Post-Itinerary Hellinnahandbasket

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Amskeptic
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Post-Itinerary Hellinnahandbasket

Post by Amskeptic » Fri Dec 10, 2010 11:41 pm

But first, let's review the weather forecast here in Yuma Arizona, a very honest town with lots of real history before it got cookie-cutter stamped with the same big box crap as everybody else, GLASSEYE.
Saturday 77* Sunny
Sunday 79* Sunny
Monday 80* Sunny
Tuesday 80* Sunny
Wednesday 78* Sunny

. . . I like the trains, Glasseye! Makes a nice nighttime western music.

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OK, so the firewall or bulkhead or gas tank cover or whatever, had these gross sound deadener sheets plastered all over it. It was time to clean up that mess:

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When I yanked it out with a pop, I realized that it was not going back in without dropping the engine a little. Well, once you are dropping the engine a little, you might as well get to the endplay you've been fretting over since Scranton Pennsylvania, right?

So I found a nice abandoned church parking lot with a nifty little concrete platform. I built some concrete slab ramps for up and back down:

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This was the only way I was going to get to the engine to clear under the bumper without jacking up the car itself. Note that the floorjack is pretty close to fully extended just to reach within a couple of inches of the bottom of the engine, even with my 4X4 block:

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The plan was understanding that the jack would not reach the engine. I was going to let my bottle jack take the entire engine and transmission down to the floorjack, and by that point, the engine would come out fully dressed even with the foam seal fully installed:
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See? Everything cleared underneath the apron:

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And here the engine is, all clear and ready for endplay adjustment:

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Checked it with a screwdriver pulling the flywheel lightly:
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. . . and checked it with a screwdriver having lightly pried the fan pulley:

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Wow, I guess I really had heard the endplay open up with thrumming through the floor beginning to sound like the Road Warrior's.
Note: check your shim stock BEFORE the car is disabled in an abandoned church parking lot straddling a large concrete pad with the flywheel sitting next to the left rear tire. I only barely had the correct shims to just bring the endplay down from .0085" to .0035" . . . . . . .
By nightfall, I had the new seal and o-ring and clean clutch assembly all buttoned up. My my, aren't I goooooood? Took a nice brisk walk in the beautiful clear balmy 62* evening air:

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Woke up with plans to detail the engine compartment, replace some fuel hoses under the car, put in the de-sound-deadened bulkhead (just some hot water loosened it all up and I scraped the sheets off and washed the remaining glue off with Tide laundry detergent). Got the panel back on, I noticed that VW paints the bottom screws white to help you find them, LEFT:

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RIGHT:

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Now it's time to put in the engine! HA!
to be continued . . .
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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hambone
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Post by hambone » Sat Dec 11, 2010 12:30 am

ARE YOU STILL OUT THERE DOIN THIS STUFF? You need a nice bubble bath and a nice couple days under clean sheets.
-yerMa
http://greencascadia.blogspot.com
http://pdxvolksfolks.blogspot.com
it balances on your head just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine
your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat

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sped372
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Post by sped372 » Sat Dec 11, 2010 7:11 am

hambone wrote:yerMa
I think he actually said Yuma. :drunken:
1971 Karmann Ghia - 1600 DP
1984 Westfalia - 1.9 WBX

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Sylvester
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Post by Sylvester » Sat Dec 11, 2010 7:49 am

I think he is preparing for a run into Mexico!
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue, I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace. Where never lark, or even eagle flew. And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod, The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

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Hippie
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Post by Hippie » Sat Dec 11, 2010 8:09 am

OMG--Pulling an engine in a parking lot when it's not an emergency?
Cooooool!

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Re: Post-Itinerary Hellinnahandbasket

Post by glasseye » Sat Dec 11, 2010 9:05 am

Amskeptic wrote: . . . I like the trains, Glasseye! Makes a nice nighttime western music.
Yah, I guess. It's just that in Yuma, like in Vegas and Gallup, they're ALL FRIGGIN' NIGHT. :cherry:

I prefer my trains all lonesome, draped across the dark silence of the Panamints. YMMV

I agree, Hippie. Dropping the engine in a church parking lot, "just because", is pretty neat. :cheers: I love the spontaneous resourcefulness of the concrete pad and ramps. Seing the potential at a glance, getting out, sizing up the situation, relishing the simplicity and perfection of it all.

Yah, I know, I know. There are zero trains in the Panamints. :flower:
"This war will pay for itself."
Paul Wolfowitz, speaking of Iraq.

