well the engines much less than healthy.. starts fine, idles a bit lumpy, pulls... below adequately, loud, knocking very slightly, and cuts out when i lift the throttle and dip the clutch in second to change to third.. (dont get the chance to find 4th!) also blew a gasket and developed a nice oil leak on its first run on the road.. which left me at the side of the road in cumbria for 4 hours, eventually being saved my my girlfriends mum towing me home in her renault modus... embarrassing times.. anyways, was wondering if i should just get a new engine? as a mates got one i can have for 150, or whether that could be easily attributed to something by one of you lovely people that knows a lot more about it than me.. any help/comments would be greatly appreciated.
I guess it depends on the condition of the engine your mate is selling. Also if you can do a rebuild on yours over the winter. When I put the new engine in our camper I knew what the engine was like & how it had been built, in fact I'd watched it being built. The price was also cheaper than rebuilding the 1800 engine.
as far as im aware its all good, and i know the carb hes selling is good because hes only taken it off his bus because he's going fuel injection.. ive order a complete new gasket set and big end bearings, all il have to use is the pushrod tubes off mine, but im probably just going to buy new ones of those too. and i havent got the time to give the old one a full overhaul, i have to drive it 400 miles in 10 days...... does it sound like its full overhaul on the one in it? thats what i thought, but thought it was better to check, cus if i could just swap the carb or something and service it, then that would be infinatly better..
Considering all the issues you have had so far with this bus electrics,engine, bits missing etc. I would get it home and give the whole bus a good going over and make a list of all that needs doing. A knocking engine is not good but before you rip it out do the basics first timing,valve gaps, ignition and fuelling then compression test and end float. Why not join the AA (you will need to anyway) give it 24 hours and call them out to have a look and if they cant fix it get it towed home
yeah, to be fair that does sound like the obvious choice... although there is a aircooled dub specialist literally round the corner from where the van is, i found this out a couple of days ago, and spoke to him and he said he'd be happy to look at it,and let me know if that is my only option. kenny at zolkszombie? although with 2 engines, and a load of new parts already ordered, im sure il be able to make it go. and even if it conks out on the way back, i still have the breakdown cover option i was wrongly sold by my insurance... they said it was gunna be £36 and on the paperwork says its its £84.99! f***ers. need to ring them about that... although to be fair, it looks like it may well be having a trip to see you zed as you seem to know all the answers to everything!! haha
well the guy came up, spent a lot of time laughing at my craptacular electric system, then came to the conclusion that its probably my big or small end bearings that have gone... although the bearings being gone wouldnt make it cut out when i tried to change gear, that doesnt make sense i wouldnt have thought?
If he can't tell little ends from big ends, maybe he's more of a bodywork bloke. No it wouldn't make it cut out unless it was so bad you want to switch it off yourself.
i think he may be more of a bodywork bloke to be honest, just looked him up on fb and he's making a pretty extreme volksrod pickup-esque thing from a beetle, so it would point that way..
Yeah, I don't touch std type 1s unless it's to remove/refit on But I can do a type 4 rebuild cheaper than you can get one from heritage 8) Probably not as cheap as Laurie tho
fair enough guys, how much is one of them 'rods out' bottom end setup, if i can get one to build up the rest of meself? and is there a ballpark price for a replacement engine? because i dont really know, and trying to weigh up my options. i am going to try and build up the engine i have, but as it will be the first engine build of one of these, im not expecting perfect results... if it was a RB26 i could do it with my eyes shut, but this whole split crankcase contents thing is confusing the crap out of me at the moment!
Coolair do a range from TES http://www.coolairvw.co.uk/Category/0/Shop_by_Product~Engine_Products~Replacement_Engines~T.E.S_Engines~Long_Block.html Basic engine starts at £750... at that sort of money it's not even really compete-able with... as a full strip down and clean and rebuild takes a good 20hrs
Rods-out is something you're unlikely to be able to source. I can coz me man knows I won't botch the rest of the rebuild. There are plenty builders, if not all of them, who'll rebuild your engine and use the good bits without ripping you off. Laurie's one and our own Paul is another. But as Paul points out - it does take time to do it properly.
