Itinerant Air-Cooled

originally posted in Feb 2007

vdubyah73 wrote: I bought some new AMC heads from Headflowmasters completely gutted and redone with stock size new seats, valves and everything else. Hope to start the rebuild by the end of the month. Longblock will be completely stock as well. I will also keep everyone informed on how they hold up.

Bill

Heads are holding up nicely. several round trips to NYC at stupid MPH. MPG sucks when yer going stupid MPH but the whole engine is holding up nicely. round trip is about 450 miles. 8-9 hours with gas stops going 70-75 as high as 80, when ever traffic allows, which is most of the way. Some what hilly but not anything like the hills you guys have in the PNW.

originally posted Nov 4 2010

vdubyah73 wrote:rustoleum 2000* exhaust paint, use the primer as well. I sand blasted a 1 month old empi single quiet pack "extractor" exhaust after the og paint burned off and it started rusting. I removed the exhaust and sand blasted it clean of rust and remaining paint. 3 coats each of primer and paint. each coat consisted of 2 light coats and 1 full coat. meaning start at 1 end and when you get to the other go back and start over right away. wait 10 minutes before repeating. remounted and ran at idle for 10 minutes then cool till your hand can stay on it. repeat 2 or 3 times, then take a 30 minute ride, try for some highway time to get some real heat into it I went about 5 miles at 65-70 then toodled back home on surface streets. No paint has burned off, no rust has shown yet. I painted it about a month ago, bus is a daily driver, combo of surface street and highway driving.
the rustoleum seems to perform as advertised, I'm satisfied so far. will report back if and when rust or burning paint happens.

PS: the muffler is junk right out of the box. the flange should be reusable to replace with a quality one, when it falls apart from the inside out.

Paint did not burn off. Rust has come through in only 6 -7 weeks. May hold up nicely in a very dry climate.

Oil filters: http://filtrationcomparisons.weebly.com/

and http://minimopar.knizefamily.net/oilfilters/

After some satisfactory re-tests and examinations on my own, I switched back to good old Wix/NAPA Gold oil filters. (Those or Purolator made stuff if they are more readily available instead at OC time.)

Sturdy, good quality media, and seems to be plenty good filtration and flow. I like them.

(Cheaper NAPA "Silver" or now called "ProSelect" are not the same as the "Gold" inside. Construction is good, but the media is thinner, weaker, and more porous--at least on the part numbers I use. I would stick to the Gold.)

BRAND NEW, USA made type IV, 912, 914 thermostat
Price: $119.00

This is a 100% new unit, for the 1.7, 1.8 & 2.0 type IV and Porsche 912 & Porsche 914 engines
new cable $10.00

- opening temp range "85-90"
- made in the "USA"
- the Awesome Powdercoat logo

All units come with a 2 year warranty.



$10 FEDEX shipping to the lower 48 states. Other locations itis cheapest to go by USPS, but price will vary by location.

I can only get 4 of these made a month, so I have a hard time keeping them in stock for very long. Please realize that you may have to wait several weeks to get yours. I work as fast as I can, but these things take time.

These are brand new thermostats for the Type II & 914 air cooled engine. Not used, Not NOS, these are BRAND NEW , FITTINGS, TOP & BOTTOM, BELLOWS & CABLE FITTING. This gives you the best of everything. You get the right liquid inside for the right expansion at the right temperature. And if it ever does fail, it fails safe, flaps full open, unlike the new VW "Mexico" version that you see for sale that fails “unsafe”, flaps full closed, should the wax inside leak out.

I get more every few weeks. This is a brand new thermostat. These are built in the USA. It takes 3 companies in 3 states to make this part. I found the company that supplied the tooling to Wahler, the orginal OEM thermostat manufaturer for VW. They sandwich a brand new phosphor-bronze bellows in between new water jet cuts top and bottom and new brass fittings. Phosphor-bronze is superior to the original brass bellows because is it less prone to fatigue cracking from thermal cycling and more corrosion resistant.

Don't mess around with a questionable 30+ year old part that might fail soon after you install it. As an added bonus, I offer a 2 year refund/replacement warrenty! No one else will do that.

These bellows are for the 1.7L, 1.8L, & 2.0L type IV & 914 engines. They are designed to start opening at 85-90C, hotter than the type I's that open at 65-70C. The bottom female threads are stock 8MX1.25 & the top male thread is 7MX1.
The top fitting that the cable passes through starts as solid 3/8" hex brass. You can use a 3/8" or 10mm wrench to snug it down on the stat. DO NOT OVERTIGHTEN THIS!

Advertiser: volkaholic1

Payments accepted:
Cash
Paypal
Money order/Bank check

=D>
EBay.

Parts House ~Texas

Nissan AAR
electrical conn not plug and play, but can be mcGuivered.80~ohm=faster electrically closing
55. shipped
55 happily spent after some bittercold single digit+f° starts

Len Hoffman
HAM Engineering
1461 Greensboro Highway
Watkinsville GA 30677
706-613-7454.

Type 4 Heads, good but very $$$
heads from AMC castings that I got from Type4Store.

