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skadi the syncro
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phlogiston
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 1:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

thanks! for the winter i run nokian hakkapeliitta C 185R14 snow tires. they are studdable but i run them without the spikes as the syncro is my city daily driver. the hakkas have been one of my favorite snow tires ever since i lived in vermont many years ago (they were studded then!) i drive in the snow every chance i get and love them.

i've been pretty unsure as to how much energy i want to put into resealing this relatively unknown engine... the PO said he replaced the heads right before the van sat for 5 years unused. he was a bit shady and his answers changed each time i asked a question--maybe the rods were replaced and maybe they weren't.
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the first good sign... someone has punched marks into the piston crowns... presumably they've been out? hopefully who ever cared enough to put them back in the same cylinders knew to replace the connecting rods as well.
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the spot where the gasket was leaking is in the upper left corner in this photo. the seal pulled away with almost no residue on either the rubber or metal in the areas where it wasnt' leaking, but left some sort of crusty residue where it was. the heads are AMC castings that appear relatively new.
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on closer inspection, it appears that one of the intake valves has a VW cast into it (but no other valves do). could this indicate that the crappy AMC valves have been replaced with VW ones? how bad are the AMC valves? i measured compression between 150-175psi on each cylinder (hot) before tearing the engine down.... am i foolish to expect that this head will last me another 10-15k miles?
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Phishman068
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 7:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Those heads look good to me. Not only good, they look pretty young and are certainly not factory. Factory heads, even low mileage, would be pitted and there would be a crack between the valves. The crack is almost always within spec and fine, but it freaks people out and it would have been present.
Since no pitting (SWEET!) and no Crack (DOUBLE SWEET!) i'd say these heads have been off.

Did they replace the rods at the same time? Who knows. Hard to tell.
I wouldn't worry about it if the engine was making oil pressure, at least enough to shut off the warning system. It would have been good to put an oil pressure gauge on before pulling the engine though. That's my new test, I care way more about what the oil pressure is than what the compression is, if the engine runs that is. Its pretty easy to tell if you have low compression just by running the engine. If it runs, sounds good, and makes power, you've got some compression but oil pressure will tell you the state of the bottom end.

I believe the AMC valves changed at some point and are no longer crap?
But how do you tell if these are the good ones or the bad ones.... not sure.
Perhaps have a valve job done and stick some valves in there, but definitely run those heads, they look nice!
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insyncro
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 8:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Seal them up ala benplace.com and enjoy they for years to come.

The Right Stuff
Aviation gasket maker
Loctite 518
AntiSeize

All great products that will seal and protect the wbx, giving far longer rebuild duration than the stock stuff.
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phlogiston
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 12:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

thanks for the feedback!

oil pressure on this engine is nice. 10psi easy at hot idle, >40psi at 4k rpm... even if i push it hard (climbing hills in low gear, oil level right at the low limit mark) it barely drops below 40. i was really optimistic that this engine would last through the snowboard season until i have time to deal with an engine swap next summer.

oh well, i'm pretty tempted to seal it back up just like it is, but i'd love to know whether i need to worry about burning a low quality exhaust valve. would it be reasonable to expect another 15k miles out of a 5-6 year old AMC head in this (pretty good) condition? does the little "VW" looking logo on the intake valve indicate that it did not come with the cylinder head? would ALL german valves have that mark (indicating that the others in this head were not replaced)?

i've pretty much lost my limited ambition to replace the connecting rods. i'd planned to spend this week working on the interior, dammit!

i referred to ben's site extensively during my last WBX reseal (ok the only other time i've opened up one of these engines) and it's still going strong in my other van 3 years later. (yep, i made a donation, too). that time i also replaced rods, rings, and oil pump. i doubt i would have succeeded with that daunting task without all the great advice i received here. thanks, everyone!!
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phlogiston
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 1:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

getting the engine prepped to reinstall the left head. the outer oring here was glued in place with sealant, so i'm afraid to mess with the inner one. i doubt my ability to properly clean out the groove without removing the cylinders.
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end play is in spec.... barely.
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the head is ready to go back on, but i had to stop and set up my new board. storm's coming... hope my 2wd van and summer tires are up to it!
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flomulgator
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 10:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Can you just do a wheel swap between your 2WD and Skadi? It's supposed to keep snowing and I imagine the roads will be white.

I too will be doing some rapid van repair and waxing tonight to get ready for a Saturday tour. Judging from the board I'm guessing you're heading to the resort?

