Long time for an update but I’m going full steam to it right now..

I started putting the rods on the crank shaft only to find that the bearings supplied were undersize.

But it was ok, the guys at V&T did a good job so the main bearings were .25 and so are the rod bearings, just a pain in the ass.

Here is a video of what the issue looked like:

Anyway i went to Euro Imparts on main north road (enfield) at lunch one day and picked up the correct size bearings.

Here is a video of how it should look:

Yes i do realise that the rods dont spin as freely as you would normally see if i were to lube with oil, but i am lubing with molly grease

that is a little stickier (but offers great protection when your gaining oil pressure when turning it over for first time

(note not turning over with spark plugs attached).

Below we have the inside of the case all put together and ready to go.

Thats the permatex aviation sealer around the outside, almost a perfect equivalent to the sealing liquid they used in 1968 when they built the motor.

The other side of the case Moly lubed up with lifters in ready to bolt back together. (don’t forget the oil (return?) thingy down the bottom otherwise you could be in a very bad place )

More aviation Sealant on this side (i really want as few leaks as possible)

Case is together (Some of you may have noticed it obviously was a 1500 single port in the beginning of its life, and somewhere along the way (80-90’s) it was changed to a 1600 Dual port).

Now to bolt the halfs together.. but wait the bolts have been misplaced during my house move.. but stress less i have a new engine hardware kit coming in the mail. Will keep you all updated.

Ha I couldn’t help but grab this, I have no real use for it but I don’t mind storing it just in case (and for $50 how could you go wrong {Thx AVD})..But

So i went and grabbed it from Andrew just up the road, helped me load it into the back of the celica… forgot how heavy they are…

Get it home and then realise there is no way in hell I’m going to get that out of the car myself, and after calling a few friends ad everyone being conveniently busy i decided to tear her down in the back of the car i know crazy right).

So this is after about 2 hours i got to this stage (i can see you going 2 hrs you wimp, but i had to grind my socket so i could get to the head stud nuts.)

Finally got the strength to pick the motor in pieces out of the car… it now looks like this…

So lesson learnt think about how to get it out of the car before putting it in…

-M

Well i just got my case back from being machined, case savers installed, and crank ground. She looks hot . For those interested it cost about $1200 and took about 1 week, It was done in Lonsdale SA by V & T Motors (08) 8382 8111, They literally have a machine shop just for VW motors which used to operate 24/7 pretty much back in the late 70’s now not so much , but they did an excellent job, even to the point of getting the casing to the correct temp exactly if not they would start again from scratch.

If you don’t know why this was needed basically after years of service the thumping of the cam shaft on the bearings impact into the magnesium case. E.g Follows:

 Now its all shiny.

Other news I cleaned up the front beam blew all the crap off (grease dirt etc), and painted her up.. (but it was annoying moving the front beam around (mental note next time i need to take it off reverse into the garage .

That engine trolley came in useful to keep the pan movable.

Finally put the front end back on (man was that a pain in the ass, don’t look forward to doing it again.

Also blasted the ass end with water and the rubbed her bacl and gave her a nice high temp  paint, looks sweet.

I also grabbed these for $20 both straight and in good cond (unsure if i will use the yet) but i have never seen the  closer style of bumper before, any ideas?

Anyway until next time., I’m a bit slow lately because I’m looking at buying a house to move all my beetles too as their current living quarters are being sold . So wish me luck.

Finally had some more time off to work on my orig 1968 beetle. I need to get this shell into a move-able shell (shed where it is being stored is being sold). So I decided to clean her up and get that motor case looking shmick. After a few chats with people on the aussieveedubbers forum (and previously getting blasted by my other half about putting engine case in the dishwasher ).

This is after several sprays of various degreasers, First off i used oven cleaner to get the basic dirt and grease off, worked good but the cheap $2 degreaser i sprayed on was way more effective, I also tried putting petrol into a sprayer and spray it, again it did work, but nothing like the $2 degreaser and a shot with my high pressure sprayer. Then coated the block with silver enamel spray (about $10 for a can). I did this because it looks cool but also the degreaser/oven cleaner seems to take the finish off the block.

I also started cleaning up the rear end of the pan same way as above.

Tempting to do a rat rod front end on her not sure yet.

Ended up with this welsh plug from when i was cleaning the engine block, downside is i have no idea where it is from :S hopefully someone on the AVD forums will be able to help me .  Will be putting new seals in etc hopefully next week if i don’t drive to melb to get an engine.

