Date:         Tue, 25 May 1999 17:55:05 EDT
Reply-To:     KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Subject:      Need Advice on WB Piston replacement
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Well it happens to the best of us.  I have run into something that I have no
experience on so I would love to have some input from the List on this one.
Customer brought in '87 Wolfsburg Vanagon with no compression on number 3
cylinder.  I thought it might be dropped valve seat as the motor had
overheated at one point and I had seen this before with another customer's
van.  When I pulled the spark plug the electrode was bent and the gap was
full of aluminum (welded shut).  I figured that maybe a piece of valve had
broken off and banged around in the combustion chamber.
So I took the head off today.  The surface had a million little dings in it
and the valves were coated with aluminum.  There were pieces of aluminum in
the combustion chamber.  Then I looked at the piston.  It has a nice chunk
out of it like someone took a bite out of it and the piston walls are majorly
scored.  I am pretty postive that the rings are totally stuck to the piston
too.
So now I am wondering what to do.
1. Replace piston, cylinder, rings and head.  This is my first idea but I am
concerned that aluminum shavings have gotten down into the crank case past
the stuck rings and have already or possibly could do damage to the main
bearings etc.
2. Tell customer to send this motor off to get it rebuilt or get a rebuilt to
put in place of this one.
3. Rebuild the motor myself for the customer.  I could do this but I am
really too busy at the moment.
So what do you folks think.  Anyone experience a waterboxer with a broken
piston before?
This motor was a VW Factory Canadian rebuild with only 40k miles on it.  Do
you think the customer could try to get some money from VW?
Any help or advice would be appreciated.
Ken Wilford
Van-Again
John 3:16