My engine investigation

Hopefully this is the right section to post this within,

Well, today I pulled the engine out of my beetle, It's a standard 1600 twinport and the engine number matches the year and the capacity. Reading this site has finally helped me understand the big flatspot the engine always had, yep, it has a 009 dizzy in it, so one mystery solved 🙂

First of all I discovered the source of the horrible exhaust leak, the right hand pipe on the extractors that goes into the right J pipe has a fairly big hole burnt through it where the clamp goes, the clamps on both sides were no longer there, and the right hand J pipe is quite loose at the head itself.

Next I looked for the source of the massive oil leak, this is proving to be elusive, there is no evidence of leakage from the case, the right hand rocker cover was missing most of its gasket, not sure if that could explain the oil pooling on the top of the engine however. The inlet ports of both heads were quite oily.

I pulled both heads off, the head nuts on the left hand bank were finger tight!!!!!! :o

Both heads appear to be stuffed, there are big cracks between the valves on every cylinder, the cylinder bores appear not to have any ridging so I'm hopeful the short block is actually OK.

I took a few photos, I need to find the cable for my phone though to get the photos off it, once I have I'll post em up in this thread.

Charlotte (My Beetles name, courtesy of my girlfriend 🙂 ) needs a fair bit of work, there's a bit of rust in the floorpan, and due to all the bracing that has been added when the previous owners turned her into a convertible I'm not sure what my options for fixing it are.

I'm really enjoying myself though 🙂 Already wondering what sort of Beetle to grab next once I have this one sorted out 🙂 Although I should really pay some attention to the 1955 DKW motorcycle I have been restoring over the last few years 🙂

90% of vw oil leaks come from either pushrod seals and/or rocker covers
but oil ontop of ur motor is generally oil cooler seals or a leaky breather/filler

the other place that leaks is the main seal but this is usaually accompanied by a slipping clutch
i spent ages getting my bug leak free it stayed that way for about 4-5 years but a car that sits unused in the garage most of the time will always start leaking eventually
i gave up and just throw a beer carton under it LOL
its mainly the crappy quality rocker and sump plate gaskets availble these days

-Joel

Thanks Joel, this one was kinda leaking when it went off the road originally, the clutch has never slipped so I'll concentrate on the breather, much apreciated the advice 🙂

joel pretty much summed it up - one thing i wasnt sure of is if a crack is not visiable in the case, is it possible that it would only leak whilst running ie: engine expanding, compression etc?

nick

I thought that might be a possibility, because at higher revs it would seem to leak more, but there doesn't even seem to be evidence of oil there, it's quite puzzling.

I went looking for my workshop manual when I started this and couldn't find it anywhere, I did however find the workshop manual I had for my 1962 beetle, published in 1959 for all beetles up to and including the 1959 model!!! 🙂

Well, I've stripped the engine down, the oil leak appears to be from the seal at the front of the crank, I've been told I have a dual oil relief casing? What is that exactly??

Brent,
It means you have dual oil pressure relief valves.
Are the head studs 8mm or 10mm. Different torque values for them.

Enjoy
Ctefeh

Is that a good thing? I'll have to measure the studs, but right now it's raining outside and I'm curled up on cushions in the lounge with a glass of red... so Apathy is pretty much the order of the afternoon 🙂

Hi Brent,
I sent You a couple of U2Us..

As the others have said, where the oil leaks from...
when doing the engine, best to renew the push rod tubes, not expensive, and use new pushrod tube seals
and use Permatex or Avaition Jointing cement on the push rod tube seals on both sides of the seals..
otherwise they will leak.... and they crack after a short time... see if You can get silicon ones...
cost more but the only good ones about...
I replaced mine but they never leaked even though they were badly cracked, so the gasket cement is a must..

most VW engines start leaking oil after being used...
as the difference between steel cylinders and alloy heads and case - expanding when hot & cooling down etc...

and careful fitting of tappet cover gaskets and engine oil change gasket kits... sometimes stop oil leaks...
Not all the time...? I haven't had any tappet cover oil leaks but the sump plate does leak very slightly...
Use a gasket kit every time You change the oil...
will stop the oil leaks for a while...

cheers

Lee

http://community.webshots.com/user/vw68autobug

brent wrote:Well, I've stripped the engine down, the oil leak appears to be from the seal at the front of the crank

Ahhhh, the isnt an oil seal there M8
The pulley is a close fit to the case with scroll machined into the pulley to kinda "work" any oil that gets past the oil slinger (which sits on the crank juist behind the front snout of the case) back into the case itself.

