Hi all,
I am the proud owner of a 74 Kombi which is now a family treasure. Early last year we had it straightened and resprayed, it looks and feels terrific. It looks far nicer now than in the photo below, brand new in fact.
It's not a camper, but it's the family "getaway" car and on a trip to the Prom at Easter we lost a cylinder, then two coming home! The problem was identified by a mechanic as "buggered heads". They were tested
with ultra sound somehow.
I have NEVER lifted the bonnet of a car before, but I have been encouraged by this forum and the large VW community to have a go at overhauling the engine myself.
I have been given some great advice on these pages (oven cleaner for cleaning parts, Jax for reco'd heads!) during the months since I started so I thought I'd start a thread showing you the reassembly as it draws closer! I travel quite a lot with work so work is sporadic, and I will probably not lift a torque wrench for another month.
In the mean time I am hoping that my project is of interest to some of you and perhaps get a few more tips from those of you more experienced.
Adrian
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Here is the case, all shiny shiny.
A pile of tin. You can see the masking tape labels telling me where to put everything back!
"New" heads from Jax. Ready to bolt on.
I took all this lot to the car wash near my place and used that hi pressure soap spray thing to clean them. It works great.
This is a box full of questions! I plan to take this stuff to a VW mechanic and ask his advice on what needs replacing / what is missing / what oil to use etc.
Push rods and tubes . . . . .
Coil and electrics box . . . . .
This is the original dizzy and a bosch 009 I plan to use instead.
Another question for the experts. These 2 cylinders have cracked fins. Only one of these was not working in the car though and a mechanic mate (not a VW guy) suggested that they might be OK as the crack does not encroach upon the gasketed surface. Does that sound right?
Anyway, there's installment 1. Got some parts to get, gasket kit and the like befor I begin the reassembly. I will post new pics as I go. I will also take some more pics of the van itself as it looks shmick now and is my pride and joy. Hope you are interested!
the small amount of cooling fin damage shouldnt bother you.
have fun with the build. Building up the long block is pretty straight forward. After that, the order of operations gets frustrating. When you bolt the fan housing on, and the fan and realise you cant get the oil cooler tinware in. Or you put the pushords tubes in, nice and neatly sealed, set all the valves... and then realise you havent put the under cylinder deflector tin in. Thats when you learn to swear better than you ever thought possible. I think there may be a thread somewhere listing a few of these common "doh"s.
Its all a learning experience, things you only screw up once.
Some thoughts:
Is it some funky optical illusion or are those pistons domed? Domed pistons would raise your compression ratio significantly if everything else is stock. (stock pistons are dished).
The 009 distributor is generally regarded as a poor alternative to the stock distributor, particularly for a kombi b/c it doesn't have vacuum advance.
Consider replacing the camshaft with a higher performance cam and matching lifters. I had my engine reco'd professionally and deeply regret not getting this done at the time!
When the glorious day arrives, remove the distribbutor cap and turn the engine over for 20-30 sec to pump oil around the engine before you start it.
Good luck,
Martin.
i run the 009 on my t4 powered bug and have never had a problem with them unlike other people. the main point is they have to be set up right for your application most people pull them out of the box and expect them to work. for the cam i suggest talking to richard at vforce about a cam and lifters
“We all pay for life with death, so everything in between should be free.” Bill Hicks
the chaos project - click me
Best of Luck...
it looks 10 times more complicated than a beetle engine..
As was pointed out... the 009 is NOT a good distributor..
its used as the vacuum ones are too expensive to replace..
I saw a dizzy vacuum can for sale in the USA for a bit over $1000US.... [yesterday]
I don't know what it fitted but it must have been rare...
more common vacuum cans can be bought new in the USA...
Vacuum advance distributors are the way to go....
009s were never used by Volkswagen on any of its vehicles... they have to be timed at maximum advance 30-32 degrees with the engine revving....
this is beacause they aren't accurate enough to static time
Good to see you found how to post pics...
Lee
- Helping keep Air Cooled VWs on the road - location: SCONE in the Upper Hunter Valley - Northern NSW 320 kms NNW of SYDNEY---
Yes i also saw the domed high compression pistons...
these were used on early imported type 3 1500S..
only air cooled VW that I know of that used them...
Lee
- Helping keep Air Cooled VWs on the road - location: SCONE in the Upper Hunter Valley - Northern NSW 320 kms NNW of SYDNEY---
Personally in my opinion I would be fitting a distributor with vacuum advance, as per the original. An original reconditioned unit would be a better unit in my opinion and experience.
You'll no doubt be gettting the impression that everybody hates 009's and they are pieces of crap. If you go to a car show you will see 75% of all VW's have a 009. I too would use the standard one if I had one, but I have ran a 009 before without any problems.
If you set it up with 32 degrees total, you should be right, if not give the accelerator pump a little tweak for that bit of extra fuel off idle. No probs.
Well, I didn't mean to open the 009 can of worms. This is the type of stuff I was hoping for though. Passionate people with an opinion, great stuff!
I had read on TheSamba web site some posts from people who said the prefer the 009. I also have the John Muir book (I would not have gotten even this far without it!) and he loves em! So I thought I was doing the right thing when I saw a cheap new one on ebay. Now I think I might clean up the original and keep the other as a spare.
Yes, the pistons have a dome in the middle and I think everything else is stock. Should that change anything? Special gaskets or tuning or ???
adfit11 wrote:Yes, the pistons have a dome in the middle and I think everything else is stock. Should that change anything? Special gaskets or tuning or ???
