In the absence of progress on the bodywork on my 1971 Karmann Ghia Convertible (My friend has an American car stuck on his car lift so can't do the welding yet), I decided to take a look at the engine. My wife bought me a VW engine cradle at Christmas and now is the time to try using it. I decided to use my motorcycle lift as a base for the stand and secured the swivel socket to the lift with 10mm bolts and wing nuts. This makes it easy to remove when I want to put a bike back on the stand. I then bolted the cradle to the engine and with a jack under the engine, slid the cradle into the socket and tightened the clamp and with a couple of the car's wheels on the other end of the lift, as a counterbalance, I was ready to start stripping the engine.
So the first thing was the exhaust, which to my surprise unbolted with very few problems and with the exception of the clamp bolts, where the exhaust connects to the heater boxes, which snapped, all other nuts bolts and screws came out OK. I have no intention of refitting this exhaust, but I never throw anything away until a project is completed. So right now, it's under the bench. The heater boxes were next and again they came off reasonably easily. These are in quite good condition and will just need cleaning up and painting.
With the exhaust and heater boxes off, I could now tackle the tin-ware and the fan housing was my next target. As I mentioned in my earlier blog, I haven't stripped a VW engine since the late 1960's and things have changed a little and removing the fan housing is one of them. I now discovered that you can't remove the side screws until the inlet manifolds have been removed and also there is an interesting shutter system on the back of the fan housing that also needs disconnecting. Well the manifolds came off by releasing the jubilee clips joining them to a rubber hose which in turn connects to the rest of the inlet manifold that goes up to the carburettor. So two clips and two nuts on each side and they were off. I could now reach the side screws on the fan housing and remove them and with the fan belt removed and the alternator clip released, the fan housing should lift off. Well it lifted about 30mm and then stopped. I had forgotten that the shutter arrangement in the fan housing is connected to the thermostat under the right hand cylinder barrels by a thin metal rod and this also needs disconnecting before the fan housing will lift off. So thermostat removed, off it came.
I could then remove the inlet manifold and carburettor and the petrol pump and distributor. You will note from the picture, that I have not attempted to remove the Bakelite fuel pump flange as I remembered that they usually snap the long stem that goes deep inside the engine block , that is on underside of this flange, when you try to get them out. So I decided to leave this until later. Removing the fan housing also properly revealed the oil cooler making it easy for this to be removed,
So now I could remove the final bits of tinware and expose the cylinder heads and barrels.I felt that this was a good time to remove the clutch and flywheel and see what condition they were in. Well the pressure plate was excellent but the centre plate and flywheel were not so good. It looks as though the clutch has been recently replaced but the flywheel was not. This seemed like a very odd thing to do, as the flywheel is so bad that it has ruined one side of the centre plate.
It took a while to discover why the flywheel had not been replaced. Then answer is simple, whoever did the clutch replacement could not get the flywheel off the engine and so left in on. I approached removing the flywheel with great confidence. I inserted my flywheel stop, put a 36mm socket on the flywheel nut and using a long power bar attempted to undo the nut. It did not move. So I slipped a long six foot tube over the power bar and tried again. This managed to lift the bike lift up on to two wheels but still didn't move the nut. So I got a man to press down with all his weight on the left side of the engine whilst I tried again with even more effort. This time there was a bang and the bar moved. Unfortunately it was not the nut coming undone. It was the teeth breaking off my flywheel stop. This nut is really on tight! So now I had to make a bar to fit across the pressure plate fixing bolts and extend outwards and lock into the engine cradle. I then took the engine off the stand and sat it on the floor, I then got a man to stand on the cylinder heads while I got a ten foot tube over the power bar and tried again. The power bar was bending, the man was loosing his balance as the engine tipped and then suddenly it moved and the nut was loose. No wonder the person who changed the clutch did not change the flywheel.
The next stage was to drain the oil, which was black, and then remove the cylinder heads and the cylinders.The heads came off quite easily, although No1 cylinder came off with the head and was well stuck in the head. To my surprise the heads, valves and cylinders are in remarkable condition. No sign of scoring in the barrels or on the pistons and all the valves look good. It is my intention to have hardened valve seats fitted in the heads anyway but it's still nice to find good news for a change.
So how to remove the No1 cylinder
from the head.I thought that maybe I could just give the barrel a gentle tap with a rubber hammer to loosen it, but that didn't work. So I then tried a rubber belt wrench rapped around the cylinder and tried to turn it. That didn't work either. So I settled for soaking the joint in penetrating oil and leaving it for a two days. That didn't work either. I was running out of ideas, when I decided to try another approach. Aluminium expands at a greater rate than cast iron, so I thought I would try heating up the cylinder head with a blow-lamp and see if that would beak the seal with the barrel. Success, it did and the barrel could then be removed from the head.Now I could strip the heads and take a look at the mating surfaces on the valves. More good news, the valves are all good. Although I will probably fit new ones when I rebuild the engine anyway. It seems quite odd that the car is in such bad condition and the outside of the engine is so filthy and yet the inside of the engine is looking so good. Perhaps when I split the crank case the story will change!
So now it's time to delve deep inside and split the crank case. So I removed the four nuts on the oil pump and all of the fixings holding the crank case together. Then with a gentle tap, with a fibre hammer, on the casing I loosened the two halves just enough to release the pressure on the oil pump housing so that it could easily be removed.Now a few more gentle taps and a little pulling and the two halves of the crank casing separated and revealed a really nice clean engine. The main bearings showed some slight scratches where grit had passed around them but no real signs of wear and the cam followers are completely unmarked. More importantly there is no sludge or metal deposits in the bottom of the crank case. Wow!!
The other thing that I noticed was quite a surprise. In my ignorance I had assumed that this car and its engine had been made in Germany. However under the grime on the side of the crank casing it clearly says "Brazil".
Well now for the final bit of the engine strip. The crank shaft.I decided, at this point, only to remove one con-rod and take a look at the big ends. True to form they are beautiful. It almost seems a shame to replace them, when they are so good. But when you are so deep into an engine I feel that I should fit new bearings just to be on the safe side.So the only bit left to look at now is the back main bearing and to do that I've got to remove the oil thrower, the distributor drive and the camshaft drive and this requires the use of some more heat and the use of a puller.
As you can see, I've laid out the parts in the order that they were removed and photographed them so that, when I start the rebuild, I have a record of the correct order of assembly.
As anticipated, the main bearing is beautiful. Unfortunately the puller had chipped a tooth on both the distributor drive and the camshaft drive. I suppose I could simply chamfer the chipped teeth and re-fit them but, knowing me, I will probably replace them when it comes to the rebuild.
Well that's the end of the engine strip. I'm still having trouble locating two of the nylon bushes for the soft top.
If anyone has any idea where I might get two of these bushes, please let me know.
You can contact me on hopcroftscoot@gmail.com
Copyright 07.06.17 all rights reserved.
My Other Blogs:
1961 BSA A10 Super Rocket Motorcycle:
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/before.html
1961 Ariel Arrow Super Sport Motorcycle :
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/1961-aerial-golden-arrow-restoration.html
Miniature Land Rover Defender:
http://miniaturelandrover.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/1-miniature-land-rover-defender-idea.html?view=timeslide
Motorcycle Trailers / Caravans:
http://motorcycletrailersandcaravans.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/1-motorcycle-trailers-problem.html
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