If you have oil chuffing from there then you have an engine oil breathing problem and the crankcase is pressurising slightly.

Most likely the breather box, which the oil cap attaches to, is clagged up with grunge or perhaps the breather vent pipe is clogged with oil/dust grunge.

L8tr
E

tassupervee wrote:

brent wrote:Well, I've stripped the engine down, the oil leak appears to be from the seal at the front of the crank

Ahhhh, the isnt an oil seal there M8
The pulley is a close fit to the case with scroll machined into the pulley to kinda "work" any oil that gets past the oil slinger (which sits on the crank juist behind the front snout of the case) back into the case itself.

If you have oil chuffing from there then you have an engine oil breathing problem and the crankcase is pressurising slightly.

Most likely the breather box, which the oil cap attaches to, is clagged up with grunge or perhaps the breather vent pipe is clogged with oil/dust grunge.

L8tr
E

Actually there is a seal in the front of the engine ,it keeps the oil behind the flywheel and prevents it from contaminating the clutch:beer

Tassy must be confused with the front as he owns one of those crazy Fvees with every thing back the front.
Also don't you dare use gasket goo on the ends of the pushrod tubes just a smear of grease in the tapered hole as this will let the tubes move slitely as the cylinders grow and shrink with heat.
Before refiting the new heads ensure that the seating surface on both head and barrels is perfect other wise you will end up with leaking compresion.
Also in relation to the head nuts that were loose , you quite possibly will find the head studs are pulling out of the case now the quick fix for this is to puchase what they call hungry studs which you just remove the old stud and fit the hungry stud (which has a slitely oversized thread on the case end ).
How ever the correct fix which is not that hard at the point you at is to fit case savers which are a form of helicoil of sorts and will be available from vw shops in your area along with hungry studs and gasket sets.
PS a good German gasket set will set you back approx $50.00 and i would 100% recomend you changing the oil cooler seals including the ones between the aluminium bracket and the cooler even if they don't look like there leaking because you can bet there old and hard and will leak soon

A Westwood wrote:Tassy must be confused with the front as he owns one of those crazy Fvees with every thing back the front.

Bwaaaahaha your right M8, my bad.
However, the pulley end of the engine is always the "front" to me regardless of which end of the car it faces.
Just the way I see it thats all!!

L8tr
E

[ Edited on 10/9/06 by tassupervee ]

Good on ya Tassy i new i'd get a good bite from a fellow Tasmanian even if i do live up here in the warmth these days heheheheheh

frikken...ricken ...***8fukk rikken......LMAO

hehehe good onya M8 but whats wrong with the cool.

A very nice thing here is that we have lots of WATER!!!!! Bwaaaahahahahaha

L8tr
E

Argh.... For such a apparently simple task this is turning into a nightmare.

I grabbed a cheap 1500 to put in the car whilst I save up for bits to rebuild the original engine.

Thing came out of a semi auto, which means I had to get the flywheel off my engine to put on the new engine. This turned into a nightmare, eventually a mate who rebuilds helicopter turbines came over with a kickarse torque wrench and took care of that.

Then, I couldn't get the pulleys off to swap the oil pumps, eventually a mate found a puller which got them off. Then I couldn't get the oil pumps out, so yesterday I bought an oil pump puller from classicveedub, then (being a thicko obviously) I couldn't figure out how to use it, fortunately when I rang classicveedub someone there was able to explain it to me (thanks heaps if its someone from here)

NOW the bloody oil pumps are different!! The one from my 1600 sits out too far..

*ARGH*

OK - there is dished and flat cams
it is the cam that drives oil pump.

You have a dished pump and need flat

What will one of those cost? I tried ringing classicveedub all morning but noone would answer the phone 🙁 Another week without the car.. 🙁