Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Ground 0 II
Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 7:23 pm
I thought I might look at my poor engine a little more closely, since it has had three full summers since I threw those Ebay heads on. I was going to mike the exhaust valve stems to look for any signs of "necking" (stretching that narrows the width of the stem near the valve face), but as I looked around, the heads were perfectly sealed to the barrels and I thought not to disturb this happy circumstance, particularly the left "Itinerant Scissorhands" head which is sporting those horrible .060 copper sealing rings from EMPI: So I decided to port-n-polish my heat exchanger outlets and muffler inlets instead:
Then I thought to decarbonize the intake valves. I used a small regular screwdriver to scratch the carbon junk off the stems and back of the valve faces, then I vacuumed out the particles. Then I used a pipe cleaner and a bath of GumOut to wash down the stems, guides and seat walls. Pre-wash on the left, post-wash on the right:
Pulled the lifters to find that my second replacement set from Bus Depot (Febi) has pitting all across the faces and one lifter was concave. You can see it catching the light from the open garage door on its far side. I put in four new Mahle lifters, and we will see how they do. . . .
Then the Timesert came out with the spark plug again. I had to ViseGrip the Timesert off the plug and laboriously file each thread of ViseGrip tracks. The threads in the head were chewed up horribly from the removal of the failed Timesert. So I JB Welded the Timesert back into the head, and will be wondering all summer if it is going to blow. Then I saw cooked wiring from the heater blower to the starter. Had to install a new double helix replacement wire (my wire did not have sufficient amperage capacity, so I doubled it up). Then I looked at my fuel hose which was dried and cracking on the ends. I bought Made In Germany Conti braided 5mm fuel hose from AustinVeedub (good people down there!) and it is totally better quality than the crap I got from Bus Depot. Replacing the fuel hose gave me an opportunity to remount the fuel pump I had to buy on the fly last summer. Then I removed the flywheel to see where the oil was coming from. Front seal was perfect! BUT, the flywheel bolts were drenched in oil. That is caused by the graphite o-ring seal that resides in the recess in the flywheel. Do not reuse these things . . . like I did last time the flywheel was off. Washed the clutch plate with Softsoap and Chlorox and a scrubby sponge, worked like a charm to get the mild contamination off. Then found my pilot bearing was totally lumpy to turn. With memories of VWBusrepairman's extraction difficulties, I borrowed an Advance Auto Parts puller which popped that thing out with quite a bang. It took some real force to pull it, I had to use two pieces of wood to prevent the push piece from damaging the soft aluminum crankcase:
And here the engine is ready to be reinstalled with a fresh pilot bearing and flywheel o-ring. It was 120* in the sun inside the garage, and my floor jack, not minutes after this picture was taken, decided to spontaneously drop. I think it was an expanding air bubble inside that reached the valve, because all I had to do to retore function was to bleed the air from the fill plug hole and it recovered. I had to pump the jack handle, run to the spare wood, come back and pump the handle, and slowly build up two stacks of wood under each exchanger:
Did some decorating and repainting too. I painted my black plastic scale with white paint to more closelyu approximate the original painted scale that came with the car, scratched the paint off the numbers, and used red finger nail polish on the timing marks:
Then thought I might try red fingernail polish on the dipstick and receptacle too. Looks good, we'll see if it holds up under engine heat:
By the way, the muffler heat shield which I finally put on after 30 years last spring? Took it right back off. I have never had blistered tins under the fan until this shield was put in, so I took it back off. My engine likes lots of fresh air around the muffler, seems to be cooler that way. Lost four pounds in five days out in that broiling afternoon sun, but I loooove the heat, I do. Must try to depart on Saturday or Sunday, but there is much yet to do.
Colin
Then I thought to decarbonize the intake valves. I used a small regular screwdriver to scratch the carbon junk off the stems and back of the valve faces, then I vacuumed out the particles. Then I used a pipe cleaner and a bath of GumOut to wash down the stems, guides and seat walls. Pre-wash on the left, post-wash on the right:
Pulled the lifters to find that my second replacement set from Bus Depot (Febi) has pitting all across the faces and one lifter was concave. You can see it catching the light from the open garage door on its far side. I put in four new Mahle lifters, and we will see how they do. . . .
Then the Timesert came out with the spark plug again. I had to ViseGrip the Timesert off the plug and laboriously file each thread of ViseGrip tracks. The threads in the head were chewed up horribly from the removal of the failed Timesert. So I JB Welded the Timesert back into the head, and will be wondering all summer if it is going to blow. Then I saw cooked wiring from the heater blower to the starter. Had to install a new double helix replacement wire (my wire did not have sufficient amperage capacity, so I doubled it up). Then I looked at my fuel hose which was dried and cracking on the ends. I bought Made In Germany Conti braided 5mm fuel hose from AustinVeedub (good people down there!) and it is totally better quality than the crap I got from Bus Depot. Replacing the fuel hose gave me an opportunity to remount the fuel pump I had to buy on the fly last summer. Then I removed the flywheel to see where the oil was coming from. Front seal was perfect! BUT, the flywheel bolts were drenched in oil. That is caused by the graphite o-ring seal that resides in the recess in the flywheel. Do not reuse these things . . . like I did last time the flywheel was off. Washed the clutch plate with Softsoap and Chlorox and a scrubby sponge, worked like a charm to get the mild contamination off. Then found my pilot bearing was totally lumpy to turn. With memories of VWBusrepairman's extraction difficulties, I borrowed an Advance Auto Parts puller which popped that thing out with quite a bang. It took some real force to pull it, I had to use two pieces of wood to prevent the push piece from damaging the soft aluminum crankcase:
And here the engine is ready to be reinstalled with a fresh pilot bearing and flywheel o-ring. It was 120* in the sun inside the garage, and my floor jack, not minutes after this picture was taken, decided to spontaneously drop. I think it was an expanding air bubble inside that reached the valve, because all I had to do to retore function was to bleed the air from the fill plug hole and it recovered. I had to pump the jack handle, run to the spare wood, come back and pump the handle, and slowly build up two stacks of wood under each exchanger:
Did some decorating and repainting too. I painted my black plastic scale with white paint to more closelyu approximate the original painted scale that came with the car, scratched the paint off the numbers, and used red finger nail polish on the timing marks:
Then thought I might try red fingernail polish on the dipstick and receptacle too. Looks good, we'll see if it holds up under engine heat:
By the way, the muffler heat shield which I finally put on after 30 years last spring? Took it right back off. I have never had blistered tins under the fan until this shield was put in, so I took it back off. My engine likes lots of fresh air around the muffler, seems to be cooler that way. Lost four pounds in five days out in that broiling afternoon sun, but I loooove the heat, I do. Must try to depart on Saturday or Sunday, but there is much yet to do.
Colin