left in the rig: the Hall unit, idle stabilizer, coil and..?..a larger electronic device box on the drivers side, Would this need to come as well?
For my money I'd install the CA ignition along with the CA injection (but i'm not a big fan of Pertronix). The CA harness has to be used with the CA ECU, because the resistors for the injectors are internal to the CA ECU, whereas the resistors on the Federal models are external. The harness wiring reflects that difference.I think we were hoping to use the federal dist and coil, and connect this to the cali engine (that has the harness already on it) while it is in Mikes rig temporal\rily. Is it possible to usethe cali harness as a federal setup by just not hooking up the connections that are not needed. Perhaps you are saying that when you take all of the cali ignition components off of the harness the harnesses are the same? We could use whichever afm would be best. This is a short term swap while Mike rebuilds his engine (that will eventually be set up federal style. I plan on suggesting a pertronix as I have had good success with mine.
The early Vanagon O2 sensors were single-wire. No heating element involved. If you want to get fancy, you can use a wide-band O2 sensor with an LC-1. The LC-1 has two output channels: one is for a gauge, and the other is set by factory default to simuiate a narrow-band O2 sensor, so you can use it to drive your CA-spec ECU. Again, this is all assuming you have a good catalytic converter that you want to keep healthy. If not, then an O2 sensor will simply complicate your tuning efforts.Will the oxs be harmed by being run and not hooked up? Does it require the hookup for heating as an LM1 does?
Wish I had Philbin in my backyard. I will attest again to the dramatic improvement in drivability that a properly-functioning distributor can deliver.This is all assuming that the CA-spec distributor is in good shape.
The engine sounded decent when running though the performance issues the PO was experiencing could be related to a tired dist. We have a local distributor re-builder (http://www.philbingroup.com/) here in town and a rebuilt could be purchased with or without a core.
I agree with having the primo rebuild getting a golden distributor. I think Mike wants to do as little modifying to the donor rig to have a resellable rig after all is said and done. He doesn't want to bring bad VW mojo by sending a clean line rig to the scrapper.
I misspoke myself there. The FASTIN/FASTON connectors are the brass connectors used in pretty much everywhere else on the vehicle, but the injection harness uses "Junior Timer" connectors. Bus Boys sell some (http://www.bus-boys.com/bb13380.htm#fi) harness repair parts, but you know what? Those connectors have been used on all manner of Bosch FI-equipped vehicled from the late 70's to at least the mid-90's (my 97 Volvo wagon uses the same connectors for its injectors). I suggest ye get thyselves down to ye olde local wrecking yard with thy wire-cutters and harvest thyselves some Junior-Timer pig-tails. You ought to be able to find them on Audis, BMWs, VWs and Volvos. Maybe even Porsches and Benzes.
you could order the Amp FASTIN-FASTON connectors from Digi-Key that we were yakking about in the Electrical forum a few weeks ago.
I'll have to check that thread. Would these be a new connector put on the harness (properly) and that will fit into the injector connector? This may be a good alternative to sending the harness out for refurb as the other connections didn't seem to have any probs.
Mikes rig is the one that will get a newly rebuilt engine after all is said and done, that is the one with the pix of it's innards. That PO may have become overwhelmed and sold it quick after new heads. The heads looked rather new and did not look like 'out of the box' heads. they had some attention paid via fin and flashing grinding and some port work. they may even have the higher quality valves and other hardware though it is hard to tell. They really looked nice even though they were AMC's.
I pointed out the rod numbers as my recollection is that the numbers should all be on one side with the 1-2 side pointing west and the 3-4 pointing east (if you get my drift) The numbers were all on the same side with all the rods pointing east. seemed odd to me though I may be trippin'.
If the CB oil pump was providing adequate pressure under all conditions, then there's no reason not to use it. BUT: aftermarket pumps were generally not very well built, with sloppy case-to-pump body clearances and poorly fitting gears. If you can source a correct type IV pump in decent shape, then I'd recommend going with that. One thing to definitely look out for during one of your (many) test assemblies is to check the oil-pump-to-cam-gear clearance, especially if using a bolted-on cam gear. Lay the cam in one half of the case with bearing shells, then slide the oil pump into position and snug two nuts down finger-tight. Gently turn the cam in its bearings and look for interference between the pump and cam gear bolt heads.regarding the CB performance oil pump. It strikes me as being very "type1" in that the cover will come off without pulling the pump out of the engine. Could this be a better pump than stock or should this be considered a part to seek out.
The rods are symmetrical on Type 4s. There is no "orientation" but that the numbers match and are adjacent.SlowLane wrote:Bentley doesn't make an issue out of it: they just say to make sure the numbers match and are on the same side for the rod and cap.