Date:         Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:53:05 -0700
Reply-To:     Brian Jarvinen <brianvwagain@YAHOO.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Brian Jarvinen <brianvwagain@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      vibration
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

I have a basic question about vibration of the engine.
I drive an 84
Westy with the stock 1.9L engine, 237K miles on it
now. I've owned
it since 85K, and for an entire year before my
ownership began it
sat on pavement in full sun at a shop in North
Carolina, which did
not do wonders for the rubber and vinyl parts in it.
Working with my
engine over the years I've always been struck with how
at times it
looks like it wants to shake itself loose, hop out and
run away. This
is most pronounced at idle, and when I am testing
things and moving
the enrichment switch manually back there, as the RPMs
go up the
operation smooths out.

Now for several years I've had recurring problems that
seem related
to excess vibration to my mind. The first thing that
happened was an
exhaust pipe simply broke in half. I went to a muffler
shop to get it
welded back together as it was in good shape otherwise
and they
pretty much laughed at the idea. (This is back up in
the salt-laded
north and normally no exhaust pipe can be welded
together, but
this ride, 'Martha' is never out on salty roads as I
work in North
Carolina in the winter, drive a work truck and
generally only get to
hang out with Martha once every week or two.) Anyway
they welded
the pipe back together but within a couple weeks one
of the exhaust
studs broke. I am writing this several years later and
in the mean-time
I've had three more exhaust studs break. These are no
fun at all to
fix, and I quickly learned to make sure all of the
brackets in the
exhaust system are present and accounted for, which
isn't easy
either, requiring several junk-yard visits and a bit
of metal fabrication,
and currently one bracket connection is broken again.

My thought for a long time now is that I need new
motor mounts.
Twice I have been refused by VW mechanics on this,
once the guy
said he was too stacked up keeping his regular
customers on the
road to do such optional work; another time a guy
replacing the
heads for me said this wouldn't make any difference at
all and
basically wouldn't do it either. He just said in his
long VW career
some buses have these problems with the exhaust and
some
don't. I guess I need to just buy the mounts and push
them and
a Benjamin or two or whatever it takes into someone's
hand to get
this done. (I work outdoors in a driveway with out a
heavy-duty
jack or engine stand and it would take me probably
days of
frustration to get this all figured out and the old
bolts loose).

Lately I had a fun experience with one of the studs
for the
alternator bracket disappearing and the nut nearly
coming off the
other one. In the process of re-testing the alternator
and purchasing
a new stud, the non-VW people in the various shops
asked why I
didn't replace my motor mounts. Good question.

So do y'all think that putting in new motor mounts
would help? Or
is this just an eternal problem with the design of
this engine?



____________________________________________________________________________________
Boardwalk for $500? In 2007? Ha! Play Monopoly Here and Now (it's updated for today's economy) at Yahoo! Games.
http://get.games.yahoo.com/proddesc?gamekey=monopolyherenow