As I mentioned recently my VW engine had a major issue. You can read about it here.
So after buying parts at Doug’s Bugs and Bunnies in Mesa. I was able to get it all back together without too much trouble. Ok, doing pushrod tubes was a pain to get them extended out so they could then get compressed while putting the cylinder heads on, but oh well. I replaced the pistons, cylinders, and cylinder heads (and gaskets along the way as well).
The engine went back into the car this last weekend without too much trouble. I was glad I had the engine on my motorcycle jack. It worked really well to stabilize it as I went up into the engine compartment. I had to put the fan shroud, the generator and fan, the carbs, the exhaust and the heater all back on while getting the engine in. I made a mistake and forgot to put a piece of metal back on before the exhaust header and had to take that back off so I could get that metal piece installed. That added almost an hour of fighting and then taking things apart and then back together. And getting the heater boxes in is always a chore and a half for one of the four nuts (there just isn’t enough room for my hand to get in there well).
But it all got put back in and once I had oil back in the engine I fired it up. It fired right up which was nice since it hadn’t run in over a month and had been taken apart. Then I pushed the accelerator a little and…
I heard a TERRIBLE noise. It was a grinding/scraping noise. I immediately turned the engine off. Oh and this was all on Monday morning right before my class started for the day. I was crushed. I had no idea what I could have done wrong. I have done this part of this engine 3 times before this so this was my fourth time and I went step by step very carefully.
I called my dad and he gave me a few things to look at. He mentioned checking to see if the fan was scraping the fan shroud. He also mentioned the bearing in the generator may have gone bad. I hadn’t thought of those. I was deathly afraid it was a piston scraping inside a cylinder, but wasn’t sure how it could be since it was only making the noise when the accelerator was pushed.
After class I went out and felt around the fan and I didn’t feel anything that felt like it could be scraping. Then it was time to check the bearings on the generator. That requires taking the belt off, and therefore taking the pulley on the generator off. When I took the pulley off I noticed that there was a groove cut into the cover plate on the pulley and I saw the woodruff key pressed up against that part. It is supposed to be in the generator shaft preventing the pulley from spinning freely.
Well that would do it. The Woodruff key was destroyed and so I had to get one (thank you local hardware store), and I reinstalled the key and the pulley and belt then fired it up and…
NO NOISE!
That was the problem. So, the car is back up and running. I took it for a drive yesterday to pick a kid up from Bible club, and it ran really well. Now I just have to do a break in time for the engine. That will mean 500 miles at 45mph and under (at lowish RPM) then the next 500 miles at 55mph or under (harder to do here now, but I will try), and then I should be fine after that.
I am blessed to be able to get things like this done. I also got my motorcycle back together last Saturday as well with no issues at all. But I already wrote about that. I like doing this work and I don’t like doing it. Doing it means something went wrong, but fixing it always makes me feel good.
Sorry no pictures of the engine back in the car.