Went to change my oil after a bit of a run in, and found this on top of the oil strainer. Also, the oil has a gold sheen to it. To me, it looks like cam shell bearing and gold crank dizzy gear dust. Looks like it all has to come apart again, and that VW guy needs to go to an asylum. I showed the pic to a mate, and he concurs. Thoughts? Getting a bit fed up with it now, but I’m gonna have to split the engine down again. Seems to be turning into a money pit at the wrong time…
Not good, it will be interesting to see what the damage is.. But what makes it chew up the distributor drive gear ? When I damaged mine when I made the noddy mistake of turning the engine just a few degrees without a distributor in it , it took the corners off the gear but most of the gear was still present. As I had a spare crankshaft I stripped the gear off that and used it instead. Maybe I didn't let it run, and replaced the gear straight away. But the other bearings going down. That will be interesting to see which bearing went- maybe its bits of distributor gear blocking an oil gallery. Trouble is now your oil galleries are full of bits too. So ideally you would be pulling plugs , cleaning out and fitting plugs again. Or get a parts washer and spend hours back flushing galleries in the disassembled case halves. I have been glad to have fitted a full flow oil filter twice now, as the oil filter catches all of the chunks that fit through the strainer but are still going to damage bearings.
When you take it apart inspect every part as it is removed, don't tear it down to a thousand pieces and then start looking at it. The debris certainly could be a cam bearing, or mains, or big ends, or... Is that copper washer from the strainer cover?
Most unfortunate... you have to be very careful who you let build an engine for you, maybe the old guy (80?) is loosing his short term memory but was trying to do you a favour despite that because he's very likely unaware. As you probably know I had an engine built in similar circumstances, the list of errors was something to behold! Not his fault.
He insisted on using an oversized cam bearing, and machining the new cam to fit. I’ve never heard of that before, but he said he has done it loads, hence all my questions about double thrust bearings,etc,etc, on previous posts.
My chap clearanced the case for a bigger crank in the wrong places and the rods were hitting the roof of the case. I sent it back for him to investigate and he didn't spot it, but did remove my funky new cam, wheel, oil pump, followers and put stock ones in without mentioning it. He probably didn't even know he'd done that. Due to all his other errors, the engine ran out of puff at 2,000rpm. a 2l stroker with less power than a 1200. When I rebuilt it to how he was supposed to, it was crazy - 135HP peak, if you floored it in 2nd to come out of a roundabout you had to ease off or loose control. Fun times. When I sold it after taking the guy for a run where that happened then we accelerated to 70mph in 3rd, he insisted on not letting it out of his sight between then and putting it in his car. I sold it for the cost of the parts more or less. He put it in a Beetle with (1300?) beetle gearing and said he could go from a standstill to 100mph all in 4th. Not sure what that taught me though, it didn't like cruising in 4th, it was under the cam power band and got too hot. It cruised better in 3rd at 60mph, but who wants to do that?
I'm hankering to build a different Type-4, but the parts cost is doing my heed in. About £3,000 just for the top end. Got to be £5K+ for the whole thing and that's probably with my rose tinted glasses on. With the exhaust it would need and bigger carbs, there goes another £2k+... we're heading for £10k if I was realistic, but 150+ aircooled HP in a bus would be wicked.
I'm a little bit aircooled addicted, going down that route I might as well chip the whole van in for a modern one.
Measure the crank float and the cam float before you split the case. Cam float might be a bit tricky but you'll find a way. Probably.
Take out the oil pump first and see if the camshaft gear walks backwards and forwards as you rotate the engine back and forwards?
Yes. I’ll bring myself to getting the engine back out, in the week. Can’t be bothered with the bleeding thing, at the moment.
Why don't you build two engines. One person buys all the bits (not you). You use your skills and experience to build two quality motors. Each one of you gets a quality engine. Both parties should be happy
I've always avoided building an engine for someone else because I'm aware that there's too much I don't know. Doing one for yourself is quite different.
Well… all the bearrings are still in there, intact. Dunno where that shrapnel came from. Everything moves as it should…. Thrust seems ok. Cam bearings all there…
I havnt got in-depth with it yet, as I only took the engine out at 3.15 this afternoon. I’ve just got into the house, now. But at a quick look, the cam moves for and aft, but hardly noticeable. There is no end wear on the cam thrust bearing, so nothing is touching anywhere. Tommorow, I will clean everything and measure stuff.
