Itinerant Air-Cooled

Just towed this beauty home today.

It's a 1979 Transporter that was imported to California and has all of the California specific exhaust/computer/elec ignition stuff on it, exactly like my current bus.

The story goes like this. The local German repair shop in town only works on Mercedes and Porsche, but they built up a T4 engine for a friend of theirs bus a few years back. The friend needed some money and they needed a block for a Porsche 912 they were working on.

They didn't need the heads or the P and C, just the block itself. The bus was running and driving daily until it was robbed for the block. Thankfully the mechanic that built up the engine also removed this one, and in doing so labeled and bagged up *everything*. The loose wires in the bus are labeled as well. Every nut and bolt appears to have been carefully bagged up.

The body is pretty bad. It's been repainted from red to blue at some point, then rolled green on top of that. it's coastal rust, so it's lovely underneath and rust around all the windows, drip rails and the battery tray.
Came with early westy interior, late westy seats and a westy stool.

ok, here's some pics.













$400


It was originally purchased as a parts vehicle, but it's so close to being back on the road again I don't think I can do it.

I have a hydraulic cam, a 2.0 crank, lifters and pushrods.

If I just had a block and some bearings id damn near have everything to build it back up and drive again. More on that later, I had a tooth extracted today as well and am really groggy.

I've got a 2L case sitting on a shelf in my garage in Portland, was a running engine until I lost a lifter going to Maupin back in ’09. Needs cleaning up & cleaning out .. crank & rods same story. PM me if you're interested, maybe we can work something out. I'm not planning any trips south before Maupin this year but there's UPS...

Wow a 79! It sure would be fun to get that one running and body fixed!

Can't part that out! Get started on sourcing a longblock and go from there.

Franken bus!

airkooledchris wrote: I have a hydraulic cam, a 2.0 crank, lifters and pushrods.

If I just had a block and some bearings id damn near have everything to build it back up and drive again.

Be sure to get quality bearings, and good luck in sourcing them. I believe it was the difficulty in sourcing quality bearings that was one of the factors which prompted Raby to start looking for alternative engines to specialize in.

The Silverline bearings are worthless. Out-of-round right out of the box.

SlowLane wrote:

airkooledchris wrote: I have a hydraulic cam, a 2.0 crank, lifters and pushrods.

If I just had a block and some bearings id damn near have everything to build it back up and drive again.

Be sure to get quality bearings, and good luck in sourcing them. I believe it was the difficulty in sourcing quality bearings that was one of the factors which prompted Raby to start looking for alternative engines to specialize in.

The Silverline bearings are worthless. Out-of-round right out of the box.

I think there are plenty of good bearings now again. Jake sourced a ton of them finally and has them in the store. I don't remember which are the good ones but they have the Mahle and the Kolbenschmidt ones....


We certainly aren't in a position to be tackling a project like building an engine. It just isn't in the budget, but I really want to put this back on the road so I think it might be time to start selling and swapping parts for the bits I need. I have that blue VAG timing machine that the dealership used, the rare yellow T2 manual, a complete BA6 setup and (if I have to) a full length roof rack to trade/sell to fund this project.

Last night I checked the parts stash and I definitely have a stock grind hydraulic camshaft and crank, pushrods and lifters. I had originally labeled all of the pushrods carefully - along with the lifters to know where they all went, but sadly that was almost 5 years ago now and my markings are pretty difficult to read on most all of them. Ive heard that if you re-use them you want them all to go back where they were before, but hopefully I can weasel my way out of that. The cam hardly looks warn at all.

The heads that came with this bus are AMC's that had the intake valve guides replaced - I don't know if that's the crappy hardware AMC is known for coming with or what but hopefully that is a good thing and not a cause for concern.

When you assemble a motor with slightly used parts (both my cam/crank/lifters and the heads/P&C had roughly 40k on the build) - do you have everything re-worked first or just clean, measure, clean, measure and assemble?

I have Tom Wilsons book and the T4 rebuild DVD (avi file anyway) - and will certainly study hard before ruining anything. Im half tempted to get a case and some bearings and then drop the whole pile of parts on a local guy and just pay the labor to have them do it, but it would be a great opportunity to learn that I perhaps shouldn't pass up.

airkooledchris wrote:When you assemble a motor with slightly used parts (both my cam/crank/lifters and the heads/P&C had roughly 40k on the build) - do you have everything re-worked first or just clean, measure, clean, measure and assemble?

Im half tempted to get a case and some bearings and then drop the whole pile of parts on a local guy and just pay the labor to have them do it, but it would be a great opportunity to learn that I perhaps shouldn't pass up.

By all means, do it yourself. You got a daily driver. You can do it slowly and carefully and get answers to your questions over time. You can't beat the feeling of starting your own rebuild and driving it down the street.
Colin

I looked closely at my cam and lifters and the markings did stay visible enough..... I can identify exactly which lifter went to which spot on the cam....
not so for the pushrods so hopefully that isn't as big of a deal.

yay.

tristessa is bringing a case for me to Maupin, so between now and then I can work on getting a mount setup for the assembly process and think about how to clean and balance some of the parts I have in my possession already.



here is the decoded m-plate data for this bus:

airkooledchris wrote: tristessa is bringing a case for me to Maupin,

A case of what?
Colin
(I had one sitting at YOUR house but NOOOOOOOO)

Amskeptic wrote:

airkooledchris wrote: tristessa is bringing a case for me to Maupin,

A case of what?
Colin
(I had one sitting at YOUR house but NOOOOOOOO)

your never going to use it anyway, go ahead and bring it with.

let's see if we can build up a motor in 9 hours....... (btw, pdlrofdrms just fired hers up today after rebuilding it herself, I can't wait to see/hear it)

airkooledchris wrote: let's see if we can build up a motor in 9 hours....... (btw, pdlrofdrms just fired hers up today after rebuilding it herself, I can't wait to see/hear it)

I can't wait to see/drive hers either.

OK Nine Hour Engine Build.

1) Pot of coffee
2) All parts laid in order, no question about measurements/balance no painting, bending, or busted studs remaining
3) carb-spray and three rolls of paper towels and compressed air if you have it.
4) 5 quarts of dino oil, 1 Permatex Aviation goop, 1 anti-seize, red/green plastigage
5) if I do one side, you are doing the other mirror image
6) no lunch
7) all pistons and cylinders prewashed and dried and oiled, ring compressor sitting there ready to go
8.) heads ready to go
It can be done in 12.
Colin

CHRIS, I HATE YOU!
...
*Khmm*

Awesome deal, get it back together, you really can't pull it apart.

Amskeptic wrote:1) Pot of coffee

Only one?

tristessa wrote:

Amskeptic wrote:1) Pot of coffee

Only one?

I forgot " . . . for each hand."

Road Warrior Marathon Without Coffee 2007