Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:31:15 -0700
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: a newbie with some problems: hissing 2.1 L WBX and thrown belt
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one slight problem with retorquing waterboxer head nuts - you'd be breaking
a seal to do that.
When assembling.........you use sealant on the dry nuts on an engine with no
coolant in it.
I don't think re-torquing is a normal operation on waterboxer head nuts.
and come to think of it............I'll be the studs do stretch , like they
have some elasticity built in.
and............there's this to consider.......
on a 'normal engine' with a normal real headgasket - a large flat thing with
layers of material that's being compressed by the flat head squeezing it
down onto the flat engine block.......
and usually pretty hefty head bolts or studs too...........there is the
feeling that you could compress that multi-layer head gasket more and get a
tigther seal there.........so retorquing makes sense.
on a waterboxer..........you are not torquing down on a compressible
'normal' head gasket.
you are torquing down on the metal rings that sit on top of the barrels.
Those are not goinng 'compress more' if you re-torque the heand nuts, or
barely they might, the tiniest bit.
And of course you're not torquing down on the watergaskets..........the
silly outer water retention rubber gaskets.
their degree of comperssion is determined by the 'step distance' between
where the metal ring sits in the compbusion chamger and the bottom of the
head. In other words..........the head bottoms out on the rings on top of
the barrels,
and the rubber gaskts are suppossed to be compressed just the right amount.
And besides....if you did really munch down on those, they just split and
squeeze out of the gap there and leak.
and they WILL split after a while if compressed to far in the first place -
which would be from not having the 'step distance' I just mentioined right.
you put it together very, very carefully, with quality materials - I use
Toyota sealant on the water gaskets for example.
you use really good coolant in it in the right mixture, and you change that
every two years religeously.
you make sure it runs up to proper temp ( like not too cool ) and you drive
it nicely. That's about all you can really do.
Until it needs head gaskets again in 80,000 miles or so.
scott
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris S" <szpejankowski@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 5:33 AM
Subject: Re: a newbie with some problems: hissing 2.1 L WBX and thrown belt
> On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 12:09 AM, Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Your right, the head studs on the waterboxer do not pull out like they
>> did
>> on the air cooled engines. They do stretch though and their failure is
>> the
>> real reason you get the internal combustion gas leaks into the cooling
>> system.
>>
>
>
>
> Years ago I suggested that periodic re-torquing of the heads would help to
> reduce possibility of leaks. Could I have been right?
>
> Chris S.
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