Aircooled VW South Africa

After more than 11 weeks the Notch moved under her own power again on Monday.

At the end of September she swallowed the injector tube from the RH carburetor and limped the last few miles home on three cylinders. A boroscope inspection revealed lots of mangled brass inside cyl #1 so we removed the engine & RH head to clean up & inspect for further damage. As the disassembly proceeded it became clear that this engine was in far more distress than I first realised - we found 2 loose cylinders, 3 stripped head studs, a severely blocked oil cooler, etc. Interestingly the valves were all original VW and weren't burned after 121 500 miles neither did the valve seats show any sign of recession having run on unleaded for the last 9000 miles. Anyhow, the descision was made to do a complete rebuild and thus started the very interesting - and dirty - process of completely overhauling my 1st VW engine. I would never have believed how much cleaning was involved if I hadn't done most of it myself. I recon at least 50% of the total effort is spent cleaning baked on cr@p off parts!!! Same goes for the amount of reading and research one has to do in order to understand the processes involved - and implications thereof - in making the case & heads serviceable again. I highly recommend 'How to overhaul your air-cooled VW engine' by Tom Wilson & 'How to hotrod VW engines' by Bill Fisher as everything is described in great detail. Another must have is an original VW engine manual which I was furtunate enough to obtain just before starting this job. I was also extremely priviledged to have a mentor in the person of Bill Noble (Forcecooled) who has been building VW engines since before I was around and who allowed me to assist with & learn as much as possible as the work progressed. Thanks Bill - I learnt more about VW engines in the last 2 months than I had in the preceeding 20 years!!!

The case, crank, rods & heads were sent to McDonalds in JNB for machining and as usual they did a fantastic job then the flywheel & clutch, crank, rods, pistons, fan & gen pulley went to Dynamic Balancing in Edenvale and they did a equally great job of balancing the whole lot. Bill CC'd the heads & adjusted the deck heights to give a c.r of 7.8:1 all round resulting in an engine that is both dynamicaly & volumetricaly balanced. The difference in smoothness is amazing and eventhough the engine is still stiff she just wants to rev - I have to keep reining her in!!!!

The list of parts that were replaced is about a quarter mile long, most significant being:
Reground flywheel & new LuK clutch plate
New german KS cylinders, pistons & rings
NOS VW camshaft & new Scat lifters
New AE valves & guides
New Mahle bearings
26mm Shadek oil pump & new oil pressure regulating valve
10mm head studs replaced with 8mm studs & case savers
And my personal favorite: Thermostat & cooling air control flaps replaced, checked & found serviceable

I've included a few pics for your perusal.

Regards,

That looks great Adriaan. Hope it gives you many happy miles.

Where did you get the exhaust from?

Congrats on rebuilding your motor - also interested in the exhaust .........

thats sexy!!

That is not an engine rebuild, it's a work of art, look at all the detail! That looks like a lot of hours of graft. Well done on doing a decent job!

Great work on the engine restoration!

Thanks for your good comments - I can't take credit for all the work though. Yes, it did take a while but it was worth the effort. The engine not only looks good but runs really well too. There are a few small issues with the rebuilt Solex carbs I still have to deal with but I'll let the engine run in properly before attending to them. The exhaust is a copy of a Grapnel unit which was available in SA during the late 80's/early 90's and which is actually a copy of a Monza free flow system that was available as a performance product during the 60's. Mine is constructed from stainless steel and was made by De Graaf in Pretoria a few years ago. It lets the engine breathe very efficiently and has a rather pleasing exhaust note.

Regards,

Variant, what did your gasket set cost you? Are they really 10 times the price of a standard beetle one????

Doesn't it use a standard beetle one? What's different?

hitlers revenge wrote:Variant, what did your gasket set cost you? Are they really 10 times the price of a standard beetle one????

Type 1 - 3 motors all use the same gasket set. Everything you'll need is included in the set. The Payen set (p/n FK240) seems like decent quality I don't know how much they sell for at the mo as I had most of the gaskets in stock from previous engine work & Bill supplied the ones I lacked.

My Bad,

I'm actually questioning the Type 4 gasket set. I have been told its 10 times the price as the packaging has Porsche branding on it?????

I think Didi said it best:

That is not an engine rebuild, it's a work of art, look at all the detail!

Two thumbs up to you and Uncle Bill on AMAZING work.

Righty...

This engine has done just shy of 1000 miles since overhaul. Oil consumption has stabilised and compression - corrected for density altitude, is 9.9, 11.1, 10.8 & 10.5 bar respectively. Valves are set at 0.15mm & I've dumped the Catrol GTX 20W50 used during run-in for fully synthetic Castrol Edge Sport 10W60 which my research leads me to believe is the best oil currently available for an air cooled VW engine. Average fuel consumption works out to 9l/100km now that I've fixed the vacuum leaks that existed between the main carb & throttle bodies. I'm very, very happy

Attached are a few pics of the completed installation.

Regards,

That engine looks great - congrats !

Were you at Timour Hall last week?

do you have an oil temp gauge? That oil might run warm with a stock style cooler.
I am still running that oil in my 2332 but I think it is too thick. I'll be switching to something thinner soon.