Well i guess the VW bug has bitten me, And i saw another Automatic stick shift beetle on ebay and grabbed it for $750. Good body, its a 70’s model with early 60’s guards. The story of getting it is pretty funny, I went to pick it up and the guy comes out telling me it doesn’t have a battery.. so off i go and grab a battery (even though a battery was there the day before), come back get in start her up and oh its out of petrol… Man i couldn’t believe it so off i went and got petrol. So finally I’m on my way chugging along at a nice 50kph when bang the front left tire came off, turns out that all the bolts on all the wheels were undone, luckily enough i had the right socket with me and did it up and brought the new beetle home.

The motor a bit of a mess (i took the oil cooler off), the automatic choke and cutoff solenoid were unplugged as well as a few of the autostick pipes were falling apart. So slowly getting her back to what she should be. Changed the oil that was disgusting piles of silt on the sump plate and when i touched the oil i could feel the dirt in it (yuck).

Just a picture showing the paint work, i get the feeling that the paint work was one of those rattle can jobs but it looks bloody good.

The brakes felt like they had air in them and after about 30 minutes of shouting “stop” “pump” to my girlfriend we had the air out (thanks to the back right drum), i continued on around the car getting any and all air out and any crap that was in the lines too (a lot of crap the fluid was black on some and white on others :S) {P.S look at how bald those tires are, will need some new ones}

Had finished doing the back left wheel getting the air out when the actual nozzle snapped leaving part of it in the brake, luckily for me it is broken off in the closed position and isn’t leaking brake fluid, i will need to take this somewhere to get fixed at some point. (yeah please forgive my car on bricks and wood the actual axel stands are up with my other beetle.)

Just me firing through the gears while she is on blocks. What am i going to do with it i don’t know yet. Was originally for parts btu shes in such good condition its a shame.

One morning i woke up with an idea. I have been thinking of ways to turn my greasy old motor parts into nice clean motor parts without me needing to get to dirty or smell like petrol for another month

Oh yes the wondrous Dish washer, doing some research i found that the best tablets to clean the motor parts with are the Coles home-brand ones (like 15 in a packet). Supposedly these don’t have anything but soap in them and don’t harm metal stuff.

Trial 1, These parts. In short this didn’t work too well But i decided to try it on something else..

Yes its a disgusting (yet beautiful) 1600 dual port case.

After 20 minutes of being in the wash.

All clean,

I plan on giving the other side of the case a wash in petrol to try and compare the results.

Using wire brush to get some more dirt off the case.

Now what i must quickly explain is if your going to do this make sure you have some WD40 handy for the distributor gears (ideally you should take them out but i couldn’t get mine out). I left it for a Day before putting WD40 on it and it almost seized up, but all in all i am now on a look out for a decent free washing machine to wash the various parts. (after finding out that the oil in the motor can normally be carcenagenic).

I also put the washing machine through with a clensing tablet after. Its also great for when the misses comes home she hears the dishwasher on and thinks your doign house work.. just dont let her open it to get a knife out.

To be continued.

There she is, on the great trolley dolly.

Tinware off, these photos arent just for you people out there they are for me so i can remember where everything went

The infamous flex plate and its nut 36mm (grabbed the socket ordered in for me at sprint auto parts was only 25 bux). I found out that this is under 230 ft pounds of torque, so no normal torque wrench can undo it or even do it up. But first problem first, when the gland nut spins the whole flexplate spins, there exists an official tool to help you out here (i saw one for sale but it was $100usd) i decided to make my own.

So i used the original bolts that held the torque converter onto the plate and then just bolts that fit into the engine mount holes, I used 2 of them diagonally across from each other, but i would suggest maybe having 4 cause its fairly easy to bend and i almost did bend it.

Getting the gland nut off was killing me i couldn’t move it with 2 people helping (aka jumping on an extension for the ratchet), I decided to go out and buy a 1/2″ air ratchet (nice big bastard). I wasn’t sure if it would work we tried it and there was nothing, i went to the compressor and red lined the air, and sprayed WD40 on it with about a 30 second burst i saw the tiniest of movement, left if a few seconds and gave it a second go, pop off she came with much rejoicing.

At the same time i will talk about the supposedly easy removable pulley, i bought one of those pulley pullers after much searching, i gave it a go the puller creeked and the puller snaped in the middle, i thought “doesn’t anything happen the way it should” then i reminded myself its a VW. I grabbed 2 heavy duty G clamps and a big piece of flat steel, and started doing the clamps up, the metal bar bent, cut it in half and doubled it up and gave it a go and finally pop out it came.

Finally in pieces, take note when pulling the automatic oil pump and normal oil pump out make sure you got both pieces out of the engine (other wise its a bit hard to pull the case apart. Also the oil strainer under the engine sump also appears to come out

So this is the inside of the crank case where the bearings sit.. now the one on the LHS is worrying me and looks fairly worn. 

Now am i looking for a reconditioned case? or can i grab some fine wet/dry sandpaper and carefully take it back a bit? Any help would be great.

