The 2015 Main Lap Prep

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asiab3
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Re: The 2015 Main Lap Prep

Post by asiab3 » Tue Mar 31, 2015 9:30 pm

I love these posts. It's like watching batting practice at a baseball game as a kid, anxiously awaiting the actual game while enjoying seeing behind the scenes.
Amskeptic wrote:Had to take the crankshaft pulley off to get to it. Found out that the oil pump studs were still too long. Why were they too long? Uh oh . . . :

Image
Mike's old AutoStick bug engine thread was the only place on the internet I could find that mentioned how AutoStick oil pump studs need to be longer to fit the ATF pump housing extension. I actually had to behead my upper studs during assembly to get that tin piece to fit, then I beheaded the lower studs this weekend when I was uncomfortable with the .008" (!) of clearance they had to the engine support hanger. I did NOT have such an easy time getting the bar off. Hindsight says if 'yer gunna remove the muffler and the bar, do the muffler first. :blackeye:

Did you surface the oil pump cover since you have it off anyway?

I am discovering first hand the oil pressure of a new engine being higher than a mildly worn engine.

Robbie
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
322k miles on Earth.

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Re: The 2015 Main Lap Prep

Post by Amskeptic » Wed Apr 01, 2015 8:28 am

asiab3 wrote: Mike's old AutoStick bug engine thread was the only place on the internet I could find that mentioned how AutoStick oil pump studs need to be longer to fit the ATF pump housing extension.
Got Link?
asiab3 wrote: I actually had to behead my upper studs during assembly to get that tin piece to fit, then I beheaded the lower studs this weekend when I was uncomfortable with the .008" (!) of clearance they had to the engine support hanger.
Mine were far from the hanger . . . they were dimpling the pulley tin which was scraping the pulley during deceleration as the crankshaft moved .00275" forward!
asiab3 wrote: I did NOT have such an easy time getting the bar off. Hindsight says if 'yer gunna remove the muffler and the bar, do the muffler first. :blackeye:
Naw. You just jack the engine up and slip the mounts out from under the carrier ends. Then you do a slight sideways to the left and it falls out from the right. Don't forget to preload the three case bolts into the carrier holes before sticking it back on . . .
asiab3 wrote: Did you surface the oil pump cover since you have it off anyway?
I did the visible side of the cover to a mirror polish, but I sho didn't care bout no leakage between the gears and the barely scored cover. I have a gallon-per-minute surfeit of oil pump gear width! I sure as heck don't need to make it no mo efficient none.

asiab3 wrote: I am discovering first hand the oil pressure of a new engine being higher than a mildly worn engine.
Robbie
Got numbers? Do the following experiment.
A) Warm engine.

[while doing so, let me know if you can hear a noticeable change in sound/decibel level between on-throttle and off throttle at 50-55 mph.
(when the BobD was at a still-new 36,900 miles, there was barely change in sound between cruise and full throttle. Same with Chloe! I could hear the generator above all else. Now that the BobD is 109,000 miles and Chloe's engine has a minimum of 53,000 miles since its rebuild, I can hear a serious increase in sound level and for both cars it is all main/rod bearing thumps under load. They both sound lovely off-throttle)
]

B) Shut off warm engine and immediately turn ignition back on after engine has dropped below re-catch.
Count the number of seconds it takes for the oil light to come back on. Post here.
(edit - Chloe, 3/31 5:00PM CDT, 60 miles of highway then cooled to 143* - 2 seconds for oil light)
(the BobD used to take at least 5 seconds all the way past 60,000 miles, when it is was cool, it could take almost a minute. Now, a warm BobD turns the oil light almost immediately.
ColinFunWithOilPressure
(edit 3/31 4:00PM Ambient 78* operating time 75 minutes, 10mph headwind, 60 mph, maximum CHT on upgrade 390*, cruise 355-360*, off-ramp decel (about 3/4 mile) 320*)
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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Re: The 2015 Main Lap Prep

Post by Amskeptic » Thu Apr 02, 2015 7:19 am

Long time ago in Albuquerque NM, October 2011 , I replaced the crankshaft pulley that came with Chloe because it was a horrible late (5* ATDC notch / dimple for TDC) pulley with terrible run-out that tightened and slackened the fan belt in a vibrationous unacceptability. I bought an original old pulley from some little shop up some little industrial park for $10.00, sanded it and painted it and put little valve adjustment stripes on it and I loved that nice little pulley. Did I say "little" pulley? I sure did. Turns out VW had a 6.85455" pulley and replaced it with a 7.32119" pulley for the later 1600s. So my Albuquerque pulley has been slightly undersized all these years, and I have had floppy belt tension even with the small 900mm belt.
Do I bore you?
I ordered a later pulley from a guy in Pennsylvania (whoever you are, I hate you) and it never arrived and he does not respond to messages (a pox on your lazy butt, a boil, a painful boil).

