Itinerant Air-Cooled

Posted: **Wed Aug 26, 2009 4:45 pm**

yeah I just got a phone call that code enforcement has found the Thing and it must be gone by Monday.....I goin to get it for $1000. I'm so excited I could turn inside out......

Posted: **Wed Aug 26, 2009 5:07 pm**

Sweet! I'm jealous...always wanted a Thing after riding around in one (through the Yucatan jungle) back in 1980. We had 4 adults and 4 kids packed-in, just like a convertible clown car!

Posted: **Sat Aug 29, 2009 11:34 am**

Ok it's in my yard and the engine is NOT locked up!!!!! that's all I know so far must eat lunch....

Posted: **Sat Aug 29, 2009 7:00 pm**

The engine cleaned up nicely, I'm wondering about the red rear engine tin....
It spins, and with a fresh battery it cranks, but sounds like it has little if any compression. :( Will pull plugs and do comp test tomm., maybe adding oil will make it have enough compression to run.

It's been rear ended and the engine cover replaced.

The power washer took most of the brown painted stripe off. It has 11 yr old brand new Fun & Mud Radials!

Note outta control tomato plants n the background!

58K miles!
I'm very pleased with my score! But I didn't get the bonus bench grinder.

Posted: **Tue Sep 01, 2009 10:37 am**

Turns out the engine is a 71 Bus engine AE code and its coming out today....

Posted: **Tue Sep 01, 2009 10:48 pm**

And this is what I found.....

I dont think this is good....ha ha

This is the opposite piston and cylinder....

This is the piston with the problem rod.

The rod, see how the end is darkened, the rod bearing was knocking, and this why the rod failed.

The weird thing is the crank gear that drives the cam is stripped too. this explains why it had no compression on any cylinders. I guess it thru the rod and they kept driving it till the gear stripped, the crank is hard to turn in the case I think it's bent too.

Posted: **Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:03 am**

I just got back from getting my Thing it's hopefully new engine. I found a 69-70 single port bus engine used for $300, I'm gonna swap to the dual port heads and run it.

any advice on doing this swap?

Posted: **Thu Sep 17, 2009 12:35 pm**

cold beer and warm tools....

Posted: **Thu Sep 17, 2009 1:36 pm**

Gypsie wrote:cold beer and a warm tool....

What?!?!?

Posted: **Thu Sep 17, 2009 3:17 pm**

I don't regularly drink, so I sure shouldn't if I want this Thing to run. I spent the day splitting the case and it appears I've bought a freshly rebuilt short block with some very low mileage pistons and cylinders...!!!! The case may be a new 0 mile case, as its got no numbers stamped in it. I found several things during the disassemblely that point to this conclusion....Plus the bearings are all new. This engine had sat on the floor on top of another engine of the shop I got it out of for at least the past 20 yrs from the amount of oily dust on top of it. The shop also has a 74 bug that's sat in the same spot since 78 and only has 20K miles on it, and a 79 Porshe 944 turbo that got 9K and has been on a lift since 90.....They have lots of NOS VW parts too.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/B ... directlink picture

Itinerant Air-Cooled

I've found a Thing!

What it looks like cleaned up!

I took the engine out and apart, not good.

single port to dual port head swap in my furture....