Restoration Project: '68 VW Beetle (o\ _!_ /o)

[AsadIshaque]

In my opinion, this flywheel shall live with the overhauled engine. Does not seem too bad to me.

Just wanted to add something.....

The original bolts holding the pressure plate to the flywheel are important. Here you can see three original and three 'desi' bolts.

Original bolts are designed to tolerate the torque necessary for tightly fitting the pressure plate in place.

[reezvaan]

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[AsadIshaque]

The starter motor and oil cooler side by side. Both seem to be in good shape on inspection.

This starter is the most desirable type amongst VW mechs here. Earlier ones were a bit longer in size.

The oil cooler shall be cleaned out good with solvents and checked for any leakage etc. Im confident it would pass the test as it was bone dry on the engine. Good.

The oil cooler is a 'small passage' one. VW offered several oil coolers over the years which we can divide basically into the 'doghouse' and 'non-doghouse' varieties. This is the latter kind.

[AsadIshaque]

@AsadIshaque

As stated earlier on my thread, @murtaz_murti has been doing a wonderful job and we, Vdubbers, most definitely, commend it. He is bringing another VW back to road snatched of the claws of the bloody scrappers. Hail his resolve!

About the positive criticism, we are on it, aint we?

Good luck with the engine rebuild (it is a horror episode, seeing all those pictures that you have put up detailing out the horror)

Thanks for your appreciation.

Yes your criticism is positive indeed and I do look forward from hearing anything you see which doesn't look right. Maybe we miss something and your comment helps us put it right/better.

[AsadIshaque]

Some of the engine tin/shields.

This engine was missing about half the shields. Again, whatever these Bl@@dy idiots cannot understand, they toss away. They are all there for a purpose and its called "cooling".

The 'cylinder tins' pulled off this engine have bad rust damage. Not an easy part to locate for the dual port heads. If we dont find replacements we'd have to do with them.

The fan shroud is decent.

We plan to powdercoat all sheet metal for durability, great heat transfer properties and good stock looks. No gola-ganda colors, just plain stock flat black.

[AsadIshaque]

The heat exchangers.....

These have been screwed up by some genius. I guess he removed the outer jackets as they may be loose and causing a bit of a racket on the running engine. If you can't fix it, ruin it. Another one of our National Traits.

We may end up reusing these as finding good heat exchangers is a bit of a problem. We will not have running heaters on this bug since for that, a body off is required with heater channel repair.

Scrappers love this part. It yields a lot of 'silver', an alloy you see here with which the fins are made of. This sells for good money.

Rare chance to learn the anatomy of the heat exchanger here with the garments off. A real VW p@rn clip!

[AsadIshaque]

Now lets see what the tear down of the actual engine reveals.......

This engine was fitted with the desirable dual port cylinder heads. Who ever rebuilt it used a hotch potch collection of parts. His genius reveals further as we proceed with the tear down.

The part numbers confirmed them to be 1600cc units as per one of my reference books. Shall reconfirm as I also had the 1300cc dual port head in mind as another possibility, though these are much rarer.

[AsadIshaque]

We discovered with horror that one of the cylinder heads had a missing, yes missing altogether, stud.

Each VW cylinder head is held on by 8 long studs. These are torqued down to exact torque specs in a specific sequence. If you have half a brain and are familiar to VWs you may want to follow what the recommendations are. Of course our engine was rebuilt in the past by an idiot, so he's excused and immune.

The missing stud had its through opening in the crankcase open to the elements. A LOT of crap must have been sucked into the engine via this.

[AsadIshaque]

This is what makes a dual port head a dual port.

Notice the spot where the missing stud was......no marks to show that a nut n washer were tightened there.

On a positive note, all the spark plug threads were in good shape.

[AsadIshaque]

Our engine had a single port intake manifold on when it should have had a dual port one. If anyone has any leads to a dual port manifold please let us know as we need one.

The single port manifold was bolted on courtesy of these conversion pieces you see here. Neat stuff.

[AsadIshaque]

The valves were a mess. A real and terrible mess. A time bomb waiting to go off.

Looking at these, I was glad we took the decision of a tear down. This feeling was due to be repeated as we went along.