Good luck with the reseal and have fun this weekend! I'm beginning to think a ski area overnight lot regional van meetup/campout would be a cool thing.
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 10:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

flomulgator wrote:
Good luck with the reseal and have fun this weekend! I'm beginning to think a ski area overnight lot regional van meetup/campout would be a cool thing.

Damn I love the sound of that. Crystal Mountain B-Lot is good, but I'm not sure if the restrooms have opened yet in the lot (last time I was up they were still constructing the building)
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 12:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cool. Vehicle camping for skiing is literally the reason I bought my syncro westy. In a while I'll create a separate thread about this so as not to derail Phlogiston's Skadi build thread. Once we get something figured out we can post the event on WetWesties calendar too.
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phlogiston
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 1:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i like the idea of getting some vans together for a resort lot campout. i got a pass at steven's this year, and finally went to pick it up on friday. fortunately my buddy gave me a ride from gold bar, so i was able to avoid any hassle with chains or swapping tires again. nonetheless it was kind of fun sliding around in the low elevation urban snow friday morning. i took saturday off from the head gasket project as well to go for a tour and check out an east side solstice party, but today i got back to work.

the left side is now sealed back up, and the water pump and oil pressure switch have been replaced for good measure.
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.

my oil filler was always a little wobbly, and it didn't survive the engine removal intact. anyone have a line on a syncro oil filler tube?
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flomulgator
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 1:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

When I got back to the Yodelin parking lot early friday afternoon I half-expected to see another westy there.
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 9:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow, nice job! LOVE how the entire family gets involved! I really do have to get my boys helping me more...Adds to the fun, unless the fighting begins! LOL
phlogiston wrote:
this is skadi. she was named for the norse goddess of winter and mountains. i credit my girlfriend for coming up with the name after i spent hours poring over lists of mountain peaks that started with 's'.

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purchase cost: $10000
switches, relays, bulbs, sockets: $66
running total: $10066

Don't forget to add the price of Wendy into your running tally. The difference in prices between here and there (3hr drive) always amazes (and probably annoys) me! LOL


And, LOVE the upholstery choice and interior colour co-ordination, looks great! Did you keep and re-cover the jump seats too?
phlogiston wrote:
randywebb wrote:
you need a pop top...


indeed i do. that's one of the reasons that i'm keeping my beat up old weekender around--an eventual pop top donor. she's also my rolling spare parts storage area now that most of the interior has been stripped out for the syncro.

which brings me to the next (and current!) project.... how to get this freshly reupholstered weekender bed into a 7 passenger syncro????

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Finally, if you need help picking a high back booster for your dd b/c you don't have head rests back there, let me know, happy to help!

tam
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 30, 2013 10:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

thanks! i don't think i'm going to reuse the weekender jump seat, as i'm planning to put a big sub box in that location and (eventually, when i get a welder) build a corner seat that goes over it. for now, any kids in the van usually get to ride shotgun--3 point restraint and a headrest, plus grown ups can never figure out how to play music on my strange kenwood head unit.

i ran into a snag in my engine assembly. decided to pull the clutch and flywheel to look into a persistent oil leak. when i bought the van (from a mechanic) it had a blown 3-4 slider and the condition of the sale was that he fix it. while the tranny was out, i paid him some cash to replace the rear main seal because it's always leaked on all my vans, and i HATE oil leaks. i was expecting to find that perhaps i needed to take ben's advice and JB weld the plugs under the flywheel, but what i found made me pretty angry...

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that would be a cheapo elring main seal... NOT the OEM one that i ordered from go westy, and paid overnight shipping and labor to have installed while the transmission was out. i wish i'd checked that before i was ready to put the engine back in! so i ordered a new rear main seal and took a couple days off to go riding. there's not much snow, but i went looking pretty hard the day before christmas and ended up having a pretty great day. it was sunny and cold and we hiked through a surreal maze of rime covered trees. it really took my mind off the frustration of spending my winter holiday fixing a head gasket leak instead of working on my interior as planned. my friend loaned me a camera to wear and made a fun little video of my run.


Link


back to work. i decided to replace a perfectly fine O2 sensor due to unknown age but it was rusted to the cat and took the threads with it.... fortunately napa was able to order me a tap. after my annual tradition of watching the beavis & butthead christmas special, i couldn't help but caption this photo:
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"tapping the bung hole"

looks like the PO installed a "performance cat"
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got the new main seal in, and used the extra time to order some new fuel rails. it was bothering me that i'd replaced every single other component of the fuel injection system.
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BLING. the nipples are milled into the fuel rail, not turned on a lathe and threaded in as i'd expected. i would love to see how this was accomplished.
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one of my skier buddies was hanging out in the city due to the extreme lack of snow and came by to help wrangle the engine into place.
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i hate working on exhaust, so i decided to take a day off to climb a north cascades peak. funny how what i remembered as an "alpine meadow" from last year looks a little different in this year's low snow conditions.
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but i think the 2 hours we spent in that thicket were perhaps less tedious than trying to cobble together the rusty, welded up pieces of my exhaust. i forgot to take photos of that mess, but it's all installed now. while i wait on a replacement for my leaky oil filler, maybe i'll go plumb in my rear heater...

