Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 08:01:50 -0800
Reply-To: gary hradek <hradek@YAHOO.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: gary hradek <hradek@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: take a look a jeff's pictures
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Jeff,
I have no information that I can give you but your
questions are good ones and I would request that you
share any information. I would also like to know if
the answers are different for the waterboxer.
thanks gary
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 23:21:32 -0500
From: Jeff Strickrott <jstric01@CS.FIU.EDU>
Subject: Cylinder rebuild questions (long)
Hi All:
I have some questions regarding rebuilding the top end
of my 82 Vanagon
2.0L air cooled engine. Images related to my questions
can be found at
http://www.cs.fiu.edu/~jstric01/images/VW/WEB_VW_Images.html
.
The van dropped an intake valve seat on #1 cylinder
when I was doing
compression testing in the driveway. Very lucky. The
van/engine has
only
51K miles on the original engine.
My questions:
1. Is it common for the VW heads to drop seats this
easily? I was
hoping
to just replace the one head as the compression is
fine on the other.
2. Is it OK just to replace the one head?
3. Any suggestions (sources) for a good cheap pair of
ring clamps for
VW's?
4. I have never honed a cylinder. Is this necessary if
I keep the
existing rings? Or should I just replace the rings.
Will a shop hone
the
cylinders? I was originally trying to not have to
remove the cylinders,
but to clean the area, adjust the deck height, I will
have to remove
them. Anything i should be careful of? Where does one
get new shims to
to adjust for machining of the cylinder heads? Does
Bus Depot or some
other list vendor sell these? Where is a good source
for VW cylinder
hone tool?
5. If I replace the rings, what happens if I do this
on only one side?
Will this unbalance the engine?
6. In the process of dropping the seat, the valve put
a small ding in
the piston. Should I worry about this?
7. I notice a lot of carbon deposits under the valve
cover and past the
cylinder head seal. In addition the seal on # 1
cylinder was warped.
This indicates that the valves and cylinder were
leaking. The worst
carbon deposits are on #2 cylinder. It's seal looked
fine. What causes
this and how do I avoid the problem when I rebuild the
engine?
8. When I had adjusted the valves (about 300 miles
before problem) the
lifters appeared soft. Looking at the lifters they
look almost
brand-new? They have been in the car for 20 years.
Should I 1) bother
trying to rebuild the lifters (clean them) and then
purge the air, 2)
just purge the air, or 3) buy new ones?
9. The neighborhood we live in gives us problems if
they see a car
disabled. They threatened to have the van towed when I
was replacing
the
gas tank. A tight budget means that I must do the work
myself here.
Thus
I have stripped the tin, exhaust, etc. with the engine
in the car to
remove the problem cylinder. Other than making this
task slightly more
difficult, is there any other reason why I can't
complete the repair
with the engine in the car?
10. Any reason why I can't replace the intake and
exhaust studs with
stainless to avoid the problems with rust I had when
removing them?
Will
the aluminum heads corrode faster? Where could I get
stainless studs?
11. The cylinder head studs and heads were rusty.
Should these or all
the studs be replaced? In the future what is the best
way to lock the
studs into the case so that they do not come out when
I am trying to
just take of the head?
Thanks in advance for the help.
Regards,
--Jeff Strickrott
82 Westy, South Florida
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