Removed Trans/Engine from Syncro... its not that bad!

[Mathew Zelezen]

What the heck! Lets yank it all out!

As some of you may remember, the transmission in my 86 Syncro just crapped the bed. Such is life. I was fortunate enough to be contacted by a very generous individual that had a spare and we worked out a deal. So in preperation for the transplant I decided to confront my leaking heads. I read every post I could find on the proper procedure for dealing with leaking heads and decided to pull the trans and engine out as one and replace the head gaskets and everything else that came with the full engine gasket kit. This being my first attempt at anything of this caliber wish me luck!



The neighbors politely nod and attempt a smile as they pass me and Larz on the way to the trash dumpsters... they think I'm disturbed. Here's the van jacked up (mucho clearance as it turned out) with the guard bars, muffler and front driveshaft removed.

And here's the whole shebang on the driveway.
I used a 3 ton jack and a piece of mahogany positioned a little toward the engine of center and it floated down (watch the dipstick).

Here we have the motor stripped down with the heads removed. Thanks to the tip about lightly tapping the sides of the heads with a piece of wood and a hammer all 4 pistons stayed where they should! Phew! Is Acetone a good solvent to scrub the rest of the engine with?

Lot of carbon deposits in there and a little bit of pitting I need to fill in with some JB... everything look OK to those who know what they're looking for?...

Riddle me this, I'm pretty sure what most of these are for, but what are the flat silver rings in the center as well as the bunch of black rubber rings on the left for?

Cheers!
_________________
87 Syncro Tintop
~Rocky J Motor
~Steedle Trans


Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.

[Captain Pike]

Got Bentley?
Silver rings are the "head gaskets" they go inside the heads.Smaller black rubber goes inside the flywheel. Big one is the water pump seal.
Warning: the supplied flywheel seal is NOT to be used. Get a sobro(sp?) or orange victor reins. http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3177257&highlight=#3177257
_________________
LEARN TO SELF RESCUE
59 Panel bus, 1966 Single cab. 73' 181. 73 Westy. 91' H6 Vanagon 3.3L.
....Bad Sneakers....

[tencentlife]

Yes, don't use that El Cheapo mainseal. The Elring gasket set is very good, but the included seal is one of the worst for quality of construction. The pulley-end seal is OK, they are under very little stress and I've never seen one leak of whatever quality, but you should go to the trouble to get a better mainseal.

Acetone? Wow, like nuclear-grade overkill. Save yourself the deadly fumes and skin damage; good-old Kerosene is a better solvent for engine grime and will be much easier and healthier to use. You can scrub it into the grime and it will loosen and suspend it until you can wipe or rinse it off, without drying. Acetone will dry before you can even do much with it. The Kero you can wash off with a detergent rinse. Even better, Simple Green can be used as a scrub, and it'll rinse off without turning your driveway into a Superfund site.
_________________
Shop for unique and useful Vanagon accessories at the Vanistan shop:
https://intrepidoverland.com/vanistan/
also available at VanCafe.com!

Please don't PM here, I will not reply.

Experience is death to doctrine.

[Captain Pike]

Tencent___do you think he should pop the springs and inspect and clean the valves+ a lap job?
My thinking is may as well while your there_____or spring for some AMC's and do it.
_________________
LEARN TO SELF RESCUE
59 Panel bus, 1966 Single cab. 73' 181. 73 Westy. 91' H6 Vanagon 3.3L.
....Bad Sneakers....

[Mathew Zelezen]

Thanks for the heads up on the seal you two... i threw it away before it could sneak into the engine.
Simple Green huh, i love the smell of that stuff

The heads are AMC's and I never would have known those were the old gaskets stuck on the heads... thanks Bill W.
_________________
87 Syncro Tintop
~Rocky J Motor
~Steedle Trans


Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.

[tencentlife]

Work on the heads? I dunno, depends on how many miles are on them. If they're AMC's and the exhausts weren't replaced, now would be the time to swap them for some TRW's. VC carries those.

The smell of Simple Green makes me want to vomit.
_________________
Shop for unique and useful Vanagon accessories at the Vanistan shop:
https://intrepidoverland.com/vanistan/
also available at VanCafe.com!

