Colin Visits Minnesota
Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 3:09 pm
After my second visit from Amskeptic, my bus is running better than I ever realized that it could. It is running smoother, cooler, and has more power than before. It takes a guy like Colin to let you know that you’ve been using spark plugs meant for a beetle and not a bus. But I’m getting a head of myself.
Preparing for my itinerary visit began weeks earlier by asking my neighbor, who works for the owner of the building that used to be the old downtown GM dealership, to borrow the old Keup Motors garage. Since I don’t have a useable garage at my home, I thought that it would be a good idea to find some cover from this rainy spring. I made a deal with the building manager and I had use of this old building for a few days. The best part was that the garage came with two lifts!
Colin was to arrive on Thursday, so I took Wednesday to drop the engine and transmission so we could jump right to work.
My list had many items to accomplish but the meat of the visit was to rethread the #1 sparkplug port and an intake manifold stud port at the same head. That’s when Colin says, “why do you have beetle plugs”? I don’t know, good question. The good news is that a T1 plug has about ½ as much thread as a T4 plug. My weak threads were only at the top half of my head, the bottom threads were good and strong. We dodged a bullet because we didn’t need to retap those threads. Same situation with the manifold stud, we screwed down the stud until we found strong threads.
Next, we separated the engine from the transmission to learn that my 1974 1800 AW engine and 1976 091 6-rib transmission is using a little 210mm clutch and pressure plate. The opening of an 8 mm box-end wrench won’t quite fit over the edge of the clutch disc which means my disc is middle aged. The limit is if the disc will fit inside of a 7 mm wrench. The disc and pressure plate from my other engine wasn’t bigger or in better condition so we removed the “glaze” from the surfaces using 220 emery cloth and a 45 cross-hatch sanding.
Sorry for the blurry pic.
We also determined that my endplay was at 0.009” when the limit is 0.003 – 0.006 and there is also a bit of “clunkish” circular movement from the #1 crankshaft bearing. It moves like this.
Colin said that he hated being the grim reaper but a rebuild is in my future. (But not right now).
If that’s the worst news that I get this year then that is fine with me.
Apparently there is a T4 endplay shim shortage of the thickest ones and the shims that I had were not as thick as they needed to be. You have to set the endplay using only 3 shims no more, no less. Only three shims provide the proper oil shear. Colin was only able to reduce my endplay to 0.0065 but that is better then what it was.
We finished the day installing the engine/transmission into the car and buttoning up some oil leaks. Colin gave the AFM a proper adjustment (I had set it too rich, probably because of the wrong spark plugs) and we went for a test drive. After a couple more AFM adjustments, Colin concluded that the engine was running very well and he couldn’t hear the bearing knock. That’s nice, huh?
Colin left and I caught up with him for a bit at bradgt74’s house on Saturday. Brad, feel free to rap about it here if you like.
I just took “Spiderman” on a 14 mile hilly lap around a section of the Minnesota River, it’s my usual cruise.
I love my bus.
Preparing for my itinerary visit began weeks earlier by asking my neighbor, who works for the owner of the building that used to be the old downtown GM dealership, to borrow the old Keup Motors garage. Since I don’t have a useable garage at my home, I thought that it would be a good idea to find some cover from this rainy spring. I made a deal with the building manager and I had use of this old building for a few days. The best part was that the garage came with two lifts!
Colin was to arrive on Thursday, so I took Wednesday to drop the engine and transmission so we could jump right to work.
My list had many items to accomplish but the meat of the visit was to rethread the #1 sparkplug port and an intake manifold stud port at the same head. That’s when Colin says, “why do you have beetle plugs”? I don’t know, good question. The good news is that a T1 plug has about ½ as much thread as a T4 plug. My weak threads were only at the top half of my head, the bottom threads were good and strong. We dodged a bullet because we didn’t need to retap those threads. Same situation with the manifold stud, we screwed down the stud until we found strong threads.
Next, we separated the engine from the transmission to learn that my 1974 1800 AW engine and 1976 091 6-rib transmission is using a little 210mm clutch and pressure plate. The opening of an 8 mm box-end wrench won’t quite fit over the edge of the clutch disc which means my disc is middle aged. The limit is if the disc will fit inside of a 7 mm wrench. The disc and pressure plate from my other engine wasn’t bigger or in better condition so we removed the “glaze” from the surfaces using 220 emery cloth and a 45 cross-hatch sanding.
Sorry for the blurry pic.
We also determined that my endplay was at 0.009” when the limit is 0.003 – 0.006 and there is also a bit of “clunkish” circular movement from the #1 crankshaft bearing. It moves like this.
Colin said that he hated being the grim reaper but a rebuild is in my future. (But not right now).
If that’s the worst news that I get this year then that is fine with me.
Apparently there is a T4 endplay shim shortage of the thickest ones and the shims that I had were not as thick as they needed to be. You have to set the endplay using only 3 shims no more, no less. Only three shims provide the proper oil shear. Colin was only able to reduce my endplay to 0.0065 but that is better then what it was.
We finished the day installing the engine/transmission into the car and buttoning up some oil leaks. Colin gave the AFM a proper adjustment (I had set it too rich, probably because of the wrong spark plugs) and we went for a test drive. After a couple more AFM adjustments, Colin concluded that the engine was running very well and he couldn’t hear the bearing knock. That’s nice, huh?
Colin left and I caught up with him for a bit at bradgt74’s house on Saturday. Brad, feel free to rap about it here if you like.
I just took “Spiderman” on a 14 mile hilly lap around a section of the Minnesota River, it’s my usual cruise.
I love my bus.