It’s been opened up and spot faced for 1776 and I have brand new barrels and pistons to go on. Need to get the heads opened up to match and adjust the combustion cc along with a slight bit of porting. It should be a night and day difference from the knackerd old lump that used to drag the bus around.
This seems to be my take on Vege . Fitted a 1600 back in '92 . Despite my abuse it covered over 100k miles and was still pretty good when I exchanged it for Robert Parry recon a couple of years ago . Could have got another Vege but things have changed and they no longer recon under one roof , it's become a franchise sort of thing . I got In early before he got too busy Sent from my SM-A320FL using Tapatalk
Trouble with most rebuilt engines on the market is that you don't, in most cases, know its previous history. Bus engines work hard for a living and die pretty traumatic deaths a lot of the time. These dead or crippled engines are then rehashed and sold on as good ones! I thank my lucky stars, that I'm still on my original engine after its been overhauled. Tony
There can’t be much money in re-conning old aircoolers these days. Vege better off doing Fords, GM, etc.
As luck would have it, I’ve just taken it in for a starter motor and check over and while not big ends perhaps, (although they may be) almost certainly main bearings and valves seems likely at least with one sticking. Been told to expect £3300 for a strip and rebuild but haven’t read all the details yet and may depend on what they find rather than all new moving parts as in recons. Do I go for rebuild or recon? And if the latter where should I go for a recon short engine? Seen recon type 4 1.7s from £2200 for The Engine Shop, Veges from JK for £2300 or so, SSPs from Heritage for £3000. And if recon, would it be advantageous to replace it with a 1.8 or are there significant differences meaning a straight swap isn’t easy? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
For @scrooge95 the case savers are steel threaded inserts initially used to repair engines where steel studs screwed directly in to the soft engine alloy would pull out. The worn out hole would be cleaned up, tapped for a case saver and then the original stud fits in the hole in the case saver. Saving the case from scrap. This happened so often that VW just fitted them as standard. Makes the whole thing a lot stronger like when I mashed a piston the cylinder head studs were still happily fixed in the case savers.
It’s the bearing on the end of the crank behind the flywheel It shouldn’t have that much movement against the case It’s so worn the case was scrap. This is what people refer to as excessive end float. If you push and pull on the front pulley on the engine and you can feel/see movement then it’s rebuild time The longer you leave it the more it damage gets done.
