Date:         Thu, 4 Jan 96 09:47:43 +0100
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         verbeek@the-hague.stbv.slb.com (brian verbeek)
Subject:      Re: Teflon Piston buttons.

A few weeks back i posted about the 1600 Transporter/Vanagon
engine i aquired, in this engine there was only one piston
that had its clips still in place, i haven't checked rod-straightness
yet. All clip-grooves of the other three pistons were badly damaged,
one clip had worn through more than half of the cylinder wall, two
grooves more than 1mm deep. I've seen it earlier in two other (in 9
Yrs. of VW) 1600s, one on the #3 cylinder, the other one i don't know
anymore, but not on a #3. Replacing the wireclips with circlips is possible,
but i guess it's important that the circlips are made of wire as well
so that they will seat well in the clipgrooves, to prevent wear.
The Teflon Buttons are offered by several US VW parts-houses, they
should eliminate all risk of losing an engine due to a failing or
wrongly installed clip. They fill the hole in the side of the piston,
the clips can be left out. I only wondered if they had any side-effects,
like, how wearresistant are they? Is it a bad thing to have against your
cylinderwalls?

Mr. Bob Hoover wrote me:
---

Regarding piston-pin retainer clips, in more than thirty years of repair
Volkswagens I've seen only two incidents involving a failed retainer,
although I've heard of numerous cases.  Since I've never had a failure on any
of the engines I've built I'm reluctant to go to Teflon plugs since the clips
are obvioiusly doing their job, at least for me.

-Bob

---

Brian.



> From Claralw@aol.com Wed Jan  3 21:05:26 1996
>
> On Tue, 2 Jan 1996, brian verbeek wrote:
> 
> > Having seen a lot of failed pistonclips in VW flat fours,
> > i decided that i'm going to use the Teflon Piston Buttons,
> > any reason why i shouldn't? I have no experience with
> > them, they are fairly uncommon on this side of the ocean,
> > i know they are available in different sizes. Are there
> > quality differences between the several brands/suppliers?
> 
> and Bradley wrote:
> 
> I had that problem on my '66.  As you may know, the P/C set 
> comes with wire clips.  So I bought some cir-clip type to replace them.
> I guess they worked... only had them in about 15k miles.  But then I had 
> the wire ones break within about 20k miles.
> 
> -----
> 
> I never had a piston pin clip break, in i dont know how many 10k miles.
>    Actually i never heard of it before.  It cant be that common.
> 
> whats a teflon button?
>