Date:         Tue, 7 Nov 95 11:41:27 PST
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Dave Kautz <dkautz@hpsidms1.sid.hp.com>
Subject:      Re: visit to GEX

  Many thanks to David Schwarze for reporting on his trip to GEX. His  
  observations are troubling, to say the least.

  I took a tour of AVP in Sacramento, CA last spring when I went up there
  to pick up my rebuilt long block. A friend of mine who used to work as
  an auto mechanic <he's a pilot for United now, go figure...> went with
  me as my "technical expert" 

  I didn't make much of a report to the list on this since it was the only 
  rebuilding shop I had ever seen and I didn't feel knowledgable on the 
  subject, but it may be more appropriate now in the context of David's
  observations of GEX.

  AVP is run by a husband & wife team, Leonard and Erin. They have several
  employees, at least one of whom has a german accent.  Leonard is a "factory
  trained" VW mechanic and worked at a dealer during the '60s. I have to admit 
  our first impression of the business was a little sceptical, the front of 
  the operation is a two bay service garage, with an office and parts counter
  attached. THEN, we were taken back into the shops. The service portion,
  is just the end of the building, the rebuilding operation is much larger.
  The shops are clean and well lit. The workbenches where Leonard was 
  showing us how the cylinder heads are re-done have rolls of paper mounted
  underneath which are fed up to the worksurface. Before placing a cylinder
  head on the work bench, a clean piece of paper was pulled out. The 
  welding area was very interesting. In addition to a very substantial
  TIG welder, there was also an oven. Leonard <who does the welding himself>
  claims that the parts must be preheated before welding for good results.
  A system of high temperature "crayons" <for lack of a better word> is
  used to determine the temperature of the part. Different colors melt 
  at different specific temperatures. The oven is also used to pre-heat 
  the heads to operating temperature before the valve seats are installed.
  The most impressive welding is what is done on the wasserboxer heads!
  I couldn't believe how corroded these heads were on the surface where they
  contact the rubber gasket. They grind out all the corrosion and then build
  the head back up with welding rod. The head is subsequently re-machined 
  flat and looks like new. They also grind out, weld and reshape an area
  near the spark plugs which he says in prone to cracking. After seeing
  the wasserboxer repairs, the welding on the air-cooled head looked "small
  time". The take out the valve seats, grind out the cracks, weld it all up
  and then re-machine. I only saw a few completed heads, but on those there
  was no visible evidence in the combustion chambers that welding had been
  done. The surfaces were very uniform. 

  The valve seats come from a domestic manufacturer. Leonard claims that he
  and Mark Stephens get their seats from the same outfit, but that they are
  not the same parts. The intake seat is made from hardened chrome-moly steel
  and the exhaust seat is made from hardened tool steel. The Stephens parts
  have an extra radius on the combustion side where he peens the head over.
  Leonard doesn't think this is a good idea since it reduces the area on
  the seat subject to the shrink fit.

  The machining done on the heads <valve seat pockets, etc,> is done in 
  fixtures attached to Bridgport milling machines, of which there are 
  several. I was hoping to see a huge press used to drive the valve seats 
  in, but this was not the case. They use a substantial fixture to support
  the head <it's HOT, remember>, the seat is placed on the end of a mandrel
  and the mandrel is beaten with a large hammer. After the seats are installed,
  the head goes back in the oven and is cooled gradually back to room
  temperature. Valve guides are silicon bronze and the valves are TRW. That
  didn't mean much to me, but my friend asked several questions about what
  brand of parts were used in various applications.

  There were other machining stations, the function of which I didn't under-
  stand as well. Align-boring is done with a long cyindrical device that
  appear to pilot off the case being machined. Flywheels are re-faced. AVP
  does not re-grind the camshafts or lifters in house. Apparently, the 
  equipment to do this correctly is quite expensive.

  Dirty core parts are hot-tanked and bead blasted in a far corner of the 
  shop. The assembly area, with the aforementioned paper covered workbenches
  is a seperate room. There is a clear intention in the shop layout to 
  seperate dirty processes from clean.

  Also impressive, but less important was the collection of core parts. I've
  never seen so many cylinder heads in one place. Huge bins of wasserboxer 
  heads, huge bins of type IV heads, all seperated by type and part number.
  <Did you know there are several versions of the wasserboxer head?>. 
  They have another warehouse which we didn't see where they store engine
  cases, crankshafts, flywheels, etc.. I asked about the supply of cores.
  Good used type I cases and 215 mm flywheels for 74-75 buses are the
  scarce items. Leonard was more interested in the flywheel I brought with
  my old engine <a 215> than any other part.

  The engine testing equipment was interesting. They have  device they 
  built themselves on to which the engine is installed and then rotated
  by a large electric motor. This allows them to bring up the oil pressure
  gently, without running the engine under it's own power. They use this 
  same device for the compression check. It wasn't clear to me whether this
  machine was only used for air-cooled engines or whether they also 
  checked water-cooleds on it too <AVP rebuilds both gas and diesel rabbit/
  golf engines too>. In the room with the milling machines they have the
  engine dynamometer, we didn't get to see it operate though. 

  On the more subjective side, I was impressed by both Leonard and Erin's 
  character. They struck me as honest people who take pride in what they 
  do. They spoke enthusiasticly and supportively of their employees, I
  think they understand the value of good people in providing a good 
  product. And they can't be all bad since they drive a Vanagon, right?

  On the objective side, the engine I bought from them in May has about
  4000 miles on it now. I have performed the maintenance per the 
  warranty agreement which included oil changes, valve adjustment and
  ignition timing checks at 300 and 1000 miles. AVP installs a little
  "heat button" on the engine case which, if you melt it, voids your 
  warranty. Mine is still intact, despite having driven up the mountain
  to Wailaki from Shelter Cove in August carrying the 5 Kautzes, Zoe
  the dog AND Bradley AND Swiss Al <Hubbard>! The engine is running 
  strong, quiet, valve clearances holding steady and it is leaking oil
  only from the pivot of the el cheapo Brazilian fuel pump that I put on.
  
  During the install of the motor. I found that my clutch wouldn't fit 
  the flywheel. My rebuilt had come with a 210mm flywheel, although we
  had discussed this both on the phone and again when I turned in the core.
  AVP sent me the correct one, it arrived the next day, asking only that I
  return the wrong one freight collect. They included a new lockring for the
  bolts which I would have otherwise overlooked. I'm convinced now that it
  was a genuine mistake since when I removed the offending flywheel I saw
  that it had been mis-marked as a 215 on the back side. 

  All in all I'm a happy customer for now. We'll just have to wait and
  see how long this engine lasts.


  Dave