When I called, I could sense a true tradesman,craftsman on the line.
He also made sure to give me great advice in "absolutely positively must get old bus cases "decked"
to even out the few thousandths of out of parallel to case centerline, and to flatten the barrel mating surfaces so that heads pull even pressure on critical lap seal of cylinders/heads.

Picked this 72-74 alt bracket from German Supply on my visit. Brand new part made just like the oem one. This will replace my rewelded repaired bracket asap.

Here's an item that might interest those who have Type I engines modified to include an oil filter --

A Setrab "remote filter head", AKA oil filter adapter, as shown on the page here: http://www.setrabusa.com/products/oilco ... index.html

I used an EMPI filter adapter when I built my bus engine in 1997, and it worked OK until I removed and reinstalled the fittings for the 2nd time. I don't know whether it was super-soft aluminum contruction, or oversized pipe thread tapping, but I was never able to make the thing leak-free again, no matter how much thread tape or sealant I used. It seems none of my fittings had enough thread , or room to lengthen the threaded area.

Those Setrab adapters use o-rings to make the seal, around the large 22 mm fitting threads. O-rings are cheap and easy to come by, if any need to be replaced. No more persnickety pipe threads! The adapters are highly versatile, suitable for almost any setup, and no problem if things get moved around at some point.

The 3 bracket mount holes had the same pattern as my old EMPI adapter; made the install Super EZ.

These things seem to be available only from official Setrab Dealers, mostly Racing&Performance Shops, terra incognita for me. The Setrab site linked above has a dealer list so you can see if there's one in your community. I found 2 or 3 of those selling online, but none of them listed the
special Setrab fittings I needed, but I found those at https://www.anplumbing.com

This Setrab stuff is expensive. My oil filter is now dripless. I am pleased.

Front Main Seal for problem Type 4 engines . . . .

SABO (available from Go-Westy) part # 029105245

edit: ahhh I edited this instead of quoting it. Sorry.

STEP STUDS FOR EXHAUST MANIFOLD

When a 8 - 9 mm step stud doesn't cut it anymore and you have to crank up to 11...er 10. Site below carries 8mm -10mm step studs in various lengths. Good quality.

https://www.belmetric.com/metric-studs-c-9/

An e-mail from Wolfsburg West this morning stated that 211251237B "early bay exhaust tailpipe" is no longer available. Please buy them if you see one for sale.

Rejoyce, parking lot bumpers around the country, for ye will be snagging many more tailpipes to come.

Robbie

asiab3 wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 14, 2018 11:09 am

An e-mail from Wolfsburg West this morning stated that 211251237B "early bay exhaust tailpipe" is no longer available. Please buy them if you see one for sale.

Rejoyce, parking lot bumpers around the country, for ye will be snagging many more tailpipes to come.

Robbie

Thank you for this horrible news, Robbie. So many sites do not distinguish between the
211251237A - horrible little truncated splitty tailpipe
and
211251237B - the beautiful elegant correct straight out tailpipe for baywindow buses.

Dammit! Even VW Heritage has it all wrong.
Colin

(Robbie, we can make a tailpipe can't we? Buy off a muffler shop guy with beer on a Saturday?)
(2:12CST - just inquired on one NOS and one used final glorious most straight tailpipes)

I scooped one "NOS" pipe off eBay yesterday… JBugs has the 'B' part number as 63-71 in their catalog, though it's curved. The gentleman at the desk checked their back stock and all were curved, and he said if Wolfsburg West says they don't have plans for more, JBugs won't either…

It might be easiest to take this to the local VW exhaust shop (only in San Diego…) and have them bend it to match the bus profile?

https://www.vwispwest.com/311251185.html?p=

Robbie

asiab3 wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 15, 2018 1:47 pm

I scooped one "NOS" pipe off eBay yesterday… JBugs has the 'B' part number as 63-71 in their catalog, though it's curved. The gentleman at the desk checked their back stock and all were curved, and he said if Wolfsburg West says they don't have plans for more, JBugs won't either…

It might be easiest to take this to the local VW exhaust shop (only in San Diego…) and have them bend it to match the bus profile?

https://www.vwispwest.com/311251185.html?p=

Robbie

I don't think the wall thickness will allow a straightening and re-curving. With the angled exit, it is that much shorter. But, what if the pipe here were sawed off at the slip joint reduction and a home made simple 90* bend on a fresh mild steel pipe were made and cut to proper dimension, then welded onto the slip joint end?
Problem is, $49.95.
I bet two different diameters could be found at the muffler shop. They have expansion mandrels that make slip joints all day. So you could bring your damper, expand the larger diameter pipe to slip on, then the tailpipe piece could be welded into the non-expanded side. It is too big of a change to perform on one pipe.
Is that $30.00 + six-pack?
Colin

Valve cover gaskets from CB performance (type4) (https://www.cbperformance.com/product-p/1979.htm) are higher quality than the last set of Victor Reinz that I had purchased from busdept. My V.R. was misshapen, thin, and leaky. The ones from CB performance fit snugly along the edge, felt denser, and did not leak for me.