Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Bismarck ND

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wcfvw69
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Bismarck ND

Post by wcfvw69 » Mon Jul 17, 2017 6:43 pm

It's simply hard to believe that someone could F*** up a simple VW valve job that bad. Even worse is that YOU had to be the one to experience it. You know, the guy that actually USES his bus to drive around the country and probably puts more miles on his bay than any other in these United States.

Are you carrying a spare set of heads in the bus? How long would it take you to swap the heads if you had another pair on you or procured another set? There's been many threads on TS lately about who's selling the best heads these days but they've mainly been about dual port heads.
1970 Westfalia bus. Stock 1776 dual port type 1 engine. Restored German Solex 34-3. Restored 205Q distributor, restored to factory appearance engine.

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asiab3
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Bismarck ND

Post by asiab3 » Mon Jul 17, 2017 10:53 pm

Amskeptic wrote:
Mon Jul 17, 2017 5:47 pm
Robbie, that is a recent #4 photograph up there:

[img]
Whoops, yes that's what I meant…

Did you take a depth micrometer reading of the valve seat that wasn't seated all the way? I would be curious of the seat protrusion compared to how many degrees of rotation you've lost. After all, you informed me that 10° of rotation of M8x1.0 adjusters is .001" of clearance between the valve and adjuster tip.

Oil in the combustion chambers makes me think I have a valve guide issue, but I don't want a valve guide issue. Maybe it is rings rotating. MAYBE it is just running too cold. I need to procure some hotter plugs.
Colin
Are you seeing the oil on the plugs, or in the rear view mirror? Three-piece modern oil rings or old style one-piece oil ring?

I had one morning in Bellevue, Washington, where my entire morning descent of a mountain was followed by a blue trail of smoke on decel. So I motored UP the mountain for a mile, and the smoke went away for a bit. After three or four more miles of decel on the cold engine, I was seeing smoke again. I said "screw it" and coasted the rest of the way down with the engine off. After that day, I always tried to give a full warm up before engine braking for copious descents. Do you think an engine that runs "too cool" is missing a few microns of heat expansion that could reduce oil consumption?

Need any machine work/parts brought up from Southern California to Oregon?
Robbie
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
322k miles on Earth.

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Amskeptic
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Bismarck ND

Post by Amskeptic » Tue Jul 18, 2017 7:37 am

asiab3 wrote:
Mon Jul 17, 2017 10:53 pm

A) Did you take a depth micrometer reading of the valve seat that wasn't seated all the way? I would be curious of the seat protrusion compared to how many degrees of rotation you've lost.

B) Are you seeing the oil on the plugs, or in the rear view mirror?

a) Naw, but yes, I have imagined this evidence of valve seat recession as "valve seat seating more fully". Any movement, however, is contributing to the loss of interference fit. Based on the screw protrusion development, I could have stuck a .010 feeler blade between the seat and the head counterbore back in April, but it was "only" a .0015 blade. I will do another valve adjustment outside of Missoula on my way to Seattle. If the valve adjustments don't settle down, these heads will officially be on probation. I have one of Chloe's original Yuma Flea Market heads and another provided by bus71. I trust the Yuma head implicitly, but geeze, that must be a 6-7 mm valve contact area when it is supposed to be no more than 3mm. Those valves spun them selves down into the seats after 78,000 miles of hard driving:

Yuma Head #3 Exhaust Seat!

Image


b) Oil consumption is currently about a quart every 2-3,000 miles. I have a front seal leak that I ascribe to the wobbly crankshaft or perhaps it is just a crappy generic front seal by Victor Reinz. Every 25th or so start, I get a blue cloud out the tail pipe. That is what the Road Warrior used to do if strangers complimented it at the gas station. Now who is causing this? The brand new Mahle pistons have the later-style Mahle three piece oil control rings running in brand new Mahle cylinders, and the engine was oil leak/consumption free throughout the break-in period.

So, I keep driving . . . and monitoring.
Colin
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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