Time to freshen up

[Max Welton]

#3 leakdown has reached 50% while the other three are still under 20%.

Plus it's gotten kind of dirty since the megasquirt went on in early 2011.





Max

[squeakie]

mine doesn't look that good and I am still in the assy stage with new parts.

[gearheadgreg]

Max does great work!

[Max Welton]

Thanks!

Randy Bowen has the heads, pistons and cylinders. I'm ordering parts and thinking about other things to do while it's all apart. One thing for sure that will be changed is the location of the temp sensor I'm using to drive the warm-up enrichment.

Max

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Max.... I hate to tell you this but... its going to get dirty again! Bwahaha!

It does look good though.

Lee

[Max Welton]

That dirt is the badge of daily-driving.

Max

[doc]

When you took it apart, what did everything look like? How many miles of dd? Noticeable/measureable wear to bearings, pistons, cylinders, crank, etc? Pics?

This is the kind of job most of the members will wind up facing at some point.

doc

[Max Welton]

I'll start by saying that this has been a leaky engine. Also, here along the front range we have a yearly problem with Miller moths. When the millers migrate through the area they get into absolutely everything. I've cleaned them out of my tool chest more times that I can count.

So it was no great surprise to find many moth carcasses embedded in the oily sludge between the cylinder fins. Not much cooling going on there obviously. Not coincidentally I found that the thermostat had failed (open). Steve Hollingsworth tells me this is a common result on engines that have been run hot.



So the engine was really dirty on the outside. Not bad in the valve galleries.



These heads have been in service on this engine since 2006. I used this longblock under Kads on the last Berg Cruise and they've been under 32 PDSITs and 42 Berg DCNFs before the megasquirt setup. I don't really count miles, but that is at least 8 full years of all weather daily-driving.







Max

[Max Welton]

Now to the inside. Understand that this engine was build by me on a fresh case and has had only filtered Brad Penn from the start. So I am rather annoyed to see the state of the pump. The only conclusion is that I didn't do the stellar job of cleaning the case before final assembly that I thought I did.





The cam lobes don't look bad at all, but the lifters are all pitted. This is a Engle 100 under single HD springs. The case was set up with bronze lifter bores that still look new and the lifters still fit perfectly.





Crankshaft endplay was right where I left it in 2006 ... 0045". The #1 bearing looks pretty good. I will give it a light polish and put it back in the engine. This is why I spend the money for a good balance job even on such a mild engine.

I'll take the crank assembly apart tomorrow.

Max

[doc]

Max,

Thanks. Great pics and explanation.

doc

[Max Welton]

So I have not been in the barn in the last few days. It's unheated, cold and I'm not as tough as I used to be. But I have been ordering parts.

I do have a theory as to what may have happened to the pump. When I cleaned the stock breather, I'm pretty sure I sent it through the blast cabinet. If I didn't get all the media out of it then the glass media would have fallen into the case and been sucked through the pump. It kind of looks like that. The media would have stopped in the filter. I will be much more careful this time.

I do have the OTT exhaust back from being media blasted. I plan to use the POR 15 High Temp (1200º) paint and have a local Powdercoating shop talked into putting my exhaust through their oven to cure the paint. As soon as I remove the sludgy buildup from outside of the heat exchangers they will get the same treatment.

In related news, I just put a WTB ad up on tos looking for a clean fastback to put this engine in. The squareback I've been using as a mule is pretty rusty from the B pillar forward and I'm thinking about starting over with a better car.

Max

[Max Welton]

Got the rods off the crank today. The journals look great. Rod bearings aren't bad either.

Something I did note with the bearings. When I originally put them in the rods I had to push them into position. Now they are curved inwards a little more. You can see a little gap now at the left end of the bearing in this picture. Is this a normal effect of use?







Max

[Sqrbckguy38]

Yeah it does happen to rod bearings over time, they wear off the initial coating and then basically get pounded into shape. All my Vw and water cooled engines have done this.
Build looks great, what specific year of fastback would you be looking for?

[Max Welton]

Anything from 68 up. That way I can use the fuel return line and wiring associated with the original FI fuel pump.

Max

[aircooledtechguy]

Anything from 68 up. That way I can use the fuel return line and wiring associated with the original FI fuel pump.

Max

C'mon Max, you know it's more fun to re-invent the wheel. . .

Lookin' good!!