Date:         Fri, 20 Apr 2007 18:56:05 -0700
Reply-To:     Don Hanson <dhanson@GORGE.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Don Hanson <dhanson@GORGE.NET>
Subject:      More on the VW inline 4 (Long post in reply to numerous digests)
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Just now pulled into my house after 2 weeks and 3000+ miles in my VW inline 4-powered (92 Cabriolet 1.8liter) 84 semi-westy.  Some comments after trying to read all the posts..."Digest Mode"...(Why don't you all cut off the old posts when you reply, people?  Makes it tough on us digest subscribers  when you have to scroll through  hundreds of lines, repeatedly..but..)
  Anyhow, the inline 4 in my van, I like.  Mine has no smog stuff and power nothing in the van, so it is really simple.  It gets the job done, sounds good with a straight through magnacor muffler and is quite easy to work on. 
 In fact, I will soon be doing some of the work I put off for this trip now that I am home...after doing lots of roadside 'fiddling' to keep going, knowing I had "issues" before I left, but choosing to go anyhow..time constraints, etc.
  I left home with a known weak headgasket and a poor alternator mounting bracket....The headgasket, surprisingly,  was not much of a problem after I slopped in some Barr's Leak Headgasket Repair goo.  I did, twice during my 3000 miles, have to bleed the radiator of air and I added some coolant up there.  It takes me about 5 minutes now, with a special funnel I made from a peice of metal tubing that fits right into the bleed screw hole in the rad top.  I adapted an old glue bottle into the tubing as a funnel and I just pour in the coolant and watch the air bubbles emerge around the edges of the tubing...when there's no more bubbles, just  coolant, I pull the tubing and funnel and replace the screw, grill and drive on..
  The alternator bracket was a worse problem.  I guess VW blew it on the design as that part is often maligned by  inline 4 motor owners.  I left home thinking mine had partially stripped threads, which I 'patched' with some epoxy that didn't really work.  It turns out the pivot/mount  bolt was broken through, then it totally stripped out.  I lost a belt, but knowing I had the weak headgasket, shut down without overheating anything...I temporarily 'repositioned' the alternator using an allen wrench (I only had a minimum tool kit along-one small box of stuff-) then fashioned a "belt" from one of those tire chain tensioning rubberband dealies..That got me to beautiful Boron, California at about midnight, where I camped in front of the only garage in town...Those guys found me an appropriate belt, and I 'engineered"  a fix to get me back to Portland area, with only about 5 more stops to 're-fix' my fix...Got pretty good at tossing all my gear out to access the engine...I finally made a good fix after fashioning an Ironwood wedge..had some pieces of that laying under my bed in the van..Pushed the wedge between the alternator body and the block, then beat it into "tension" against all the other parts and drove on with no further problems...
  Now home, a new headgasket is in order (half day is the quoted time a replacement takes a good backyard mechanic) and also another alternator and it's associated brackets...Which will be 'revised' somehow to fix VW's design so it will not fail again..
  The little 1.8 liter 8 valve is pretty strong...you have to keep the revs up some for best performance, but with my 5 sp tranny, it also is drivable on rough terrain using the 1st gear as a granny.  High altitude really is noticeable for power loss.  Crossing the Sierras at over 8000' I kept 'clicking' on my handbrake, thinking I'd left it on or something...And of course, heading north again, every pass seemed to also have a big NW headwind...But at sealevel, it pushes the van along at 75-80 without any problems and got me an average of 23.8mpg over all those mountainous windy speedy California miles..
  When I do the headgasket, in will go a $120 camset that is said to give 10-12 more hp and I am going to add a larger throttle body more appropriate for the better flowing exhaust and the slightly higher performance camshaft..That should help, without hurting drivability or mileage..
  Good conversion, in my opinion.  I didn't do the one in my van myself, bought it that way, but it seems pretty logical and well done and it does use almost all the same VW parts other than the motor...Love having power nothing....My last car was a Porsche 928, which was a "Power-Everything"  German electrical Bosch nightmare...but fun when it worked..
  Don Hanson