Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Miami II
Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2014 6:43 am
"Above All, Do No Harm" That is the hippocratic oath, a warning to medical students that sometimes inaction is the best course of treatment. I have sometimes counselled my clients to leave the thing alone, that Volkswagens are sometimes surprisingly robust and resilient. Take for example Belle Plaine's recent report in the Miami I thread that his engine is still doing its thing two years after we diagnosed a loose #1 main bearing.
Stunningly, I have gotten myself into another endplay fiasco, but this one I caused harm. In my brain here, I have been called into the boss' office (prefrontal cortex) this Monday morning, door plaque says,
"I Am Your Conscience".
My customers frequently allege to have read the "Itinerary Speil" (or is it the "Details/Deposits" thread?) where I state:
THE HENCEFORTH AND FORTHWITH
I am a consultant. You are paying for my knowledge. If I pick up a tool, it is to hand it to you. I could not and cannot should not and shall not accept liability for any of the work performed on your vehicle nor any incidental consequential coincidental consequent incident outsident accident coincident and subsequent to our visit.
My visit with againes513 started well enough . . . look at the lovely peaceful morning shot of a VW owner's mailbox:
We had things to do on his tastefully set up 1971 bus, like switch these side windows around so the vents are in the front, thank you very much:
We removed the engine to replace a leaking main seal/flywheel o-ring. The air conditioner/external oil cooler-filter-fan/big 40IDA Webers made the engine compartment a snake pit, but it was actually pretty well done, and it slowed us down only a couple of hours:
The endplay was not horrible at .005", but the fact that there were only two shims was. These two curled suckers looked like they had 160,000 miles on them, not the 3,000 that this engine had accumulated:
We determined that the builder could not get enough endplay with the requisite three shims. So, how were we going to? We could not use the metal spacer that 1600 engines have, not with this EIGHT DOWEL lightened flywheel (folks, do not lighten your flywheel in a bus!! The flywheel stores rotational torque and that is exactly what we need to launch a VW bus from a stop, not to mention that the engine prefers stored energy to smooth out the life of the crankshaft. Lightened flywheels are nice when you are a race boy racing rapidly to nowhere especially important):
We (I) decided that our best course of action was to mill the shim surface of the flywheel .003" and that would allow us to use three shims and get correct endplay. I made some marks on the flywheel denoting .003" and Austin went forth into the Miami underbrush to a machine shop where they milled the flywheel.
"Hey, look at that, we didn't do that, don't worry, we won't charge you." "That" was a drunken gouge and crooked off-center-too-deep cut. Oy, baby, this is not looking good. I sanded down the flywheel with my VW bus mirror and an 80 grit piece of sandpaper out in the painfully glaring light of day the light of glaring foolishness getting ever brighter. Now we had .011" endplay with my very thickest shims.
Weisswurst breezed in with his dualcab Vanagon diesel, so we all drove to againes513's friend's VW shop to select a decent used properly heavy VW 1600 flywheel. Came back to the house. Now we had to remove four of the eight dowels off that crankshaft. Unfortunately, the builder had drilled the additional dowels slightly off center. I lined up the spacer shim, found the original dowels, marked them BLACK so as NOT to remove them! so the newly acquired flywheel could FIT properly. But the incorrectly drilled additional dowels were jammed in that crankshaft solidly. Mr. Itinerant Master Mechanic desperately determined dumbly dubious that maybe the original dowels would be slightly looser and tried to remove one of them. Damaged beyond all doubt, it did come out, and distracted by, get this, also attempting to "supervise" my esteeeemed customer and weisswurst through an overhaul of the 40 IDAs, I accidentally hacked all the original dowels out of the crankshaft with my dremel. See, the surgery required a huge plug of grease protecting the main bearing with two paper towel drapes also coated in grease, with just the dowels sticking out as I attacked with my dremel grinder. I had to bring the beheaded dowel remnants right down to the surface of the crankshaft in all of this paper towel fluff and grease and "yes, that is the idle jet, no that, that one, yes make sure the pump diaphragm is lined up" and I am cursing my very existence and I somehow got out of phase and ground off the good dowels.
And no, the stock flywheel that was to save us, could not fit on the remaining incorrectly drilled additional dowels sticking out of the crankshaft. At this time, againes513 gets more visitors, his parents.
"How's it going?" brightly asks his mother.
Through my shell-shock, "um, we have a problem."
And we do. I am only minutes from declaring defeat. Real Serious Stop Dead It Is F**ked Defeat. Againes513 is looking at me with a dawning realization that this engine may be done. Weisswurst is bursting with good cheer great energy a beer and exceptional helpfulness, and I am darkly sinking into despair. I have destroyed this crankshaft, it is mauled, there is no solution.
*
*
*
*
*
*
Here is againes513's bus in the driveway. We have the engine installed. We are attempting to synchronize the 40IDAs. My Uni-Syn won't fit on the air filter dishes, because the manufacturer must be annoyingly clueless. We do our best by ear, and we drive this classy silver/red interior bus down the street. It is peaky, it is a bit loud, but it drives nicely underway. The idle is choppy. We keep losing a cylinder at idle. I have to leave for New Jersey and I charge againes513 for two days of this cascading disaster?
The above line of asteriks is to give againes513 an opportunity to fill in what we did to get it running.