happy holidays everyone!
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flomulgator
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 31, 2013 9:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Love the bit with the mandatory air at the choke.
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 31, 2013 4:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

nice turns. Watching the build and the adventures. Haven't been able to get out of resort due to snow conditions here. Hopefully, we get hit with something. The Syncro is the way to travel up and down. rear boot warmer!!
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 31, 2013 5:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

nice turns. Watching the build and the adventures. Haven't been able to get out of resort due to snow conditions here. Hopefully, we get hit with something. The Syncro is the way to travel up and down. rear boot warmer!!
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phlogiston
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 12:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

flomulgator wrote:
Love the bit with the mandatory air at the choke.


i'm not sure it counts as "mandatory" air if we saw that feature from another ridge and went there intentionally!

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i was dismayed to see how slow my POV footage looked in that video after thinking i'd gone pretty fast... but then i found out last weekend that my friend edited the video on his phone and somehow all the POV stuff ended up at half speed. now i feel a little better about my riding!

anyway, this "little" head gasket repair got pretty frustrating for awhile there.

i got the engine installed and all the plumbing and wiring hooked back up. i figured while the cooling system was dry, it would be a good opportunity to install the rear heater. the core was replaced with a new one, and i even managed to track down the oring for the valve.
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i went out for a test drive and, oh no, the van runs like crap! i hear what sounds like small backfiring, the intake is screeching, and i can't even get the engine up to 4k rpm because it has so little power!

afraid i had messed up the engine assembly, i did a compression test first. the numbers looked OK, so i settled down a bit and began troubleshooting. the exhaust sounded terrible, even with my new muffler, so i started there. pretty quickly i found an exhaust leak.
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well at least i didn't use any studs to connect the headers to the engine, so it was "easy" to take it apart. the gasket showed clear signs of a leak. maybe air was getting in here, being detected by the oxygen sensor, and causing a rich running condition?
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with a bit of grinding on the flanges and some sealant on the new gasket, i was able to eliminate the exhaust leak. but damn, the exhaust quieted down, but the engine ran just as bad. i spent awhile trying to find the vacuum leak causing the whistling sound at high engine speeds, but no luck. and how could it be bad enough to cause poor running if the idle speed was still normal?

i was still running with a duct tape cap over the broken off end of my oil filler tube. fortunately syncrozilla had hooked me up with a replacement, so i drained the oil and swapped that in. i forgot how hard it is to access that upper nut! i wasn't too hopeful this would fix my barely running engine, but it would at least rule one more thing out.... and sure enough, no difference.
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at this point, i was getting pretty frustrated, so i took a weekend off to go snow camping. it was a great time, but sleeping in a tent at the trailhead really made me miss my syncro. time to get back to work!

the only other thing i could think of was that new oxygen sensor... i made a little wire harness to connect a voltmeter between the sensor and the ECU. now what's this... i had my gf drive the van while i watched the meter.... -0.5V relative to the chassis at wide open throttle!?????
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as i had pondered the reason for my engine running so poorly, i'd assumed that if the oxygen sensor was faulty, the ECU would go into open loop mode and run way better than what i was experiencing. it hadn't occurred to me that the system was not sophisticated enough to detect a nonsense signal. the ECU was trying to trim the fuel injection parameters based on a signal that was not even the correct polarity! by the look of the new sensor when i removed it, the engine had been running pretty darn rich!
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i happened to have an old sensor around... no idea of its history but i plugged it in early last friday morning and..... the engine ran great! so i immediately drove the van up to steven's pass for a day of stormy pow riding. it sure was nice to get my van back in the snow again!

saturday i took a rest day and didn't get much done... tidied up some engine bay wiring, made another futile attempt to find my vacuum leak, and finished setting up the rear heater in its new location. its new home is on the driver's side in front of the ECU. this will free up the space in the center for installation of batteries and amplifiers.
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i had to extend the wiring slightly to reach the new location.
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sunday i headed back up to the mountain. we all enjoyed the rear heater on the drive home after wading across a small river on the exit to avoid skinning a quarter mile upstream to the bridge we used on the way in.
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damn, that's a lot of wet gear!
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phlogiston
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 27, 2014 3:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

it sure is nice having the engine back in my syncro. thanks agian to T3 christopher for loaning me the engine hoist and syncrozilla seth for finding me an oil filler to replace the one i broke getting the engine out!