That’s all for now, several cool new topics on there way.

I will copy the post i posted on the vwar.org forums.

 

I removed the motor from an auto stick today. It went well (as in I got the motor out) and bad (as in I now have a removable rear valance)

 

Okies well there I was watching and reading the diy guides on motor removal, but it looked fairly simple and as the Bentley hadn’t arrived I decided to ump on in.

 

With guidance from 68autobug and a few others on the vwar.org forum I jumped in.

 

Now I will go from start to finish (as I was a complete amateur at this)

 

First we undo the accelerator cable from the carbie and push it into the tinware (and out the back)

 

Next undo any pipes that are leading from the control valve to the carbie. Also you will notice a pipe coming out the front bit of the tinware that has a bolt on it BE very careful if you bend this your rooted, use two spanners to do it and a heck of a-lot of WD40.

 

Now go for a scoot under the car (drain the oil), find where the accelerator cable is and pull it out (I found that I needed someone to jiggle the other side of the cable to find it)

 

There is also a fuel line down there so undo it and chuck a screw driver in the end to stop it leaking (I still got petrol all over me).

 

There is also 1 pipe that leads to the control valve just undo it from the valve itself and pull it through (not sure if this is really needed)

 

Being a 1600DP motor that means its the normal dog house fan shroud. So I remove the first bolt on the top behind the shroud (RHS)

 

Next one was a so called “easy” one to get to, I reckon I spent the good part of two hours here, the bolt which would be easy to get to on a standard manual was now obscured by the clutch armature (tank) {that may be the wrong description}. You could reach the bolt here but I just couldn’t seem to get enough leverage on the bolt to undo (you know how ratchet and extensions can be) it. Anyway I ended up grabbing my trusty 10mm ratchet and taking the 3 bolts that hold the tank in, out. Then its held with a tube clip to the armature I just closed it and popped the connector out. Now I could remove the tank and get to the bolt and use some strength to undo it (I almost had a hernia here).

 

The following bolt is like directly below the first bolt (10 or so cms), nice and easy and the final bolt is on the other side in the same identical spot to the previous.

 

I then undid the lot of 4 bolts that I believe affix the torque converter, they are directly below the last two screws and easy to get to. (this is WRONG)

 

By now you more then likely need a shower and a nice big eye rinse (I was black lol)

 

So were at the spot where we drop the motor.. all the books said just pull the tail pipes with a jack under the oil strainer and she will disengage.. Which is what I did sure it came out, but I physically couldn’t get the motor forward enough to pull out, then I realised my aftermarket exhaust was stoping the movement of the engine, I undid the exhaust and gave it a go.. damn still cant get the motor out far enough for the teeth on the torque converter to clear,  (now seeing the torque converter isn’t meant to happen it turns out there are 4 8mm/10mm bolts that connect the torque converter to the flex plate, to reach them you need to go under the car {before you take the motor out} and undo the 4 screws through the access holes on the side of the transmission housing). So here I am motor half out torque converter teeth grinding on the transmission housing, and every move I’m getting worried this motor removal could be terminal.

 

I remembered a quick post I here about the car needing to be level (as the backend was just jacked up) it didn’t seem to make much difference.

 

I just sat there defeated by what is supposedly the basic of basic motor removals. I thought screw it I ground the rear apron off and the motor came out beautifully. (with the thoughts of making it into a removable apron later.)

 

I replacement aprons a few days back for $40 each brand new, you think I could find some in stock after I cut the apron off????.

So yeah oops but then again makes life easier with a removeable apron in the future.

What i thought i would post here is the greatest thing ever. I was chatting on the aussieveedubbers.com forums about an engine trolly,and i went seatching high and low but they wanted upwards of 150 bux for one and for something i may only use 2 or 3 times.  (thanks to Matt Ryanfrom Aussieveedubbers for finding this pic at Obsolete Air-Cooled Documentation Project.

Notch Nutfrom Aussieveedubbers let me in on a secret shopping trolleys make the best motor dollies. The story here is amazing, I seriously read this post and thought but how the heck could i get a trolly i don’t live near any supermarkets and i don’t know of any compulsive shopping trolly hoarders near by. Anyway to the good part a few days after notch nuts post i was driving near coles and i was saying to my partner “i really need just the trolly base” and believe it or not there is this beauty sitting in the middle of the road no basket to be seen, i opened my boot threw her in and was on my way, sometimes you just have to be lucky.

And that’s basically how it works.

and there she is in use works a treat, thanks guys.

Okies well this is it (no turning back), I thought I would give the beast one more run before we start pulling her apart. Enjoy the video.

And have a good laugh at when my poor girlfriend gets the fright