And another bump with a testy little rant to go along with it. Understand that this general purpose rant is directed at no individual on this forum in any past tense. I had as much responsibility to declare my needs up-front as anyone has a responsibility to react henceforth.
If you want to utilize my time effectively, do what you can in the name of both organization and cleanliness. I will not put an engine together if there is crud all over the parts, fasteners, work bench, and the car in which the engine or whatever goes.
Do NOT be fooled by the filth that you greet when you take out your hard-working engine that has finally succumbed. Just because you need a shovel to get rid of accumulated grime and leaves and chunks of baked-on oil, does not mean that the critical internal parts have been living in that filth. The entire internal area of a healthy engine has no particles bigger than ten microns or whatever the oil filter media is able to filter out. Carbon may blacken the internals, sludge may be gooped in the crankcase, but only if you have had a grenaded engine event where stuff broke at high speed will you have anything over .001" in the case. If, in the case of a simple valve adjustment, you slap a grimy paw on the dirty floor and then reach into the valve/rocker area, you will be treated to a reprimand. If you have a rocker assembly out and place it anywhere other than in a valve cover or on a clean paper towel on a clean work bench above and away from all other contaminants, you will be treated to another reprimand. This is not silly obsessive compulsive disorder on my part. The correct tolerances in an engine are on average just 3 thousandths of an inch. Any grit bigger than half that will score journals and bearings and oil pump gears and crank/cam teeth and will deposit in the soft metal of the bearings which will irritate them (like sand in your eye) for thousands of miles while shortening the life expectancy of the engine noticeably.
If you would like me to participate in building your engine up, please have all parts spotlessly clean (and that means bolt holes and threaded studs or nuts too, you do not want to poke a bolt through a filthy hole only to deposit crap on the perfectly clean flange that is about to get assembled)and organized with a work environment that has been cleaned and well-lighted. If you do not. . . you will watch me clean and organize for $38.00/hour. I
can and
have jumped right in on any disassembled engine and I can get you going so long as all parts are accounted for (you don't have to know what they are or where they came from, but they have to be there).
These engines are precision mechanisms, do not get casual because your car happens to look tattered or rusted or chaotic. I will apply absolute top-drawer assembly discipline to any VW engine set in front of me, be your car a show stopper or a daily driver beater. It takes me two days at the minimum to clean all of the engine parts. You do not want me to do that on your dime.
Scrape crud off without scratching paint or parts. Then use GumOut carb spray + toothbrush all aluminum and steel parts that do not have paint. Then wash with hot very soapy water and dry diligently. Then insert in plastic bags if that is your organizational way. You can put every part in the dryer and turn it on and dump them all in a pillow case and I will be able to assemble your engine, so don't go nuts with plastic bags and labelling for me, do it for yourself as you see fit.
I use GumOut brand SPRAY carburetor cleaner for an extremely specific reason. Do not coast with a generic. These carb spray formulas have varying solvent/lubricant proportions, GumOut is excellent for cleaning engine parts. Berryman's is way too harsh.
Expect and welcome the abrupt learning curve that is coming your way. This sort of project with its discrete steps and complexity and demands, is challenging in all good ways. The process from filthy dead engine to clean properly assembled engine is a magnificent metaphor for personal growth.
If your chaotic sloppy house and garage need a little hygienic space carved out for this kind of painstaking clean engine work, welcome it. Do not disparage it as compulsive nit-pickiness. You can ask Z and Jeffrey Blair about how I left the kitchen sink cleaner than when I began, how I vacuumed the garage after using the grinding wheel, how the oil drain pan was cleaned spotless throughout the overhaul because you can use the cleanliness of the pan to spot how you are doing with the parts you are cleaning.
Clean is good! Love life!
Colin