i've been getting back into my typical ADD routine of multiple concurrent projects.... but here's one i actually finished last weekend.

it's been bugging me for awhile that skadi's rear window defroster didn't work. i'm not talking a few dead "lines" or poor performance. it didn't work at all. no current flow into the heating element. i verified voltage on the heater traces, ruling out problems with the power wiring, ground, or connectors. each trace showed voltage relative to ground that would simply disappear at some point along its length. no damage or discontinuity was visible at the point where the voltage stopped. strange. after a bit of head scratching, i decided the easiest solution would be to simply swap the rear windows between my two vans, as the defroster worked fine in my parts weekender.

i had tried on a few different occasions to coax my good window out (while preserving the seal so that i could use it to put the bad window into the parts van), eventually asking for help here, and getting some good advice.

after repeating many times "it's tempered glass and won't break" i convinced my girlfriend to push on the window corner with both feet while i worked at the seal with a pair of paint can openers. eventually it started to come loose and SUCCESS, i had the good window glass in one hand and a re usable seal in the other!

now for the easy part--i cut all the way around the old "plastic trim insert" style seal in the syncro, pulled out all the rubber holding the glass in place, and asked for a gentle push on the inside of the glass to free it. to my surprise, as soon as the edge of the glass became visible outside the seal, the entire window exploded in my face! (i think there's a lesson here regarding the safety glasses i'd been wearing all through the forceful removal of the other window and had just taken off...). fortunately, everyone was OK. i was too stressed about getting the mess out of our (shared) driveway to get a photo of the carnage, but it was pretty dramatic. at least 2/3 of the glass shattered into tiny fragments, most of which poured into the walkway of the adjacent townhouse, which was at that moment being shown for sale by a real estate agent!

it's tempting to blame my gf for "kicking" the glass too hard.... but considering that she had just finished successfully pushing out the window in the other van, i'm inclined to believe there was some sort of pre-existing damage to the glass. either way, i was now out a window!

and the real fun was just beginning...
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the syncro's "bad" window had been glued in place with the same sealant that i spent hours trying to remove back when i had my windshield out. i tried everything on that crap: plastic scraper, wooden scraper, scotch brite "roloc" disc, i even ground down a soldering iron tip to make a heated scraper. there is simply no easy way to remove that evil evil black sealant without damaging the paint.

damn, my day just got a little longer....
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i used a coating of 3M "general purpose adhesive remover" to soften the nasty sealant, then set to it with a plastic scraper and a scotchbrite pad. i used a screwdriver to dig at the more recalcitrant pieces. some paint damage occured, but i got most of it out.
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i used a brush bottle of touch up paint to coat the places that i'd nicked while scraping.

then i did a bit of soul-searching...... and decided that i would not be using any sealant on the reinstall.
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this stuff is going to wait until i make my next attempt at sealing up my windshield.

but... thinking ahead to that oh so daunting windshield task, i decided to attempt installing the good glass (with a new seal) "dry". i would not use any lube on the seal in order to practice the assembly techniques that would be required to fit a windshield in place without contaminating the sealant.

well 4 failed attempts later, my gf assistant was completely out of patience and it was getting late. i seriously began to doubt that it was even physically possible to get the seal into place without some lube. but while she was mixing up some soap water, i had a better idea....

no, i don't have any automotive silicone, but i knew that was the main constituent of the food-grade lubricant that i use on my meat grinder.
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sure enough, a few sprays of that and the window slid into place. with a tug on the pcord, i finally had a defrosting rear window in the syncro!! (complete with some very nostalgic stickers from my younger days in california). the next morning even obliged my wish for some test conditions.

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a few calls to some local junkyards and i had a "new" window for the parts van...

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we felt a bit more confident going into the glass installation this time. even had some cheaper non-edible silicone spray on hand. sure enough, that window popped right into place. now i can park the parts van back out on the street!

