TheSamba.com :: View topic - Gemvw motors - jeff15

Wed Apr 14, 2004 2:52 pm

Has anyone delt with Gervais Engine and Machining in Temecula
Do they sell good motors ect.

Thu Apr 15, 2004 4:22 pm

i bought a 1914 last year from them i didnt have the motor very long to say good or bad. the shop is descent size and jeffs a cool guy you can talk him into good prices..

Tue Feb 12, 2008 6:43 pm

i too am interested in them, i am looking to buy an engine and transmission from them

Fri Mar 13, 2009 10:33 am

Bought a turnkey 2332 from them years ago. Still running strong :twisted:
Jeff is good people. Always takes the time to answer questions. Even 5 years later!
No complaints and would not hesitate to buy from them again 8)

Wed May 26, 2010 10:43 am

Bought a 1600 longblock from gemvw. I have driven it now 250 miles... So far so good... My first oil change/valve check is coming up... Good price, fairly quick and other than my block being black I am very happy...

Fri Jun 18, 2010 5:41 am

I am from washington state and first time VW owner and had no experiance with VW's but needed a new engine for my 1971 bug typ 1 1600 sp, so after hours of research on engines and builders
I setteled in on 3 builders notibaly all from So Cal and finally decided with Jeff.
I must say doing buisness with Jeff was excelent He was competitive, Communication was excellent even after point of sale he alwasy answerd his phone or emails and or got back to me right away. The packageing awsome, to my suprise the engine was sent to me wet, meaning he ah test started the engine before he sent it out also to my suprise he added a few parts that i wasnt expecting.
I installed the engine to his specifications and it starte imediatly
Now after 4500 mile and being my daily driver not a single problem and purrs like a kitten.
Thank you Jeff what a breath of fresh air doing buisness with some one at a distance and doing what the say and when the say it. I will say that I will never have to look for another engine builder again.

Kap

Sun Dec 12, 2010 1:08 pm

Any more feedback from gemvw? I'm interested in buying an engine from them. I already sent a few PMs out, just trying to get as much feedback as I can : )

It must be a pretty small shop, this is the only post I can find about Jeff

Fri Apr 22, 2011 4:50 pm

My 1600 has 8000 miles, still running strong. Bought a 2161 and got it wednesday, very happy. GEMVW also went a little further and sent me the throttle cable and all I needed to put it in the bus....

Good service, always answer the phone... I will buy from them again when the time comes...

Tue Feb 07, 2012 1:15 pm

Just received dropped spindles and ball joints from Jeff. Great guy great price everything arrived in great shape and I will buy from him again.

Mon Mar 12, 2012 8:05 pm

Spoke with Jeff several months ago about an add for a longblock. He let me know he no longer had the engine as he had parted it out and sold off the pieces, and the add was old and should have been removed. He didn't even hesitate and he let me know he would build me the longblock anyways since the add was still up for the highly discounted price. Going to pick up the engine tomorrow and I am very excited to get it installed. It was great working with Jeff and I would highly recomend his service to anyone.

Fri Mar 16, 2012 10:31 am

I bought a 2161 that he said he built for himself - 3 grand... Other than the fact that it fouls #1 plug every 200 miles (and getting worse) (oil) I like the engine... But the mere fact that he built this as a personal engine and that it really is a 3 cylinder kinda makes me hesitate to ever use him again... Of the 3 engines I have bought from gemvw all have had some minor problem. My 1600 DP has an idle oil pressure problem, my friends 1776 runs way hot, and my 2161 is starting to piss me off.... I wrote Jeff and he said he would send me some rings, but that never happened... I dunno.... Be kinda leery...

