engine work!

OMG, this shortblock is dirty. I have to be honest- not my favorite part of doing engine work. Most don't clean to the extent that I do; but I feel it has to be done. The fact is, a cleaner engine case cools better. There's no rocket science to this and no special machine to do it- just a lot of elbow grease with small brushes, screwdrivers, and the Dremel with a polishing wire wheel.

Will pull that leaky oil pump and reseal it- with a proper gasket and not a ton of silicone (like it is now).

Oil cooler was smashed. See the top right section there.

Not a huge problem, not leaking and did not affect the integrity of the actual cooler, just those vanes. Could spend $170 on a new one or bend it back a little like I did here...

Thermostat cable guide roller/wheel chewed up. No problem, we have a replacement.

Getting better/cleaner. Will polish it up more tomorrow. These pictures actually don't do my (hours of) work justice...

Oh, old pistons/cylinders left on so as not to contaminate the crankcase whilst cleaning. :-)

I need a shower.

New parts!

OK, they're not new but no one else would know that. hehe ;-)  See the previous blog post to get the before pics. Again, time consuming stuff but done right. These parts have been cleaned, blasted appropriately, and recoated with appropriate finishes.

Fan shroud: seperated, cleaned in parts washer machine, inside clear coated, outside metal-etch primered, and finished with a base of metallic silver then a light coat of hammerite silver and clear coat.  This finish will be better than powdercoating on the magnesium, in my non-professional opinion. :-)

Cooling fan: cleaned, lightly glass blasted, pulley finished metal-etch primer and black; and the rest clear-coated (colors like stock). White painted on timing notch and clear coated. Fan NOT seperated due to potential off-balance issues. Note, if this engine were a full balanced rebuild, the fan would be seperated, reassembled, and then balanced with the engine.  hhhmmm...picture shows a bit of dust, sorry about that. ;-)

heat exchangers:  fully blasted but lightly, to  not create any holes in the relatively thin skin. It is not necessary to FULLY blast off 100% of all surface rust since they are to be painted with POR (Paint Over Rust) 20 high temp paint. It's always cool to see the date stamps and part numbers on these! :-) Small ding on bottom, no problem for function. There is some looseness on the skins at the flanges but this is normal wear and tear. They will function well and be sealed with some high temp copper sealant as needed.

Coated with first coat of POR 20 aluminum color high temp paint. They will get one more coat. Also, the flanges have not been finished in this pic.

control boxes and their warm-air pipes (one missing in this pic), blasted:

POR 20'd:

Control box outlet tubes. These route the unused air out the back of the bus when the control box valves are closed off from the cab. These are only on 1978-79 buses. VW painted them gray so I've stuck with that (cleaning, blasting, metal-etch, etc). The air is not extremely hot when it passes through them.

Muffler heat shield, helps keep heat (off the top of the muffler) away from the rear of the engine tin, below the cooling fan. Many folks rid of these. Big mistake to do so. These are filled with asbestos containing material, but...whatyagonnado...this one is in the best shape I've ever seen, blasted very well (be careful) and took the POR 20 like a champ. This is only coat 1.

Flanges on exhaust manifolds and U-pipes being refinished. All flanges are very thick and nice. A few needed flattened, no big deal. There will be no exhaust leaks on this motor!

And, last but my favorite...starting on the fuel injection parts. Here are the manifolds and plenum, fully blasted, metal etched, painted stock colors. Beautiful! :-)

Also done with cooling flaps, oil fill, heat exchanger channel covers, oil dipstick, ignition coil clamp, etc. etc...

Stay tuned.