Please don't PM here, I will not reply.

Experience is death to doctrine.

[Mathew Zelezen]

Could I add those TRW valves myself or is a shop/special tool needed?

The smell of vomit makes me vomit... especially vomit with olives in it.
_________________
87 Syncro Tintop
~Rocky J Motor
~Steedle Trans


Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.

[Captain Pike]

Sure, valve spring compresser and some lapping compound. If you indeed have AMC heads then I would definatly inspect the exhaust valves and replace with TRWs $160 is a small price to pay to avoid burning a valve.
_________________
LEARN TO SELF RESCUE
59 Panel bus, 1966 Single cab. 73' 181. 73 Westy. 91' H6 Vanagon 3.3L.
....Bad Sneakers....

[Mathew Zelezen]

Hmmm, you don't happen to have a pic of a bad valve do you... or maybe some description of characteristics?

Never having gazed at valves before I'm not sure what to look for.

Cheers
_________________
87 Syncro Tintop
~Rocky J Motor
~Steedle Trans


Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.

[Dogpilot]

Not a WBX but very close:

http://www.ratwell.com/technical/Heads.html
_________________
Geology with a Syncro rocks!
86 Syncro Westy AKA "The Bughunter"
98 Disco I
08 Range Rover SC
08 VW Rabbit S
1951 O-1G

[ftp2leta]

[tencentlife]

By "bad valve", in this case what BillW means is whether the heads still have the "cheap valves" that come in the AMC heads out of the box. These may still be in the heads, and though they may not be "bad" yet, they are still cheap and will burn prematurely. What you want is a "good valve", meaning one made with high-quality metallurgy that will survive sustained use without the extreme heat eroding the head of the valve so it eventually won't seat. No seat, no seal, and burning gases escape thru the gap at extremely high velocity, which only makes them hotter, on every firing cycle, which burns the head of the valve very very quickly from that point on.

So you may have the "bad valves", and they may still be sealing OK if there's less than 25-30k on those heads, but they are a ticking time bomb that will require removal of the heads again when they begin to burn, so might as well deal with it now. Nice thing is, you should be able to tell just by looking closely at the tip of the exhaust valve stems that stick up above the spring retainers. Most valves, if they have any identifying info, have it printed there, very tiny.

I'll go out and take some pics of the print on the stem of a TRW and one of the AMC-supplied exhaust valves, to help you tell the difference. So stay tuned.

You also should examine the valve stem keepers for the other lurking problem with the AMC's, which is that the two keepers close against each other, instead of clasping the valve stem. That means the stem grooves and keepers rattle against each other, until the grooves get hammered out and the stem fails. Normally what happens next is the valve remains open and has an unpleasant encounter with the piston, which is racing up toward it on the very reasonable assumption that the valve will have a normal instinct for self-preservation and get the hell out of the way.

This usually happens on an intake valve, probably due to the intake being larger and heavier so it's inertia places more strain on the groove-to-keeper junction. It's not the valve's fault; the intakes are also cheap but it matters very little on intakes because they run very cool. AMC just bought keepers that don't fit right. It's easy to fix them by grinding a little off each one so when the two keepers close on the stem, there is a tiny gap left between them.

Stay tuned and I'll put up some pics.
_________________
Shop for unique and useful Vanagon accessories at the Vanistan shop:
https://intrepidoverland.com/vanistan/
also available at VanCafe.com!

Please don't PM here, I will not reply.

Experience is death to doctrine.

[JiMz]

Just wanted to say this thread is making me and my wife wanna takle this job as a thing to do together and stuff. Gettin a little excited HAHAHA

Excellent in fo here thanks everyone!!!

[Mathew Zelezen]

Ugghhh, Dogpilot... that "Gallery of Shame" is hard to look at, yet I couldn't turn away...

I've got the Kerosene and scotchbrite pads ready so after work I'll try to get a better look at those valves and post some pics.

Thanks guys for the help here.
_________________
87 Syncro Tintop
~Rocky J Motor
~Steedle Trans


Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.