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satchmo
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Post by satchmo » Sat Dec 11, 2010 1:08 pm

The end play was what? .74? What is the tolerance there, anyway? There must be something seriously wrong with your engine. I'm surprised you didn't just do a complete tear down and re-build there in the parking lot. :cyclopsani:

Tim
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First, by reflection, which is noblest;
second, by immitation, which is easiest;
and third, by experience, which is bitterest. -Confucius

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Amskeptic
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Post by Amskeptic » Sat Dec 11, 2010 9:00 pm

satchmo wrote:The end play was what? .74? What is the tolerance there, anyway? There must be something seriously wrong with your engine. I'm surprised you didn't just do a complete tear down and re-build there in the parking lot. :cyclopsani:

Tim
Fixed it up there in the post. I posted the same friggen picture "before" and "before", instead of "before" and "after". The endplay was .008"
ColinOnBorrowedTime
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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Post by Amskeptic » Sat Dec 11, 2010 10:36 pm

OK, battery is on its last charge, the power cord connector is fatally broken inside my loyal Compaq Presario 2100, this is the last gasp.

So, about that engine installation?

I have this engine sitting on the jack on buckled pavement. I herky-jerky it towards the transaxle, and the 4X4 wood block between the jack and the crankcase goes skedaddle and the engine lists to the rear and blocks the jack handle. I pry the engine up and rescue the jack handle to use as a pry bar to let me somehow jam the 4X4 block back centered underneath the engine. I start jacking the engine up and it skids rearward again, ah so what, keep jacking and just get it in. But the jack decides that it just cannot do this any more, it has been a long tiring life for jack, it has done more engine/vehicle lifts than any WalMart jack ever should have to do, and it is just wimps out. Down comes the engine on the jack handle again. Pry it up, rescue the jack handle, and lift the engine with the handle so I can access the fill plug. A big blast of air and fluid shoot out. Do I have jack oil? Noooooooooooo. I do have my zoom spout oiler with a concoction of ATF and engine oil though . . . let's use that! Yes, let's. Jack again. Engine is still rear heavy, but hey get it up get it in get it done. As I jack, I notice that the engine comes right back down in about five seconds.

Yuma. We have a problem.

OK, I will use the cinderblock ramps that got the car here in the first place, then I will rebuild the ramps when I am done. Yes, that should do. Jack and jack, stick the block under the left exchanger with a towel to protect the paint. Repeat for the right. Repeat for the left, damn this engine is digging into my legs, repeat for the right, jack and jack, now I have to get the blocks up-ended to handle the height. But they are only 1" thick, and they are wobbly, and I have to jack and jack and reposition them so they don't tilt the engine sideways which would make the opposing side's block tip over and probably break, what would happen if that happened? It happened. Jack comes down engine is sideways, 4X4 tries to escape again, jack handle gets trapped under the muffler again, and I have a broken cinderblock to help get the engine in.

So I get a fresh replacement for the broken block, pry the jack handle free and pry the engine up and get the 4X4 block "centered" (and my battery here is getting down to 57%), and jack that jack handle, get the blocks in up-ended and the engine is now sitting on wobbly cinderblocks and the 4X4 wood block . . . clatters free . . . as the jack pad descend to the bottom of the jack's travel. I am damn good and tired by now. And the engine is so wobbly on the cinderblocks that I don't know if I can reach the 4X4 block to put on the jack pad centered under the engine. But I did it. And I got the jack up. But now I have a horrible realization along with leg twitches. I have to move the engine forward.

So I move the engine forward while jacking the jack handle, and slide the up-ended cinderblocks forward and watch like hell for new pavement cracks. There's one. Bump the engine forward, cinderblock #2 falls over, I have to grab the tailpipe, cinderblock breaks, engine tilts over as the tired jack just gives it up again and I have to kick the left cinderblock over to let the engine be level by the time it comes down to . . . trap the jack handle.

A picture . . . tells you NOTHING:

Image

I will not bore you with successive four towel-swathed cinderblock topples and breaks. I would rather bore you with the fact that the engine finally got lined up with the transaxle, I got it jacked up, I got the studs to enter the bell housing, I jacked the engine up as far as the jack would allow . . . and the engine was still at an unacceptable angle. No more cinderblock help at this point. I had to deadlift that damn thing. And it fought me. I could not get the engine to go in. The jack disappeared from sight. The 4X4 fell off. I had no choice but bash that engine in, and it said, "no way, I don't care if your jack sucks, I am not going in there." Finally, I was acting as cinderblocks and jack, picking up the engine with my left arm on the exhaust, my pelvis as fulcrum on the apron, my face as longitudinal thrust washer against the gas tank bulkhead, and my right hand as the belt tugger to get the clutch splines to mesh. The engine decided to go in four hours after I started tugging it towards the car.
"Thank you," I said:

Image

It was worth it. The engine sounds much tighter now. And look at that nice gas tank firewall/bulkhead/cover/whatever, hah?
ColinMustCheckEmailLastActBeforeDeathOfComputer.
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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hambone
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Post by hambone » Sat Dec 11, 2010 10:45 pm

****
that does not sound like fun. What a relief it must have been to be done.
http://greencascadia.blogspot.com
http://pdxvolksfolks.blogspot.com
it balances on your head just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine
your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat

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glasseye
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Post by glasseye » Sat Dec 11, 2010 10:56 pm

As usual - incredible. And with pictures. :cheers:
"This war will pay for itself."
Paul Wolfowitz, speaking of Iraq.

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