Comments by "Ready Teddy" (@soilmanted) on "Repairman22"
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@louisvanrijn3964 My understanding was that it was a magnesium-aluminum alloy (with secret ingredients added). The alloy appears to have been improved over the years, bit by bit, to improve its ability to resist distortion. If you kept the engine properly maintained with the rubber sealing flap around it, and the fan housing was not allowed to blow air into the engine area due to the existence of air leaks in the paper air-tubes, the engine normally did not get so hot that the case became distorted. But of course many owners neglected to maintain these things properly. I saw lots of engines that people were running without the air-tubes (cabin heater tubes). I owned about 5 of these engines and none of mine had any serious leaks. I had 3 beetles and a bus. One beetle for me, one for each of my 2 gal-pals, and a bus that we shared. I never saw any oil-drips underneath on the ground. Never. They didn't burn oil either. I never had to add oil between oil changes. I drove all of them, and I drove them hard sometimes. By the way if the crankcase overheated, another thing that could happene would be that area where the crankshaft and connecting rod bearings were seated, could deform. Also the long studs that screwed into the crankcase could loosen, allowing the heads to no longer seat well on the cylinders, causing leaks there of combustion gasses. Not good. The holes for the studs could be replaced by large diameter studs after drilling out the holes and cutting threads in them for the larger studs. Also the crankshaft area could be bored out and a larger crankshaft could be used.
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Service literature called for adjusting the valves every 6000 miles, at every other oil change. Sparking plugs at 12,000. The valve lash tends to increase maybe 0.001 or 0.002 inches each time, except at around 85,000 miles at which point #3 exhaust valve, the hottest-running, stretches and its guide wears. I am not sure why the lash generally increases. Perhaps it is just wear on the valve stem end from being smacked by the rocker arms. Or maybe it is wear on the lifters, or rocker-arm push rods. I'm not sure. I've done valve jobs on maybe 10 or 15 VW air-cooled engines. The valve seats and valve heads always seemed to have very little wear. Wear on these would decrease the valve lash but I never saw any serious wear. The valve stem of #3 cylinder, would get narrower, and longer, starting at about 85 0r 90,000 miles, causing the valve lash to decrease at that time. That's how you know it's time to overhaul – before the valve stretches into 2 pieces, and the #3 cylinder "sucks the valve." While I always overhauled the whole engine, From looking at the piston rings, and measuring the pistons, cylinders, crankshaft bearings and rod bearings, I believe they could go 200,000 between overhauls, if not more. .That's assuming you changed the oil on time and used the correct type and grade of oil.
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I haven't seen fuel pump hold down nuts loosen on new engines or on engines that I rebuilt and maintained.90,000 miles, and the nuts are still tight. Valves that need adjustment make a clicking sound. Fan belt was very easy to adjust. If the belt actually flies off it has gone way way past the point where it needs adjustment. I found that they went quite awhile before needing even the slightest adjustment. They do tend to wear out though, or deteriorate, exacerbated by the heat, the rubber material cracks and they break, and they need to be replaced right away (one should stop immediately) or else the engine will not be cooled and will overheat after just a few minutes depending upon the ambient temperature. Unfortunately, if the idiot light on the dash tells you the battery is not being charged – the engine is not being cooled either. The owners manual may not be clear about that. If things have gotten to the point that the belt has flown off, then most likely the engine has already gone for 100's of miles with a loose belt, inadequate cooling, and valve train damage and piston ring damage. You need that belt adjust properly, all the time, however it goes out of adjustment very slowly, and is easy to adjust. If the belt is too tight it will damage the generator bearings. But there is plenty of space between to loose and too tight. the vehicles came will more than enough extra spacer shims (big washers) to adjust the original belt and sny subsequent belts. The are stored under the nut. I suppose some idiots lose them even though that is almost impossible, or don't know why they are there, and discard them.
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Excellent presentation and factual. However I would add that, at least in the US, the Beetle became a 12 volt automobile in 1967, not 1975.. Still had a generator as opposed to an alternator, but it now had a 12v generator. Same for the 1968 bus-van. I believe Repairman was correct in saying that in 1975 was when the car gained an alternator to replace the generator. Incidentally the van-bus used the same engine as the Beetle up to approximately 1971 or 72. Up until around 1970 it used the same transmission too, I'm not sure if the gear ratios were any different either, because it used 2 geared speed reduction boxes, on at each rear wheel, to increase torque. This of course also reduced speed. The 1968 Beetle had a max speed of 78 mph. The 1968 van had a max speed of about 65 mph. Being air cooled they ran hotter than water cooled engines. Despite this the rather hefty crankshaft and connecting rods lasted a long time. However one could not say the same for the exhaust valves, valve seats, and valve guides. Until around 1971 the number 3 exhaust valve tended to stretch and break some time before the engine reached 100,000 miles. Unless you rebuilt the cylinder heads before then, the engine could suck a valve and experience damage to the #3 piston, cylinder, and connecting rod. Or worse. My 1968 engine, which I bought new, lasted over 300,000 miles but I rebuilt the entire thing at least twice, maybe 3 times. By periodically measuring the valve lash I could see when then #3 exhaust valve was starting to stretch. Rebuild the engine before it pulled in two like a piece of taffy, and then and the rebuilding job was a breeze.
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@chrisdevalcourt648 Yes that's what I thought. I rebuilt a 1971 once, from a van-bus, and I forget if it had the offset cooler or not and what the valves, rings, bearings, etc looked like, but I remember it had the dual port cylinder heads. I suspect they retarded number 3, first, before they decided to offset the oil cooler, but I could be wrong. I seem to remember looking at the cam lobes in the distributor on a 1967 engine, and seeing some unevenness, but I could be wrong.
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