Date:         Tue, 3 Jan 1995 10:03:06 -0800 (PST)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         David Schwarze <schwarze@superc.nosc.mil>
Subject:      Re: motor swapping

Chris Schalick writes:
> 
> Would I need, say, a garage full of large red tool chests and heavy
> equipment to pull this off or is this something that is more or less part 
> replacement?  

The tool chests would help.  Another Chris mentioned that the 1835 "kit" uses
the stock stroke, which means you wouldn't have to split the case, but you
still have to drop the engine and remove the heads.

> I've never dropped the engine in a bus (or actually anything larger than my
> lawn mower), so I am speaking from my wealth of inexperience here, but I 
> thought there was some machining involved in the big bore beefups.

You would probably have to have the heads flycut to fit the larger bore
cylinders but that's not a big deal.  If you don't have them already, you
should probably go to dual port heads with bigger valves to take advantage
of the extra displacement.  A machine shop could take care of all of this
for you for a few hundred dollars.  Money well spent, IMO.

This would not be a simple or fast project, but there is nothing that hard
about it either - just  a lot of work.  If you have the time, I would
recommend it - it's great experience, and I think you would be happy with
the results.

> Any good novels/resources/FAQs about this kind of job out there?

My favorite book is "How to Rebuild your Air Cooled VW" - the large red HP
book.

-David

=============================================================================
David Schwarze			'73 VW Safare Custom Camper (Da Boat)
SAIC Comsystems, San Diego	'73 Capri GT 2800 (Da Beast)
schwarze@nosc.mil		'87 Mustang Lx 5.0 (Da Bruiser?  Soon...)
=============================================================================