[tencentlife]

OK, so here's a close-up of a valve stem with the keepers in place within a spring retainer. Notice how the two halves of the keeper actually meet; there's no air gap at all between them. This is how the AMC keepers will look, and it's not right. What you want to see when the keepers fit right is a small gap between the two halves. That way each keeper half wedges tightly between the valve stem and the tapered center of the retainer. When the keepers meet like in the photo, they make a complete ring around the stem that is slightly larger than the stem itself, so the stem is a loose fit inside the keepers. That play will cause the grooves in the stem to wear away (like Ben's 5th pic above) until the spring can pop the keepers right off the tip of the stem. Then you have a valve that isn't pulled closed, and a collision with a piston top. Ouch.

This is a shot of three exhaust valve stems: a new AMC El Cheapo (they're made in Spain, y'know); a used OEM VW; and a new TRW replacement valve. TRW and OEM both have numbering around the very tip of the stem, where you could see it even with the springs and keepers in place. The AMC's numbering would be hidden by the spring retainer when installed, but it's in such a location that it shouldn't be rubbed off, so if you could get one spring off you might be able to read the numbering. It says "3147-LAF".

Not all valves, even quality ones, necessarily have any numbering printed on them, so it's not entirely reliable to go by. But, if you can see the TRW or VW numbering around the tip, you would know that the exhaust valves are of good quality.

One other cue, that is also not definitive but might be useful, is that the AMC's stem is chamfered, while the others are pretty flat across the top.
_________________
Shop for unique and useful Vanagon accessories at the Vanistan shop:
https://intrepidoverland.com/vanistan/
also available at VanCafe.com!

Please don't PM here, I will not reply.

Experience is death to doctrine.

[Captain Pike]

Inspect those valves. I just went thru this with a 1.9 I built for a fellow samba member who bailed on his vanagon leaving me with the engine . There is no way I could let an engine go out with my name on it with that problem___time bomb fer sure.
New valves and used German springs and keepers. I feel better now
_________________
LEARN TO SELF RESCUE
59 Panel bus, 1966 Single cab. 73' 181. 73 Westy. 91' H6 Vanagon 3.3L.
....Bad Sneakers....

[Mathew Zelezen]

Well here we have it... I checked the valves against Tencent's pictures and they appear to be AMC valves (camfered heads) and the keepers are touching.

Everything I've read from you guys states that the AMC heads are good with the exception of the exhaust valves so I ordered a set of four TRW's from VanCafe and they should be here Monday afternoon.

How do i go about getting these springs and valves off?
And remember, I'm in Telluride and six hours away from anyone who does any sort of quality work on these things so I'm on my own here...

Thanks!
_________________
87 Syncro Tintop
~Rocky J Motor
~Steedle Trans


Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.

[tencentlife]

You need a valve-spring compressor. This is one place where there just are no really good alternatives to having the right tool. The spring needs to be compressed while the valve is held against its seat, and you can then fish out the keepers with a scribe and a magnet.

The FLAPS (is there even one in T-ride? I can't think where it would be) do sell a small spring-compressor that can be made to work on the VW valves but it's not made for this type of head and so it doesn't grab the spring low down enough to get full compression. That means the keepers don't just lift right out, you have to wiggle them free.

It looks like this, about $15:
http://www.autozone.com/R,1733498/store,2511/shopping/accessoryProductDetail.htm

I have one and you can do the job with it, but it doesn't make it easy.

One of these is far preferable:
http://www.jegs.com/p/Proform/752354/10002/-1

The keepers you can fix by just a quick grind on their flat side on a beltsander or benchgrinder. I hold each one in a visegrip and just take off a little from each one, until each pair fits a valve stem with the tiniest gap.
_________________
Shop for unique and useful Vanagon accessories at the Vanistan shop:
https://intrepidoverland.com/vanistan/
also available at VanCafe.com!

Please don't PM here, I will not reply.

Experience is death to doctrine.

[Captain Pike]

Try a Sears auto dpt $25-$35
_________________
LEARN TO SELF RESCUE
59 Panel bus, 1966 Single cab. 73' 181. 73 Westy. 91' H6 Vanagon 3.3L.
....Bad Sneakers....