Yesterday, on a referral from the local Pensacola VW shop that also fixes postal trucks now, I drove off into the Florida countryside and discovered Werner in his shop. Werner was all about the good old days, and just had to show me his stash, it is pretty impressive. Type 1 engine parts, Type 3 fuel injection parts, cases of empty beer cans, and a 7.32119" "D" pulley for Chloe.
He peppered me with questions about Chloe,
"Do you have the preheater cable? Is your heat riser clear? Your engine seal must be intact . . ."
I played along.
"I am going to Death Valley this summer."
"Wooo, I don't know about that."
"I have always wanted to."
"Why summer?"
"Because it is hot."
"It may not like that too much."
Then he opened the rear hatch and looked at the preheater cable, the warm heat riser, the intact compartment seal, the grommets all accounted for,
"I think this bus might not care so much."
"Yeah, actually, it has already done Death Valley in the summer, It was 123* outside, it didn't care."
"Wooo, that's a hot one."

He gave me an original pulley that still had the factory white "0" painted under the TDC notch, very nice.
Sanded and smoothed the pulley. Etched the "VW" logo and the "D" stamp. Painted it:

Image

Image

I had to clear and file a damaged section of the oil groove spiral. It has two discrete and separate tracks that spool oil back into the crankcase. Amazingly, this simple little system works.

Image

. . . and now, i must go tear the back off the engine AGAIN to replace the Albuquerque pulley, and we shall see about the belt tension henceforth.
Werner, if your wife gets you onto the internet successfully so you can read this, how does your pulley look now? Yeah, wooo.
Colin
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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Re: The 2015 Main Lap Prep

Post by cegammel » Thu Apr 02, 2015 9:50 am

Can you give a quick run down on how you get that thar pulley off without a pulley puller? I am about to tackle my beetle engine, and I don't want to destroy anything. The Bentley makes all of my ideas sound dangerous.

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Re: The 2015 Main Lap Prep

Post by asiab3 » Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:17 pm

cegammel wrote:Can you give a quick run down on how you get that thar pulley off without a pulley puller? I am about to tackle my beetle engine, and I don't want to destroy anything. The Bentley makes all of my ideas sound dangerous.
That's why all the pulleys at swap meets are bent. :pale: A proper puller is the only way to get it off dry without bending it that I know of. When we install them, we can use a coat of oil on the crankshaft that will allow it to slide. I use a firm rubber mallet hitting it from above the dipstick towards me while I apply pulling pressure on the left side. It slides off easy with oil, a hundred taps, and no rust. No OD pullers allowed.
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
322k miles on Earth.

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Re: The 2015 Main Lap Prep

Post by asiab3 » Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:40 pm

Amskeptic wrote: Mike's autostick build thread: Got Link?
The VWAR website seems to be down now. So no...
Amskeptic wrote: Do the following experiment.
Warm engine.
A)...change in sound between cruise and full throttle.

B) Shut off warm engine and immediately turn ignition back on after engine has dropped below re-catch.
Count the number of seconds it takes for the oil light to come back on. Post here.
If this should be moved to a technical forum, let's do that.

A) Old engine was bad. BAD. New engine has no change in volume, and I think the only sound I hear is the worn out transaxle. Very tight in this respect.

B) VDO dual pole sender triggers aroud 9psi, and the light comes on about one second after key is switched on. The needle on the oil pressure gauge falls slowly, but the light is always triggered. I have a NOS VW sender that I'll eventually install to go on a gauge vacation. :cyclopsani:

Speaking of gauge vacation, my DD CHT sender is clipped to a head fin closest to the exhaust valve. I see trends, I see peaks, but I do not see numbers that scare me or compare to others. It is like a gauge vacation, but if it gets to 300* and goes up, I know I've sucked a plastic bag. I've yet to see a temperature over 280, so that's starting to be my trending range. Phoenix, AZ will see me in June this year, so I'll essentially have a "max" reading then.