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i'd like to think that this project ended happily after an amount of stress and expense that will never justify my desire for a rear defroster.... but we haven't had a good rainstorm to test whether the syncro rear window is going to leak now. and worse still, i'm even more nervous about trying to reseal the windshield after seeing that it's practically impossible to get a seal seated properly without using a whole bunch of lubricant. which will obviously not be compatible with all the sealant that MUST be used in the northwest winter conditions that this van calls home....
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insyncro
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 27, 2014 3:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sealing after install with a tiny hole in the end of the sealant tubes works.
Patience is needed as the time to apply it is longer.
A little goes a long way.
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snowsyncro
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 27, 2014 5:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't know how relevant this is, but it might justify a test…

Many years ago I was preparing an experimental drifting buoy for a sea trial. This type of buoy is normally expendable, but this particular one was instrumented and would be recovered. Picture an aluminum hull with a bolt flange, topped by a fibreglass witch-hat looking cover. I thought I would be clever and replace the typical rubber gasket (very much like the fuel sender gasket on your Syncro only bigger), with a formed-in-place silicone RTV gasket.

But, since I wanted to be able to remove the witch hat later, I put down a boundary layer of silicone grease between the RTV gasket and the fibreglass cover. Well, when I went to remove that cover it was stuck to that gasket like you would not believe. I had to pry it off with so much force that it delaminated the fibreglass in places, and I eventually had to separate the RTV gasket from the aluminum, not the fibreglass with the grease. I concluded that the silicone grease was compatible with the silicone RTV and just became part of it over time.

So you may want to run a little test with some rubber and glass, and your planned sealant and your silicone lubricant.

RonC
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phlogiston
Samba Member


Joined: March 30, 2009
Posts: 336
Location: seattle
phlogiston is offline 

PostPosted: Mon May 19, 2014 2:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

the days are getting longer, the rain less frequent, and the snow is slowly receding... in a few more weeks i'll be hanging up my board for the summer. whether i like it or not, snowboard season is about to fade into wrenching season. it wasn't the best season in the PNW, but it was far from bad, and i was fortunate enough to be able to cap off my season with a couple weeks exploring iceland. i didn't see any vanagons there, but i did find a beer named after my van!

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now that the monumental task of writing a trip report for that little mission has been completed, i think it's finally time to start documenting my van projects again.

i'll start with some work i did back in february, when my passengers started complaining about the lack of seat heating in the co-driver's recaro. i had originally performed a "test fit" installation of the modified swivel base, and i knew that it needed to come back apart for painting. this seemed like a good time to remove some metal in order to allow wiring to the seat power terminals.

drilling a pilot hole
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as with any project, the scope quickly began to grow. the battery box was full of rust, and the wires hanging off the battery terminal (installed by the PO to run an amplifier) interfered with the rotation of the swivel.
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i decided that battery box repair was outside the scope of a rainy midwinter project, so plans were made while i put the seat back in place. i'd get the swivel painted and make preparations for installing a power distribution panel under the seat. part of the swivel base was cut away (to the mark in the previous picture) to make room for a single big wire from the battery terminal, and the sheet metal at the front of the seat pedestal was cut away to allow access to the space under the seat.
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using a shop light to cure paint after metal cutting.
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i reinstalled the seat, wired up the power, and put the rest of the project on hold...... until last weekend!

i started out by trimming a piece of galvanized flashing to cover the increasingly ragged edge of my custom floor.
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i went with the thinnest metal i could find in order to make it easy to sweep dirt out of the van after camping trips. however, i was soon to see just what it would take to deform such flimsy material. but first, i pulled the battery. this required cutting and folding in the rear lip of the battery box, spinning the seat to face rearward, and removing the adjustable leg support. then i set to cleaning and assessing the rust damage.
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during the cleaning process, i managed to slip and drop my full weight onto that new sheet metal threshold, leaving a shin-shaped dent in the metal, and a corner-shaped dent in my shin.
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it sure hurt, but it didn't look so bad at first. suck it up and get back to work...
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clean too hard, and this is what you get. that corner looked solid when i started...
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cleaning away the exterior coating to check out the other side.
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after a bunch of grinding and vacuuming, i washed everything down with "marine clean", gave it a good rinse, and treated it with POR15 "metal ready". after an hour or so, the rust had a faint white surface coating, and my shin had started to swell pretty dramatically.
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i put down the first coat of POR15 with an ice pack on my leg. my gf kept trying to convince me to go to the hospital, but it really didn't feel broken (and yes, that's an orthopedic surgery scar that i landed on, so i have a bit of empirical reference here). i'm not sure how i feel about POR15 in general, but i had some on hand and figured this would be a good place to try it out. i didn't want to block my access to pull out the battery and see how the repair is holding up, so i decided not to install any sound deadening, and the 2 rust holes were "repaired" by cutting a patch out of sheet metal and adhering it in place with 3M strip caulk. this should keep water out of the battery box, but let me easily lift away the patch to see if the rust is spreading. my plan here is to keep things stable until a time in 2-3 years when i will have saved up for a full repaint with any body repairs done then.

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next up: modernizing the battery wiring...
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