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Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:56 pm

Just pulled the heads off my 64 bug to change the push rod tubes and found only a spacer between the cylinder and the head - no gasket at all. Didn't they use the metal crush gaskets on the 1200 or is the spacer good enough?

Wed Mar 22, 2006 12:10 am

What do you mean by a spacer? When I just changed my head on my 1200, it wasn't a gasket at all but a copper-metal ring. Don't know if that answered your question, but it is also the same thing that I used that was in my gasket kit.

Wed Mar 22, 2006 12:12 am

Nope - mine has a thick solid metal spacer that sits on top of the cylinder ?????

Wed Mar 22, 2006 12:18 am

Do you have a gasket kit? I know that plenty of people use BS ways to fix VW's with whatever they happen to have. Per the books, you are supposed to use the copper rings. "But aw hell...just slap some form-a-gasket on there and call it good!" Or maybe not...

Wed Mar 22, 2006 12:26 am

I ordered a gasket kit but they sent one for a 1300 instead but yes it has the copper cylinder rings. That's why I'm asking, I don't really know if it needs a spacer or can I take those out and use the standard copper ring gasket instead?

Wed Mar 22, 2006 12:30 am

Its your call, but I would use what is supposed to be on there. It doesn't make sense to have a spacer in there...

Wed Mar 22, 2006 1:23 am

Those copper seals were used on stale air-40HP's, they were a secondary seal to help keep any combustion leakage out of the heater boxes. If you have a fresh air motor, you don't really need to use them. Regardless of heater type, I think it's always a good idea to "lap" the cylinders to the heads with valve grinding compound.

Now, by a "spacer" do you mean something that goes where the top lip of the cylinder contacts the head? If so, it could be that the head was flycut at some point and they had to shim the cylinders out to make the compression ratio reasonable again. I'd check the deck height on the pistons and CC the heads and compute the compression ratio.

-Andy

Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:05 am

glutamodo wrote: If you have a fresh air motor, you don't really need to use them.

I was definitely confused by these rings since neither the "Rebuild Your Engine" book nor Muir nor Haynes referred to them, but the Bentley manual did. So I decided to follow Bentley, since it is a reprint of the original VW manual. In any case I found my 1200 engine had them on one side of the engine and not on the other, so I guess I wasn't the first one confused by this.

Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:37 am

glutamodo wrote: Those copper seals were used on stale air-40HP's, they were a secondary seal to help keep any combustion leakage out of the heater boxes. If you have a fresh air motor, you don't really need to use them. Regardless of heater type, I think it's always a good idea to "lap" the cylinders to the heads with valve grinding compound.

Now, by a "spacer" do you mean something that goes where the top lip of the cylinder contacts the head? If so, it could be that the head was flycut at some point and they had to shim the cylinders out to make the compression ratio reasonable again. I'd check the deck height on the pistons and CC the heads and compute the compression ratio.
-Andy

That's what it sounds like to me too. At some point the head was likely flycut too deep and instead of using shims under the cylinders (does anyone even make cylinder shims for the 40hp cyls?) they used "head spacers" instead. Not the way I would prefer to have it.