Aircooled VW South Africa

Morning all. Took the bus for its first tide to Angela's picnic yesterday, goes very well but noticed the oil light flickers at idle on the way home. Then noticed a oil leak from the crank pulley. Pulled the pulley to check.
How do l check that the pulley pill slinger grooves are not worn and can I do anything to fix this.
Been reading about sand seal kit.
Are there measurements for the pulley to see if it's worn.
What can be done,
Thanks again. In advance.

Morning Vintageman,.....I have not extensive experience on these issues ,...but I am sure the ghurus will ask a couple of questions regarding this to get a better picture?
My 2 cents worth is,.........it sounds like the breathing system could be blocked,....I have seen "sweating" from the front oil slinger pulley before?

Let's wait and hear from the shaper pencils in the cup.

Haans

I think the 1st thing to do, is see if you have the correct seal in and if its the right way around.

Herman

It does not take a seal on the crank pulley I also thought it should have one

Vintage man, you are correct. The engine does not take a seal on the pulley end of the crank. It just has an oil slinger on the crank, and a triple-start thread (your pic) on the pulley, that will spin oil back into the engine.

You can go the sand seal route as a possible solution, but it may be a band-aid to the problem. It may be best to first figure out what is causing the leak.

Was anything done to the engine before you took the bus for its first run? Rebuild? New rings? Line bored case?

If the rings have not seated properly, blowby could be pressurising the case, causing your leak.

Some machinists also line bore all case journals, including the pulley bore, not realising they are causing an oil leak. VW actually produced pulleys with oversized OD (111 105 253B) for early engines, as a cure for an oversized case.

It is unlikely that the pulley will be damaged, unless someone butchered it... It does not come into contact with the casing, so should not have wear. The tolerance between the casing and the pulley, should be small enough, to allow the triple-start thread to do its job (return oil back into the casing). If the clearance is too big, it will leak.

As was said before, make sure the breather is clear.

1st, check your breather is free.
If it is, find out why you have excess crankcase pressure. It is pressure that is blowing the oil out of the screw.

If your oil light comes on at idle, then you either have 1 of three things going on
idle speed is too low
oil is too thin (petrol thinning it out?)
internal leakage due to worn bearings or worn oil pump.

Which oil pressure transmitter do you have for the oil pressure warning light?

Is it the stock VW transmitter with single terminal wired to the warning light, or is it the VDO combination sender with two connections - one to the warning light, and the other to an oil pressure gauge?

stock ,one connector.No gauge

It has been said here on the forum that a lot of after market pulleys are under size and do leak oil.

Could it be that you have one of these.?

Herman

Got a standard pulley on.What is the correct way to check the breathing system.I blow into the pipe and strong air comes out the front crank.Can I build a breatherbox and will it help.

with the engine running, idle, pull off the breather pipe. If smoke is puffing out, then you have major blowby and you need to consider a compression test to determine if you need to refresh the engine. You should see nothing coming out of the breather hose with only a very little pulse of air.

You also need to check the pressure sender. If its a replacement and you bought it locally from a spares dealer, chances are you got a generic one. This one, even though listed for the beetle, isnt for the beetle, its for golfs, not beetles and has a higher pressure that it "comes on" at. The beetle one is very low, I cant remember how low, but I am thinking 3-5psi. Having the wrong one will have you searching for problems that you dont have.

Tony ,thanks once again .Will do the checks and update.

OK breather pipe off no smoke , oil filler cap of no blowing even did checks when hot nothing.
See photos of the air cleaner and connector I made, could this restic the bypass. If it was revved a bit high could this have caused the leak at the crank pulley

that grommet in the air filter looks a bit small. I'd at least try to aim for a minimum of 10mm, bigger if you can get it.
Get yourself bulkhead fittings from hydraulics shops.