Tue Jul 10, 2012 7:41 pm

So I just got the engine(1776) in the car and am having an idle oil pressure issue. I have emailed Jeff and it has been only a few days with no response yet. Pressure drops out to almost nothing at idle even set at 1000 RPM. Engine oil temps are only 180-190* when this happens. I am waiting on a mechanical oil pressure gauge to verify the readings....I really hope this isn't a dud longblock since it was going to be my daily to and from school. Dropped a lot of money(a lot to me) on this longblock and I am waiting to see where we go from here, obviously hoping together Jeff and I can get this issue resolved. Engine doesn't even have 50 miles on it yet as I don't want to drive it like this. I will keep everyone updated.

Mon Jul 16, 2012 4:02 pm

mechanical gauge came in and showed the same issues. Called Jeff and he said he would take a look at it. Gonna drop the motor and get it over to him and we can go from there.

Wed Dec 19, 2012 7:22 am

Did you get the issue taken care of. I was looking at getting a motor from him. Thanks

Wed Dec 19, 2012 10:02 am

I would go somewhere else. He took a very long time to rebuild the 2nd engine after I had to return it for 0 oil pressure(seemed mad at me for not being happy with the first) The first engine also leaked from the foward main seal and had different lenth studs on the oil drain plate, some long, some short, some lock nuts, some not.... just very messy. Also forgot a few pieces of engine tin I gave him and I had to drive back(45 Miles one way) 4 total trips. Second engine runs the same, oil pressure at almost nothing once warm(180-190* oil) and can only get it up to about 25 PSI at max RPM. His big "fix" was to put a super high pressure spring in the relief passage so I had around 50 PSI at start up cold and drove off just to blow my external filter. Those booster springs are just useless. I would seriously consider one of the many other shops around. If you are having it shipped I would talk to ACE as they did my 36 dells and came out great. Good luck.

Tue Jan 15, 2013 4:52 pm

billkoolguy wrote: I would go somewhere else. He took a very long time to rebuild the 2nd engine after I had to return it for 0 oil pressure(seemed mad at me for not being happy with the first) The first engine also leaked from the foward main seal and had different lenth studs on the oil drain plate, some long, some short, some lock nuts, some not.... just very messy. Also forgot a few pieces of engine tin I gave him and I had to drive back(45 Miles one way) 4 total trips. Second engine runs the same, oil pressure at almost nothing once warm(180-190* oil) and can only get it up to about 25 PSI at max RPM. His big "fix" was to put a super high pressure spring in the relief passage so I had around 50 PSI at start up cold and drove off just to blow my external filter. Those booster springs are just useless. I would seriously consider one of the many other shops around. If you are having it shipped I would talk to ACE as they did my 36 dells and came out great. Good luck.

Josh received a different case since he failed to mention that he ruined the first 1776 case by hammering sleeve into oil relief valve area before ever calling us. Second engine was test run Hot and had perfect oil pressure, we have 100% money back warranty he never called with any issues only weakness on his wonderful feedback call any time would still give him his money back i will even pay for the call 888 652 8989 Owner Jeff Gervais

Mon Aug 05, 2013 7:00 am

Back on 11/12 I receive a 2110 turn key motor with duel 44 Weber's from Jeff. I have since put 3000 trouble free miles on the motor and couldn't be happier with the motor or Jeff's response to any questions. Just remember that I sure that he has quite a bit of work so expect it to take a little longer to build. The wait is worth it.

Fri Jan 31, 2014 3:04 pm

I have in my Crew Cab 1976 Jeffs mild 2276... Now i have something about 12k kilometers..
Yes im from oversea (Europe), and engine is in great shape and condition...
I was also on dyno here is the result wtih myself porting work on heads: 112PS/215Nm

From my point of view great engine and Jeff is cool man! :wink:

Thu May 01, 2014 8:22 pm

I purchased a "Rebuild" long block about 4 years ago. (reason why im posting this years down the road is because of the problems I have had with the engine)
The engine I ordered was a 1600dp, swapped over the parts...
Did the prescribed break-in (oil changes, valve adjustments). Engine never had much power and poor fuel mileage of 18 mpg, Granted it had a 100 grind cam but should have still some decent mpg's (my old worn out engine with the same carb and all other external parts got 24 mpg). The engine only would pull about 8in of vacuum, With a 100 grind cam I thought that was still low (and I had checked several times for a vacuum leak, none.)
A year and a half later and about 5000 miles only #4 exhaust valve broke and toasted the piston and head, Jeff sent me 2 more rebuild heads and one piston (even though it was over a year out of warranty, that was a nice gesture, He also offered me 2 new heads at his cost, I just did not have the money at that time,)
With the heads off and piston out is when I found out that the engine was a 1641 (I ordered a 1600 and was invoiced for a 1600) So I Don't know what happened there??
Inspection of the original heads I was very discouraged to find out the heads were welded and all the valve guides were not changed, very sloppy valve stem side play, quite obvious that the bronze guides were old because I could see the glass-beading marks on them in the intake ports. At this time of having the heads off just for the heck of it I thought I'd check the case bolts, The 6 main bolts were a little more than hand tight, the outside case bolts not at torque spects, No Loctite and only a couple of used lock nuts on the outer case bolts...(all used nuts and bolts).
After receiving the replacement parts and re-assembling it I was hoping all was good. But still un happy with poor power and crummy MPG I installed a set of Kadron carbs Jetted for this engine, Kaddie Shack told me I should have a great increase of power and should get upper 20's in mpg. no luck, I have tried a 043 vacuum dist as per Kaddie shack, timing at 30* Still no good. A disappointing thing is that I found that the compression was only in the 130psi range, Kaddie Shack told me that is on the low range.
Last year I pulled the engine out and tore it down completely to re-cam with a Norris mileage cam. More horror inside this engine....!
The cases looked like crap, Worn grooves at the case to the cylinders (not re-machined) Scat performance rods that I did not order (they are slightly longer than stock). 1mm shims under the cylinders to case. Flywheel end cam bearing bore showed a previous failure of a spun bearing (heavily grooved) this was an obvious previous failure due to the fact that the back of the cam bearing shown no signs of being spun, Only one dist drive shim instead of the normal two.
I leak tested the second set of heads and valves did leak a little, I pulled the valves and the same thing as the original heads, worn out sloppy valve guides, one angle valve job and several collapsed valve springs Ugggh!
I replaced the guides, did a 3 angle valve job, and new springs, after this I had about 10 inches of vacuum.. Sill only 18 mpg.

A couple of weeks ago I pulled the engine back out, did measurements of piston deck height with the original pistons, cylinder shims, Scat rods and the deck height was at .085inch. I put the engine back to 1600cc without the 1mm cylinder shims and now I have a more acceptable deck height of .053. Re-assembled the engine to stock carb/intake system. It now has just as much power as when the Kads at low and mid range. Compression is back up to where it should be and no pinging! Fuel consumption is down!
Sorry Jeff but this engine build did not show the professionalism I thought I was purchasing. I lost a lot of time and money. It seems that the low end long blocks are just throw-togethers .

Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:46 am

1971s Premise is false. He bought rebuilt which has line bored, case saved, machined German crank, new rods, all new bearings, new oil pump,new piston and cylinders machined flywheel,rebuild heads with new guides many lies from mr 71 . If you neglect and over heat any engine air or liquid cooled you will drastically shorten the engines life. So after voiding its warranty gemvw.com still gave him free rebuilt heads and new pistons 1 year latter who else does that. It says nothing about fuel he used exhaust type,tire size ,final drive on trans, so all aspects of 1971s problems are in his control.He says alot of money on a 40 year old rebuilt engine. SAMBA Family save your money like Mom and Dad teaches and buy new if you really love your VW so after 4 years he wants his $750 back on a rebuilt. or just to spew out ungratefulness. Don't over heat your engines! please read Gene bergs tect info to properly operate your air cooled engine use premium fuel straight weight oil with zinc timing no more than 28 at full advance call any time with any ? I will help everybody any time call me toll free 888-652-VWVW Jeff Gervais owner