Date:         Thu, 20 Feb 2003 09:06:38 -0800
Reply-To:     Tom Young <tomyoung1@ATTBI.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Tom Young <tomyoung1@ATTBI.COM>
Subject:      Measuring deck height
Comments: To: type2@type2.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi all:

Someone recently posted the following link

http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/corvair/valvejob.html

which details, among other things, setting the Compression Ratio (CR) of a
Corvair engine.  It's a pretty good write-up and very pertinent to folks who
work on VW engines.  However, about 3/4ths of the way down the page there's
a picture of a setup, which employs a dial gauge, that the author used to
determine deck height, but he doesn't describe *how* this setup is used.

When I've measured deck height on the Vanagon engines I've rebuilt I've used
a dial gauge to get the piston to TDC, then used a straightedge and feeler
gauges to determine deck height.  I've often wondered if there was some way
I could use the dial gauge to directly measure deck height, but haven't
figured out how.  Do you think the author is merely using the flat bar
across the top of the cylinder as a straightedge, to be used with feeler
gauges?  Or is there some way, using the pictured setup, that you can use
the dial gauge to determine TDC *and* deck height?

TIA.
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Tom Young                       '81 Vanagon
Lafayette, CA 94549         '82 Westfalia
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