Valves are held onto the cylinder head by a pair of 'catchers'/keepers each along with a spring and special washer. Take a good look at the valve stem circled in red. This was the worst one. The grooves had worn almost off. Had this engine been run, very soon this valve would have traveled into the cylinder and punched a hole in the piston top at least.

The picture is not very well focused though it should give an idea.

This was not all. All the valve springs had been fit upside down. Yes, upside down. There was lots of play in the valve guides too. All the valves were used reconditioned items taken off various cars. Junk to be exact.

[AsadIshaque]

Speaking of upside down things......All four pistons had been installed the wrong way :o

On most car pistons, there is an arrow on the top. This arrow is supposed to point towards the flywheel. Now if you have basic orientation with the VW engine, you would realize the flywheel is at the front, yes the FRONT of the engine. When you pop up the rear hood and admire your engine, remember you are looking at the rear/back side of the engine. People make this fundamental mistake.

Now, our mechanic bhais think that the frigging arrow points towards the rear of the car. They never know it points towards the flywheel, wherever it may be. Ive seen this done before so I was not surprised, just disgusted.

Installing the pistons the wrong way puts abnormal stresses as the pistons rock side to side, out of balance.

The bores on the cylinders were shot. Most probably we shall be needing to replace them altogether since sleeves are not very advisable on the VW engine. You can see a lot of damage in this pic if you look closely.

Also, water had found way in the cylinder bores.....

We shall wait what the machine shop says about the cylinders and pistons, whether they can be used or not.

[AsadIshaque]

Check out the excessive gap between the piston and cylinder walls. You can actually see it. One felt it as a massive side to side movement.

[AsadIshaque]

We proceeded to take apart the crankcase halves. I enjoyed being a 'chota'/ apprentice that day as I was there. Did not have my camera then or would have caught the action. Anyway, you get your hands so very oily you cannot do anything, let alone handle a camera. I wore good latex gloves, wise choice if you want protection

The camshaft looked ok as far as the bearings (last pic) and lobes went.

However, something had been moving around in this engine, grit, metal piece or something. See the face for deep marks cut into. The gear mesh surface had three or four breaks, probably from something getting caught in between.

The cam is probably reusable but we'd think it over.

[AsadIshaque]

The engine oil pump.

One of the items we could reuse. It did have signs of wear but is probably reusable after some TLC. We'd think it over as brand new pumps may be available at the moment and this is a crucial part of the engine as lubrication to each component depends on its optimal function.

You can also see the push rods and cam followers in the above pics. We hope to reuse most if not all of these.

Fortunately, the push rod tubes (not seen in above pics) also look good. They shall be checked over thoroughly as they can leak oil and cause a real mess

[AsadIshaque]

Now our worst discovery........:o

The crankshaft was on its last undersize....... It needs replacement. The main and big end areas had scouring too, thanks for the cocktail being run in place of good clean engine oil.

I tried several times to capture the numbers written on the main bearing surface showing the last undersize.

[AsadIshaque]

The crank and camshafts together.....

[AsadIshaque]

Our worst discovery had its sidekicks too.

The con rods, real cons here. Now the genius who had put together this engine, had done a really lousy job in this area. To make up for wear on the rods big end surfaces, he had put this copper foil to bring them to specs. We discovered two of these, look at the thin half circles at the bottom. These were put before two of the big end bearings went on.

Now, these copper foils can be used on most car engines but NOT on a VW aircooled motor. Definitely not.

We saw and appreciated its effects too. The rods had been hammered out of shape. If you took the big end apart, a refit was hard work because the round shape had been hammered to an oval. I hope you follow?

I can take some more pics to explain what Im saying if someone is interested to learn.

At least two of these were junk. Big time, all the way. Super junk.

[AsadIshaque]

The crankcase halves taken apart.

The good news was the case looked very good. We still have to show it to the machine shop for his nod of approval after checking the bearing surfaces and alignment.

Note the use of RTV silicone gasket sealant to join the cases. The VW engine should NOT be sealed with this crap. Unfortunately its a hot favorite with the local mechs who find it a band aid solution for everything.

[AsadIshaque]

Forgot to add.....

One of the main bearings had come loose as the round hole which sits snugly on a dowel pin was worn oval.

This, combined with our discoveries on the connecting rods was the cause of the play we felt on rotating the engine initially while it was in one piece.