Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 00:05:46 -0700
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: Dennis Gentry <dennis@cpac.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Garage near Palo Alto: in RWC, Fred's vs. the BUGgie Works
In December 93, Fred's garage in Redwood City installed a
rebuilt engine in my friend's 80 Westfalia for about $2,300.
(Even though I told him we'd have much more fun rebuilding it
together! :) In September 94, I bought the Westy from him, but
didn't drive it much. Finally, a month or so ago, its abnormal
lack of pep (which had been present since I bought it) started
to annoy me so I did a tuneup which resulted in little
improvement. Next I checked the compression. Zero on number
one, ugh. I checked with Fred's and they wouldn't do any kind
of warranty or cut-rate work on it, even though the engine had
15K miles, tops, and had only been driven for 8 months. I also
know and explained to them that the oil had been changed
regularly and the former owner knows how to sensibly drive an
air-cooled VW (i.e., shift correctly).
I took it to the BUGgie Works, a small shop just a block north
of Fred's, where Paul (the proprietor, as far as I can tell)
pulled the motor and found the problem--a sucked valve seat
(which, incidentally, one could easily find with the motor
installed just by laying a straightedge along the valve
stems--the valve with the sucked seat will be sticking out
significantly, like maybe a 1/2 to 1cm. We should have thought
of that when we got the zero compression on that cylinder,
although it wouldn't have saved any time or money, just a little
early uncertainty).
Paul says that rebuilt (as opposed to new) heads are prone to
this problem since new valve seats get welded in at rebuild
time. We installed a couple of new heads and it's happily
running great, but I'm not too pleased with the quality of the
engine, or response I got from Fred's when it crapped out. I
would definitely recommend the BUGgie Works over Fred's, even
though the BUGgie works is a smaller shop.
Dennis
P.S. Advice from the gurus please: Would you have installed two
new heads like I just did, or would you have stuck with the
not-yet-failed rebuilt head that was on there, with a new one to
replace the sucked-seat head? Two brand new heads were pretty
steep, but I figured it'd save me an engine R&R some time soon
if Fred's used the same place to rebuild both heads. I did the
clutch while we had it apart, too. Did I go overboard?
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