Robbie
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
322k miles on Earth.

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Re: The 2015 Main Lap Prep

Post by Amskeptic » Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:43 pm

cegammel wrote:Can you give a quick run down on how you get that thar pulley off without a pulley puller? I am about to tackle my beetle engine, and I don't want to destroy anything. The Bentley makes all of my ideas sound dangerous.
My little Chloe engine and I have always been very cooperative. I just pull it off with my hands. Now, you should know that there is preparation for EZ Remov pulleys, involving cleaning and polishing the woodruff key slot and the tapered bore to a nice polish, same with crank snout, and using grease between the two when you assemble it, and not going an inch/pound over the specified 32 ft/lbs.

When I remove it, I just grab the pulley at 9 and 3 o'clock and do a back and forth pull. It seems hopeless for the first minute, but then a slight tick can just be discerned, eventually it lets go. I am hyper-alert to bending the thing, I will not allow the pulley to get wobbly or bent!

If yours is a slightly rusted on pulley, slather it in a couple of days of PB Blaster with easy hammer blows to the pulley where the big washer used to reside. You want the sound waves more than the force. On The Third Day, Lo and it comes to pass that you need a special two-jawed puller with skinny enough arms that they fit into the pulley cut-outs, be neat, be accurate. If your puller allows you to use the bolt on the crankshaft (i.e. it can back out enough) hammer a dimple in the exact middle of the bolt and screw the bolt down to contact with the pulley minus three turns. Pull the pulley until you feel a decent pull, but not monkey crazy tension, just an easy pull on the pulley. Tap the puller bolt with your hammer, it will let go.

If the engine compartment in your beetle does not allow you to get the puller all deluxe laid out, drop the engine. In a bus, all we have to do is remove the rear tin or even the whole rear apron.

So, here is the difference between these pulleys:

Image


Image


Maybe you can't tell, but here is the new huge pulley crowding everything out in my engine compartment. The good news is , the 9.5 X 905 belt fits like a charm and I have about 20* cooler running with that big pulley gearing up the cooling fan:

Image
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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Re: The 2015 Main Lap Prep

Post by Amskeptic » Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:48 pm

asiab3 wrote: New engine has no change in volume,
light comes on about one second after key is switched on.

DD CHT sender is clipped to a head fin closest to the exhaust valve.
I've yet to see a temperature over 280,
Phoenix, AZ will see me in June this year, so I'll essentially have a "max" reading then.
Robbie
a) Very interesting, I have a new engine wear diagnostic criterium . . .

b) If it were 2-6 factory sender, would you guess maybe two seconds or three, even? COnsider this a very quicky analysis of bearing clearances, and monitor over the next 60,000 miles if other variables can be kept to the general area of your test above.

c) Why not join us at the spark plug?
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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Re: The 2015 Main Lap Prep

Post by wcfvw69 » Thu Apr 02, 2015 10:34 pm

Colin,

What year did that "late" pulley come out? Was the pulley for all late 1600 engines no matter what model they were powering?
1970 Westfalia bus. Stock 1776 dual port type 1 engine. Restored German Solex 34-3. Restored 205Q distributor, restored to factory appearance engine.

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Re: The 2015 Main Lap Prep

Post by airkooledchris » Thu Apr 02, 2015 10:56 pm

Amskeptic wrote: The good news is , the 9.5 X 905 belt fits like a charm and I have about 20* cooler running with that big pulley gearing up the cooling fan:

Image

Chloe must be a big fan of that.
1979 California Transporter

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Re: The 2015 Main Lap Prep

Post by asiab3 » Fri Apr 03, 2015 7:28 am

Amskeptic wrote: b) If it were 2-6 factory sender, would you guess maybe two seconds or three, even? COnsider this a very quicky analysis of bearing clearances, and monitor over the next 60,000 miles if other variables can be kept to the general area of your test above.

c) Why not join us at the spark plug?
b) Easily three. I Permatex'd the sender threads like a rookie, so I'm going to keep it like this for now. The engine doesn't leak, so every day I experience a quizzical sense of wonder. Is it actually that good? Or did I burn all the oil from improper break in? I've done so many oil changes, did I forget to add oil this time? What is oil, on a metaphysical level?

bb) Mom's bug with stock sender goes at least two seconds warm. Over ten seconds cold, but I stopped counting and had to run off, at 63mph....

c) Plug wells are very deep and narrow on these heads. I should have had the outside of the plug well flycut, now that I think about it. Next time........ I'm going to contact DD about a sender ring with an extra cm of sender material before the crimp. Because it's the junction, I think I could just fabricate one that fits and have the sender wires join it in a good crimp.