The stock kombi arrangement (for a 2l but AFAIK the 1700/1800 are very similar) is a piston with about a 13cc dish, about 50cc in the head chamber and another few cc in the deck (distance between the top of the piston and the top of the cylinder at top dead centre giving a C/R of about 7.5:1. If you then change the the dish to a dome (and don't change anything else) you have removed about 26cc from the total which is going to bump your compression ratio through the roof (over 11:1)!
You will either need to change to dished pistons or remove a lot of material from the head and/or run a big deck to get the compression back down.
As to what is a good compression ratio there are two schools of thought. Go with stock (or lower) to give you long engine life but low power/economy or increase the compression to get more power/economy. The caveat with increasing compression is that it is done as part of a complete package with better flowing heads, new cam, new exhaust. If I was you I would stick with stock or close to it.
Another titbit of info is that the AMC heads do not need a head gasket. To make up for the width of the gasket they have a 26 thou step machined into the top of the chamber. Any spacers required to modify deck height are added to the bottom of the cylinders.
Cheers,
Martin.
Where did this engine come from? Are they VW pistons or is there something else with a 94mm piston that has been adapted to fit? I'm assuming it was running with those pistons on it before. If you need to, you can take the pistons to any machine shop and they can turn that raised section off. But what people arent thinking about us that they have not measured the deckheight at all, perhaps the non raised section of these pistons is lower than on a regular piston. I'm not saying it definitely is, but it is possible that using these pistons as they are now could in fact give you less compression than standard. What is the height of the piston crown to the gudgeon pin and how does that compare to a regular piston? How far if any have the heads been flycut? that could bump compression up. There is only one way to tell without guessing what the CR will be and that is measure everything. Then you can fudge things to a degree with head gaskets, using 2 regular ones or copper ones, under barrel spacers, machining pistons....
If you haven't found them already, make sure you check out the type 4rum on shoptalkforums.com and
http://www.tunacan.net/t4/howto/starting/ (its mainly about converting type 4 for upright, but still has useful info: like using stock distributor over 009s!). You'll find some more links from there these sites as well.
And if you end up splittting the case, I'd also put a mild cam in it (keeping the rest stock) for a bit of extra go and if you feel really adventous think about porting your heads a bit! Electronic ignition to replace the points in your stock or 009 distributor is also not a bad thing.
Thank you to everyone for your continuing support. I am constantly overwhelmed by the spirit of VW owners and lovers.
First, to be social, here is a photo of me so you know who I am (and because I can't make that avatar thing work).
and here is Roo Boy. Named because it is North Melbourne colours. You'll see that there's a marked difference from the "before" picture above. (Please note however the Richmond 2007 membership sticker on the rear window).
OK. I have decided upon the dizzy. Now it would seem I have piston concerns.
The pistons are the ones that were in the car already. I mentioned that I think everything else is stock, simply because I don't know any different and the muffler is certainly original.
I am reluctant to split the case open. That would seem a whole other project to me, one that I do not think my skills or budget will stretch to.
So my first choice is to leave them just as they are. Can I ask if anyone reckons that is simply not an option? They did work before, but could that be the reason the heads wore out? The fella at Jax heads did not mention that the ones I exchanged had been altered to suit domed pistons.
Neither have I unseated the pistons from the cylinders. Compression tested perfect on all cylinders prior to the trip on which we broke down, am I stupid not to do the rings regardless?
You guys might be able to tell from this photo if these are stock cylinders. They have a number painted on the edge.
I have measured the distances too. The cylinders have a very small bevel around the outside edge. Then the piston is all the way OUT, the edge aligns perfectly with the inside of this bevel. When the piston is all the way IN, the distance to the inside of that bevel is 66mm on all cyls.
You can also see a bit of a ding in one of the cylinders. I think this is old though as there was no valve damage.
If it worked before with those pistons, it will work again...
Free bump
Pay your debts, CxxT
You need to work out the compression ratio before you bolt it together. You have done the hard bit already which is getting engine out and unbolting the heads! Now you need the stroke, bore, deck height, head chamber volume and the volume of the dome. You have measured the stroke (66mm). The bore is the width of the cylinder. The deck height is the distance between the top of the cylinder and the top of the piston when the piston is at top dead centre plus the height of the step you will probably have in those AMC heads (probably 26 thou). You can measure the head chamber volume accurately enough for a quick and dirty estimate using a syringe and water. Spread some soap or detergent around the chamber to break the surface tension, make sure the head is level then add water up to the top of the step. The dome volume is trickier to do but you can estimate it as a truncated cone knowing the diameter of the top and base and its height. Once you've got all these figures, pump them into a compression ratio calculator like:
http://www.dunegoon.org/compression.html
Let us know how you go!
Cheers,
Martin.
PS. I gather you are in Melbourne. If you are close to Box Hill I might be able to slip away and give you a hand.
How much end float does it have? That would give you an indication of whether the bottom end needs to come apart. That plus any gritty bits in the oil that came out or resting in the strainer cover plate. I would probably pull the barrels off and reseal them at a minimum.
Alright. Thanks to all of you so far. I have some things to think about and some parts to get. I am pressed for time to work on the van for a while so will only get dribs and drabs done. I will post again when I have some more to show so if you see this bump, then take another look. Thanks again. (Martin check U2U).
