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I've just finished rebuilding a 2 liter 1981 Vanagon motor, including new cam shaft and lifters. The motor is all stock. After running it about 30 minutes, when it was cool I reset the valves to 2 turns down after zero clearance. This is what all the references (Tom Wilson, Bentley, Haynes) say. Then I came across a posting on the Web advising either 6 thou clearance or one turn down after zero clearance. Can anybody let me know what is the right adjustment for hydraulic valves?

The 2 turn preload is old school
www.bostonengine.com

has the new Bentley way. With all that preload you basically are keeping the valves open a little. You could see the stems move when you did the 2 turns.

I had a huge problem with mine, you have to set them hot, Boston engine site has a excellent explaination/techique to do it,

watch out for the heater box too they are hot.......

ZBoston Bob wrote that chapter for Bentley concerning the adjustments.....he knows hydros well...

I abslolutely hate them! won't even use them!

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Jake Raby
Raby's Aircooled Technology
www.aircooledtechnology.com

Why do you hate them Jake?

mine bleed out after sitting for a few weeks and clack like a sum beotch for a long time, If i had it to to over again, i would have replaced cam and lifter with solid.

I burned my arm a few times adjusting them hot too,

Solid.



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Adrian Pillow
'66 VW Westfalia - "Biscuit"
'67 VW Deluxe Westfakia - "Dino" - FS
'79 Porsche 911 SC - "Cochese"

I hate every aspect about them, even the idea. But the worst thing is they promote neglect...

I guess the only good thing about them is that they run quieter.

blah blah, hydros get such a bad rap, as long as you take care of em and adjust em every 6-8 k and dont have a beefed up engine there great,

first set all valve exhaust and intake at .006 when the engine is cold, let the lifters pump up, the engine will be noisey and run like crap.

once the lifters are pumped let the engine cool do not adjust valves hot, especially on an aircooled vehicle.

set all valve stems to 0, somepeople say any where from 3/4 to 2 turns, I go with 1 turn and it works great. Do not put on to tight the valves will not get a good seal when they are closed.

Maintanence is important, it should take only about a minute to pump em up when the engine is cold. any longer and you have bad seals, when neglected hydros wont operated correctly and you may have a blown valve seat or worse a valve sticking in the top of your piston.

Take these engines apart everyday and see what you think about hydros in only one year of paying attention to wear patterns...

There is a reason why No aircooled Porsche ever had hydros, VW did not learn things the same way, they only introduced them to sell more busses as people hated to adjust valves.

A solid lifter is a one piece design, hydros have 5 pieces inside them to fail...the more pieces move, the more the reality of a failure in many instances.

I see hydros cost people money everyday.

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Jake Raby
Raby's Aircooled Technology
www.aircooledtechnology.com

like i said before maintance is important. If you know what the hell you are doing you wont have any problems.

If you are not very mechanically inclined and understand how the type 4 works, stay away from hydros, stick with solids.

I like my hydros, i keep an eye on em, I have plays to build a solid lifter enging this spring, the hydro engine will not win races, the hyros dont do so well over 5500 rpms.

any ways, hydros are not for the vw ignorant.

Thanks for all your advice - when I rebuild again I think I will switch to solids. But for now I will follow the Boston Engine procedure (great site!). I noticed from other wweb pages that engines such as Audi now run hydraulic cam followers, so they can't be all bad.

typeIv74 seems to have this whole notion of what a hydro is supposed to achive backwards.
As Jake mentioned, the purpose of a hydro valve was to ELIMINATE maintainace in the first place . Why then would you say that they are ok as long as you "take care of 'em". Or "if you're not very mechcanically inclined you should stay away from them"? They were designed for the "not very mecanically inclined" among us. It's obvious that somewhere along the line VW R&D messed up and these dont really live up to what they were designed to do. I have a Honda Civic that has hydro's and I dont even think about it. 120,000 miles and not a hiccup. Honda got it right. VW didnt. No big deal. 5 little things inside to fall apart as opposed to 1 little thing to fall apart. Easy choice. My Honda probably has 15 little things to fall apart but they dont, so it doesnt really matter. Zero maintainance required ...just as it was designed. History proves itself.

love my hydraulic, never had a problem with them. Engine made over 200,000 miles, before rebuild no real wear problems on the cam or elsewhere. However did replace the cam, lifters, pushrods etc.. during the rebuild.

I'd have to see that one. I have seen engines with hydros and at 40K the cam was non existant, with more wear on the heel than the nose, imagine that......



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Jake Raby
Raby's Aircooled Technology
www.aircooledtechnology.com