I can't wait to meet Chloe; that big pulley is looking might fine.
Robbie
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
322k miles on Earth.

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Re: The 2015 Main Lap Prep

Post by hambone » Fri Apr 03, 2015 2:53 pm

I've had the best luck removing the pulley with a good quality puller. They aren't that expensive and are made to fit.
I'm still using my '69 pulley, is that undersized for a 1600? Weren't they using the 1500 in that era? Eh my engine runs cool enough.
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Re: The 2015 Main Lap Prep

Post by Amskeptic » Fri Apr 03, 2015 3:23 pm

hambone wrote:I've had the best luck removing the pulley with a good quality puller. They aren't that expensive and are made to fit.
I'm still using my '69 pulley, is that undersized for a 1600? Weren't they using the 1500 in that era? Eh my engine runs cool enough.
Look for a stamped "D", Hambi, and let me know if you have it. It is usually near the "VW" stamp. You can see in the above photographs of the big pulley. The smaller pulley does not have this "D", "deftig" I bet.

If you have the little tin directly behind the pulley, you can tell at a glance what size pulley you have. The correct pulley fits the lip cut-out perfectly equidistant, the smaller pulley is a whisker away from contacting the inner edges of the cut-out in the tin.

Image
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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asiab3
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Re: The 2015 Main Lap Prep

Post by asiab3 » Thu Apr 09, 2015 10:53 am

Amskeptic wrote:
asiab3 wrote: Mike's old AutoStick bug engine thread was the only place on the internet I could find that mentioned how AutoStick oil pump studs need to be longer to fit the ATF pump housing extension.
Got Link?
The site went back online recently; here is his bug thread with a few cameo mentions of Chloe's engine:

http://vwar.org/forum/index.php?topic=713.0

You posted on TheSamba Lubrication Notes thread that the engine was assembled with "unknown quality control," so hopefully this helps. I imagine ther aren't many other engines on the road assembled that carefully. His cleaning process was how I found the thread, searching for what chemicals to buy wandering the isles of Home Depot on my phone of all places!

Robbie
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
322k miles on Earth.

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Re: The 2015 Main Lap Prep

Post by Amskeptic » Thu Apr 09, 2015 11:35 am

asiab3 wrote: You posted on TheSamba Lubrication Notes thread that the engine was assembled with "unknown quality control," so hopefully this helps. I imagine ther aren't many other engines on the road assembled that carefully. His cleaning process was how I found the thread, searching for what chemicals to buy wandering the isles of Home Depot on my phone of all places!

Robbie
I am very familiar with the quality control of everything I have been able to get to, I thought it best to be vague in that moment.

I *need* to update the Autostick thread with the list of "OH NO DON'T DO THAT!"s. Should I, or is that thread now dead?

1) Self-sealing main bearing nuts are installed upside down on both Chloe and the bug. Mine loosened to 12 ft/lbs. So did the self-sealing oil pump nuts-that-had-no-washers-and-thus-distorted-the-cover-plate.
2) Right there on the Auto-stick thread, he photographs the metal washers incorrectly installed as spacers on the oil cooler and adapter that made me have horrendous oil leaks in the first thousand miles of ownership. The 1971 and later coolers do not use spacers.
3) The connecting rod end that must be weighed for consistency is the BIG end, that is where the rod whips around in a mad arc. At the wrist pin end, the rod is just a slider!
etc . . .
Chloe's engine of course had that machine shop error of the ages, the wrong sized exhaust valves that exercised my diagnostics to the very edge of my sanity, and it suffered dreadful vibration in its early days.
Thanks for posting that! It really does help me understand better what I need to address with this engine.

Can you do a little experiment, Robbie? THANKS MAN:
Put your engine at TDC. Grasp the generator pulley and rock the crankshaft back and forth just at the TDC area and let me know how much movement at the timing mark/case seam you get before you feel the connecting rods load up the effort. Give me the measurement in millimeters of free movement at the crankshaft pulley. Let me know if you hear a little clunk-clunk between the "edges" of this movement . . .
THANKS MAN,
Colin :flower:
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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