He is also getting a partial refund. Too bad I enjoyed his company, enjoyed the music! enjoyed meeting up with weisswurst, enjoyed chatting with Enrique, enjoyed the weather when it wasn't a downpour.
Againes513, it was a pleasure to work with you.
Colin
Stunningly, I have gotten myself into another endplay fiasco, but this one I caused harm. In my brain here, I have been called into the boss' office (prefrontal cortex) this Monday morning, door plaque says,
"I Am Your Conscience".
My customers frequently allege to have read the "Itinerary Speil" (or is it the "Details/Deposits" thread?) where I state:
THE HENCEFORTH AND FORTHWITH
I am a consultant. You are paying for my knowledge. If I pick up a tool, it is to hand it to you. I could not and cannot should not and shall not accept liability for any of the work performed on your vehicle nor any incidental consequential coincidental consequent incident outsident accident coincident and subsequent to our visit.
My visit with againes513 started well enough . . . look at the lovely peaceful morning shot of a VW owner's mailbox:
We had things to do on his tastefully set up 1971 bus, like switch these side windows around so the vents are in the front, thank you very much:
We removed the engine to replace a leaking main seal/flywheel o-ring. The air conditioner/external oil cooler-filter-fan/big 40IDA Webers made the engine compartment a snake pit, but it was actually pretty well done, and it slowed us down only a couple of hours:
The endplay was not horrible at .005", but the fact that there were only two shims was. These two curled suckers looked like they had 160,000 miles on them, not the 3,000 that this engine had accumulated:
We determined that the builder could not get enough endplay with the requisite three shims. So, how were we going to? We could not use the metal spacer that 1600 engines have, not with this EIGHT DOWEL lightened flywheel (folks, do not lighten your flywheel in a bus!! The flywheel stores rotational torque and that is exactly what we need to launch a VW bus from a stop, not to mention that the engine prefers stored energy to smooth out the life of the crankshaft. Lightened flywheels are nice when you are a race boy racing rapidly to nowhere especially important):
We (I) decided that our best course of action was to mill the shim surface of the flywheel .003" and that would allow us to use three shims and get correct endplay. I made some marks on the flywheel denoting .003" and Austin went forth into the Miami underbrush to a machine shop where they milled the flywheel.
"Hey, look at that, we didn't do that, don't worry, we won't charge you." "That" was a drunken gouge and crooked off-center-too-deep cut. Oy, baby, this is not looking good. I sanded down the flywheel with my VW bus mirror and an 80 grit piece of sandpaper out in the painfully glaring light of day the light of glaring foolishness getting ever brighter. Now we had .011" endplay with my very thickest shims.
Weisswurst breezed in with his dualcab Vanagon diesel, so we all drove to againes513's friend's VW shop to select a decent used properly heavy VW 1600 flywheel. Came back to the house. Now we had to remove four of the eight dowels off that crankshaft. Unfortunately, the builder had drilled the additional dowels slightly off center. I lined up the spacer shim, found the original dowels, marked them BLACK so as NOT to remove them! so the newly acquired flywheel could FIT properly. But the incorrectly drilled additional dowels were jammed in that crankshaft solidly. Mr. Itinerant Master Mechanic desperately determined dumbly dubious that maybe the original dowels would be slightly looser and tried to remove one of them. Damaged beyond all doubt, it did come out, and distracted by, get this, also attempting to "supervise" my esteeeemed customer and weisswurst through an overhaul of the 40 IDAs, I accidentally hacked all the original dowels out of the crankshaft with my dremel. See, the surgery required a huge plug of grease protecting the main bearing with two paper towel drapes also coated in grease, with just the dowels sticking out as I attacked with my dremel grinder. I had to bring the beheaded dowel remnants right down to the surface of the crankshaft in all of this paper towel fluff and grease and "yes, that is the idle jet, no that, that one, yes make sure the pump diaphragm is lined up" and I am cursing my very existence and I somehow got out of phase and ground off the good dowels.
And no, the stock flywheel that was to save us, could not fit on the remaining incorrectly drilled additional dowels sticking out of the crankshaft. At this time, againes513 gets more visitors, his parents.
"How's it going?" brightly asks his mother.
Through my shell-shock, "um, we have a problem."
And we do. I am only minutes from declaring defeat. Real Serious Stop Dead It Is F**ked Defeat. Againes513 is looking at me with a dawning realization that this engine may be done. Weisswurst is bursting with good cheer great energy a beer and exceptional helpfulness, and I am darkly sinking into despair. I have destroyed this crankshaft, it is mauled, there is no solution.
*
*
*
*
*
*
Here is againes513's bus in the driveway. We have the engine installed. We are attempting to synchronize the 40IDAs. My Uni-Syn won't fit on the air filter dishes, because the manufacturer must be annoyingly clueless. We do our best by ear, and we drive this classy silver/red interior bus down the street. It is peaky, it is a bit loud, but it drives nicely underway. The idle is choppy. We keep losing a cylinder at idle. I have to leave for New Jersey and I charge againes513 for two days of this cascading disaster?
The above line of asteriks is to give againes513 an opportunity to fill in what we did to get it running.
He is also getting a partial refund. Too bad I enjoyed his company, enjoyed the music! enjoyed meeting up with weisswurst, enjoyed chatting with Enrique, enjoyed the weather when it wasn't a downpour.
Againes513, it was a pleasure to work with you.
Colin
and then greeting Colin and my kind host againes513.
