Date:         Sat, 06 Jul 1996 23:42:20 -0600
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Dieter Dworkin Muller <dworkin@village.org>
Subject:      Gerbil engine replacement, part IV


Today I went out to the garage with the intention of putting on the
intake manifold and clutch, and then assembling the thermostat and
getting the fan housing in place.  Since the engine was oriented with
the muffler facing me to start, I decided I might as well put that
last piece of deck tin on first.  This took an hour.

How could it take so long?  Well, there was the problem of the chromed
tin from Scat not quite wanting to line up with the deck tin, plus the
heater box fresh air supply tubes not letting the tin slide into the
right place, and this large gap all along the rear edge of #4.  Most
of the problems simply required appropriate application of brute force
(i.e., bending/squeezing while simultaneously getting screws started).
The #4 gap was a bit more interesting.  Although both the cylinder tin and
the deck tin have holes for screws, neither has the welded-on nut the
screw goes into.  I ended up scrounging a bolt from one of the old
exhaust clamps, putting a couple of washers on it, and using that to
force the two pieces together.  Looks like it'll work, but it doesn't
seem like quite the right solution.

The intake manifold went on pretty easily.  Then I found out that the
carburetor from the old engine doesn't fit on the new manifold.  The
reason turns out to be that it was a 30-PICT1 instead of a 34-PICT3.
Fortunately, the other engine carcass I've got (the one that donated
the middle part of the intake manifold) had a 34-PICT3.  All I had to
do was deal with the missing mount stud (because the hole had been
stripped).  For now, there's goodly amount of permatex around the
gasket, and stud nut is roughly finger-tight.  If/when it comes apart,
I'll probably drill it out and put in a larger stud.  The other option
is to go with a heli-coil.  I'm still debating which would be better,
hence the lack of a real fix at this time.

Flipped the engine around, and put on the clutch.  This has been the
easiest step in all the proceedings so far.  Pulled the bolts off the
old engine, threaded them in and tightened them just enough to keep
the friction plate from moving under the influence of gravity, lined
up the holes (with two other people checking the alignment), and
torqued it all down using a criss-cross pattern.

About this time, a couple of people showed up that had said they were
going to help a while ago.  I got them started on cleaning and
assembling the thermostat vane parts, and went out to do some work on
the chassis.  Specifically, the tranny needed to be refilled (it'd
been leaking around the side covers, and although I'd tightened the
covers down, I hadn't done the greasy part yet), the starter replaced
(new engine has a 200mm flywheel, the old one was a 180), and install
new fuel lines.

Refilling the tranny is pretty easy with the engine out.  You sit in
the engine compartment, and reach forward a bit to poke the end of the
90 weight oil bottle into the fill port.  It was a little disturbing
to realize that I put just under a liter in, though.  This probably
has a lot to do with the popping out of gear problems I've had, rather
than poor quality work or parts from Trans-Form that I alluded to a
few weeks ago.

Changing the fuel line was straight forward as well.  I'd picked up
twelve feet of braided rubber line, plus some metal line.  Every time
I've pulled the engine in the past, either I remember to disconnect
the fuel line first (and get a gasoline shower), or space it, and get
a gasoline-covered driveway until I figure out what the gurgling and
splashing are all about.  Thus, I decided to reroute the fuel line
through the fixed bulkhead, rather than through the engine tin.
There's now a roughly 3/4" hole a couple of inches to the left of
where the front engine tin goes.  I deburred it with a file, and then
sprayed it with rust-converting primer to seal it.

The new fuel line runs over to the new hole, a piece of metal tubing
actually goes through the hole, then there's about five inches of
rubber tubing, the fuel filter, another several inches of rubber line,
and then a T connector.  One arm of the T goes to the gas heater, and
the other goes to the engine.  There are clamps at all connections.
Additionally, I cut some of the old rubber line length-wise, and
wrapped it around the metal line where it goes through the bulkhead.
I put a hose clamp at each end of the rubber padding.  This prevents
the rubber from coming off (thus no longer protecting the metal from
the bulkhead), and since there's a clamp on each side, it keeps the
padded part of the tube in the hole.

All this time, I've been getting requests to come look at how things
are going with the fan housing and thermostat.  About half-way through
mounting the new starter (it's in place, but not torqued down or
greased), my helpers declare themselves completely stymied.  Off I go
to investigate.

The initial problem is that the housing won't fit down all the way.
This is eventually traced to interference between the over tin and the
fan housing.  After significant amounts of metal-bending and lots of
test fittings, that problem is resolved.  The second problem is how to
connect the thermostat.  We concluded that it's not possible to do
that while it is bolted on below the cylinders.  This is mildly
annoying, as the piece of tin that needs to be removed was one of
those I had had to spring-load to get it on in the first place.  On
the bright side, now I know why the under tin on the right side is in
two pieces.

There were various other minor bobbles, like the tack-welded cooling
tin nut that twisted off while tightening a screw into it (it was
*not* one of the spring-loaded ones).  Overall, today was fairly
successful.  However, it shouldn't have taken twelve man-hours.  At
this point, I'd estimate that I'm losing between 50 and 67 per cent of
my work time to dealing with poorly-made stamped metal pieces.  This
is not a cost-effective situation.  I've just finished the third full
day of this two-day project, and have at least another full day still
to go.  Tomorrow's tied up with other commitments, so it'll have to
wait for another week.  *sigh*

	Dworkin