Date:         Fri, 8 Jan 2010 10:47:44 +1300
Reply-To:     Andrew Grebneff <goose1047@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Andrew Grebneff <goose1047@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: My T3 website on PhotoBucket: V8 Bay disaster
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

> As has been mentioned.... I find picasaweb works great.
>
> Neat cradle for the Suby. Interesting to see the through bolt design.
>
> V8 Bay?  Wow!


It should've been great. Instead it was a disaster, because the guy
who did it turned out to be a cowboy (who was recommended to me to do
the job by the locally-well-known VW "guru").

He "rebuilt" the 4V engine (which is an 3.4 all-aluminum hemi (the
first hemi V8?) pushrod design from the late-70s-early-80s Toyota
Century, later increased to 4.0 and labelled 5V. Carbureted 4Vs were
apparently about 174hp; injected ones quite a bit more. Mine was
carbed) and told me not to worry about the noisy lifter as it'd
bed-in, and not to worry about it if a bit of steam came from the
bullbar-mounted Valiant radiator, as there was no catchtank and it
would blow off from the cap area. He couldn't get the advance-retard
to work (said it "worked backward") and there was no transition
between idle and go... it was either stall or rev & drop the clutch.
Slipping the clutch wouldn't work. So the 1.8 trans didn't last long
enough to get the Albins Elephant-geared 091 (another cowboy story,
but another cowboy) done in time to save the original trans.

So... about the first drive it began to blow steam onto the
windshield. I carried on, but it became really serious and when I had
to turn the wipers on it was obvious that something was wrong.
Stopping, I found that the pipe into the radiator was a piece of shiny
chromed vacuumcleaner pipe... slippery as and unswaged, and of course
it had come unclamped! How many times had it done this while Willie
Gardner had it in his hands? Reclamped it and the ancient radiator
blew its top tank. Had a big 3-row radiator made for it, cost a bunch,
and the noisy valve never quietened, which was worrying. It began to
burn oil... probably cooked before I even got it back from Willie!

Took it to a mechanic with a good reputation, got him to come as a
witness to Small Claims Tribunal, where Steve told the adjudicator
that everything Willie was saying was a lie, and won. Willie was
supposed to fix everything within a short time, but a year later still
had the van.. sitting in a gravel lot with the manifold-gasket off and
the engine open to windblown dust, as it had been sitting obviously
for a long time. He didn't rebuild it but had to replace the cam, as
the lobes had been worn almost right off. Took him back to the
Tribunal, this time without Steve, and got the same adjudicator, who
professed not to remember the previous hearing and who admitted to not
taking any notes. I "won" again, but only got $1300, which would cover
the stereo and 4-barrel Holley stolen while the van was back at
Willie's "Boats & Buggies" business. Meantime the van had developed
galloping rust in areas it had no rust before I first took it to
Willie (did he spray acid or salt into the seams?).

I pulled the engine and sold it as a rebuilder. The trans I sold at a
huge loss and the van was sold without either. This was over 10 years
ago, and at least the van's back on the road somewhere now.

Moral of story: do NOT trust recommendations as to who is a good
mechanic, or any other mechanical "advice" (another disaster I had, on
recommendation by mechanics, was a diesel Skyline).

-- 
Regards
Andrew Grebneff
Dunedin
New Zealand
Fossil preparator
Mollusc, Toyota & VW van fan