Shoptalkforums.com

as long as the passage bore increases it won't hurt too much, probably wouldn't hurt to put a bit of a radii on it if you can clean out the junk perfectly.

As I said, the old school lubriplate is essentially just a squeeze tube of white lithium grease.
BUT:I'd order the proper lube even if you only use it on the cam/lifters... but the bottles for that are actually enough to do the whole motor.

the only place to use std motor oil is on the cylinders, and some prefer dry lube or wd40 only for the bores to speed ring seat.

I'm pretty sure the Germans use proper assembly lube of some sort... can you get stuff from eu?

Germany, UK for sure are good sources for assembly lube. Amazon has been my good friend for ordering sealants, thread locker and others. I was just hoping to get away with something that I can find locally and start this week the final build.
I do have a pack of cam grease (red) but I do not think it would be enough to pack the bearings too.
Thanks for your input!

It only takes a smear of that cam lube red stuff... its thick so it will stay in place until you get around to starting her up.
Its probably the Permatex assembly lube.

remember---once bearings etc are bolted in, it will fill a ~.002" gap, far less on a cam/lifter face... applying anything more is a total waste.
You will probably wipe far more off your fingers than is actually useful in the motor assembly.

Shall I open Pandora's box of oil? I saw many recommend Brad Penn racing oil. A similar product in Europe is the Valvoline VR1 racing oil, 20W50. It also comes in 10W60 or 5W50 flavors. And it also has the highest content of ZDDP. However, my experience with 20W50 oil is not a nice one... I used it in the new and tight type1, and oil temperature was too high from my point of view, at ~115 degrees Celsius. I switched to 10W40 and temperature dropped by 15 degrees. My explanation can be only that the thicker oil flows less, so at the same oil pressure, more volume is dropped by the oil pressure control valve, and less volume is flowing through the bearings, thus absorbing more heat and not being able to cool down. 10W40, being less thick, flows more volume, takes away heat and is able to dump it to to the cooler.

Thats a good way of looking at it.
20w50 is for worn out motors, or a drag motor with large clearances.

I'm currently running 0w-40 pennzoil euro something or other, run it in everything, with a mobil1 or k&n filter..
800ppm zddp, dual springs, no issues, over 100k now, have not needed to actually adjust the valves in years.
(solid lifters, crmo pushrods and 911 adjusters)

high zddp is not required, iI think there was a misunderstanding of the physics of how it works.,

I broke this motor in with vr1 10w30, I would probably go straight to the 0w40 now, will on the next one.

I'm building up the longblock. What orientation for the piston rings? Manual says 12 o'çlock first fire ring, 6 the second and oil ring 10-12-2 (spreader being at 12). OR first fire ring 4 o'clock, second 8 o'clock, and oil scaper 10-12-2? I remeber reading sme time ago that the first compression ring shall be somehow opposite to the spark plug, so 4 or 8 o'clock makes sense.

I finished the longblock and used the second option for ring gap location. Pictures tomorrow. Not a lot of them because I was dirty.
Man, does it turn hard with cylinders installed! It was rotating freely before. And the spark plugs are not in. I wonder how I can turn it to adjust valves, it doesn't have the big pulley nut as a type 1. All tolerances are at the lowest, but it didn't feel tight.
It will take some time for the next step because I have to paint the engine tins.

Still following this with great interest, loving the detail and the attention to the finer points of building an engine of this age correctly

So, just two pics I snapped during the build. Nothing special to photograph, I just re-did some measurements (endplay, deck height) and put it all together. The hammer was NOT for the engine components massage !

you must have a very understanding wife

Indeed. Till this weekend everything was in the spare bedroom. I still have there all the suspension/brake parts, body tins, windows and accessories. But I don't have a garage yet (waiting for authorization to start the construction, it will be small). She is a Beetle owner herself, with a '64 sunroof project car, original paint. Hopefully I'll start on that after I finish mine.

tz your shortage of space brings me back to my first engine build back in early 70's. I got married and lived in a Garden Apt. -- the storage space was in the basement. It was 8x8 ft space. Divided it in half, so I had a 4x 8 space to build my engine- the other half was for storage.. Took 6 months, that engine ran great for 10 years till the bug got totaled . Small but was a hell of alot better then living in the Bronx and working on my cars, laying in the street, when there were no CURB Your Dog Laws.

Now seriously, how do you guys turn the engine with the pistons installed? Mine is extremely hard to turn after installing the pistons and cylinders. It was harder and harder adding cylinders one by one.

how hard? did you check ring gap?

with the heads on and spark plugs in you may be turning against the compression?