Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:06:30 -0700
Reply-To: neil N <musomuso@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: neil N <musomuso@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Neil's Engine Conversion. Progress Update.
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Hi all.
I was so excited to hear the Jetta engine run with the exhaust all
mounted, (homemade + Walker "Quiet" model Vanagon style muffler....
and 2 custom muffler brackets!) I thought I'd report in about the
progress on my conversion.
It sounds great! Quite quiet in spite of the shorter exhaust run,
idles steady, revs up nicely, though I think the lack of air filter is
affecting the mid band sustained RPM's after gunning it from
idle...... (the MAF is likely getting too much air flow) but I
digress.
The filling of the cooling system went very well. I used this
("stolen" from the Samba list):
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=234192&highlight=cooling
It worked great. Can't say enough good things about it. It helped as I
didn't have enough room to jack up rear of my Westy. The only problem
using it (as a newb) was that I filled it too much at the end and when
revved up, coolant barfed back up the pipe. Niiiiiice.
This is ok, as I consider this a christening of my Westy as a water
cooled beast. --- ;^)
Figured out the position of heater core hoses. (I had it right the
first time but as a former air cooled owner, had no idea how they went
in)
And.......
The heat!!!! REAL heat!!!
Distant are the memories of newby camping in eastern WA scampering to
find a campsite... at 9 PM ..... late spring.... still some snow on
the road higher up and me with no heat desperately "white knuckling
it" trying to find the site that wasn't! (actually I found a nice
little lake side camp site)
Still have to install the gas tank, and wire up the rad fan, heater
control cable and a few other niggling details, but things are lookin'
good.
It starts/restarts after a few turns, the engine sounds fine, clutch
engages in all gears, there's no leaks, rad got warm-hot, pressure in
system, upper rad hose hotter than the bottom one which warmed up up
in due course. All good so far.
And did I mention the REAL HEAT? --- ;^)
Cheers,
Neil.
--
Neil Nicholson '81 JettaWesty "Jaco
http://groups.google.com/group/vanagons-with-vw-inline-4-cylinder-gas-engines
http://web.mac.com/tubaneil
http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/