Rusted Cylinder?

[crowew]

Hello all,

So I just inherited someone's old Sand Rail project that I'm trying to save. Frame and all is salvageable, but the motor has rust in one of the cylinders of the 1835cc engine. Apparently the owner never tried to run it with the rusted cylinder, but it is apart. It's obviously rusted in one cylinder and head. So my question: Can't I just buy a new set of pistons and cylinders, put them on, and repolish the heads? This may be a silly question, but I haven't found anything about this happening before.

Thanks for any input!!

Will

[jsturtlebuggy]

Water either entering the intake or exhaust system with a valve open will cause rust in cylinder area.
Yes you can just replace the pistons and cylinders. It you don't know the history of the engine it always wise to check the rod bearings. Rods can be removed with engine together. Plus you can look at cam and lifters for wear. And you want to check to see if crankshaft end play is still correct.
And since stock exhaust valve are known to break in VW engines. So it always wise to replace them when you have the engine apart.
Do you have experience with working on VW aircooled engines?
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Joseph
Fair Oaks/Orangevale, CA
Elrod Motorsports
Motion Tire Motorsports
Having fun with Dune Buggies since 1970
Into Volkswagens since 1960

[Danwvw]

Yes, If a VW engine is not started in several years the rings will rust to the cylinders and it will be worse on a couple of them! Best thing is to just get new piston and cylinders! But I would pull the engine down all the way and give it a good inspection to see if it needs bearings etc... If there was any water in the oil it will likely pit the cam and it will not last long. The crank tends to get pitted etc... Check the crank end-play with the flywheel still on! If it's more than 10-12 thousandths of an inch then it probably needs machine work and new bearings in the bottom end.
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1960 Beetle And 1679cc DP W-100 & Dual Zeniths!

[crowew]

Wow thank you for your awesome replies!

I'm very new with working on VW aircooled engines as this will be my first, my history is with Toyota Inline 6's. I'm ordering the "How to rebuild your volkswagen air cooled" book on amazon so I can learn more about then before I tear into it, i just wanted to make sure my concept wasn't complete bologna.

I'll be sure to carefully inspect all of the engine while I have it apart to make sure things aren't screwy.

Unfortunately the flywheel was off when I bought it, so I'll have to throw it on and see about the play there.

I have been reading alot of bad things about AA as a company to buy new pistons and cylinders from. Any recommendation on a company that makes decent quality parts like this? Or would AA be alright?

[Vanapplebomb]

These days AA is decent stuff. I wouldn't worry about it.
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1800 Type 4 Berrien 295

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=487021

[VWCOOL]

you could hone and re-ring

[biotex]

I too have rust in the number one cylinder as a result of the engine setting out with only a rag stuffed in the intake. I pulled the cylinders and they are original German with hardly any wear. Only the rust in the one cylinder.

I cleaned it up as best I could and then soaked it overnight in a mixture of tranny fluid and MMO. This loosened up what rust was left, and I was able to smooth out the rough part with some emery cloth. Good enough for me to put my drill powered cylinder hone to it. With some diesel fuel as a lube, I started with the hone to see what it would take to clean up the one cylinder.
Last night I mic'd it at 85.57 and have gotten 90% of the pitting out.

I don't have a mic. that will reach far enough down into the cylinder to get a more accurate reading, but once I get the final pitting out, I'm going to take it to a friends machine shop and see what it comes out to be. I will then purchase a set of 87mm rings and also an 85.5mm set. After I clean up all cylinders, I will install the new std. rings onto the pistons leaving out the top compression ring. The top ring will come from the 87mm ring set, which will be custom sized for each cylinder by filing the end gap. The only downside I can see would be piston slap if I take off too much of the cylinder walls. I don't think this will happen since they are cleaning up nicely. I have nothing to loose since this method is so cheap.

I could purchase a big bore kit complete for $160, but I prefer to keep the OG cylinders in service for a few more years.
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ACME Cruiser Sand Rail, 1776, Combo spindles,
Coil Over conversion in progress

[biotex]

[bersa2]

These are my poor pathetic heads. I cleaned them in the garage, and made them look presentable. I cleaned up the used set of pistons and cylinders that came with the car, got some new rings added some love and got lucky.