Good evening all . Taking engine out next week to fit my 6 rib box , but at the same time thinking of fitting the securing wire for the push rod tubes as the last person did not fit them ..git . So whilst rockers are off, was thinking of tightening down cylinder head nuts just to see if they have slackend off , as there seems to be a slight oil leek only slight at that, coming down from the head fins ....but not fully sure untill i fully investigate . Or will it cause more trouble than it's worth as it is not to bad . Also pretty sure the tube seals are not leaking even though it's exempt of the securing wires .Ta in advance .
You can only get at the lower row... The wire is belt and braces. If the pushrod tube did come loose you'd loose oil pretty quick without the spring thing to keep it in place.
If you want to retighten the heads remove them and fit new sealing rings in the combustion chambers, if you just tighten them the rings will probably just come apart quite soon.
VW Technical bulletin 10-90 T01 deleted the head gaskets and to retain the same CR replaced them with a 1.6mm aluminium spacer at the bottom of the cylinders. The same bulletin also increased the piston to cylinder clearance and added oil spray grooves to the con rods.
Vw did indeed delete them... I've pulled an engine to bits with less than 1k on it due to them being fitted and causing a compression loss
I think at this stage with the head tightening "that's if they do need tweeking " will leave well alone untill i have a rebuild in the future . My engine at the moment does pass oil , but certainly not at an alarming rate . I probably average about 3 to 4 1/2 thousand miles a year so it's not to much of a big deal . Driving down to Cornwall last year ,mileage about 340 it probably used about half a litre at the worst . To be honest i think there is more likely to be more wear on the dip stick from the constant checks than on the rings .
We tried one of those 1.6mm spacers when we mocked ours up, it increased the deck height from 1.52mm to 3.12mm which, according to Wilson, was way above the max tolerance. We have a deck height 1.52mm and a CR of 8.1:1 which appears to be very driveable!
