TheSamba.com :: View topic

Tue Jul 05, 2011 5:10 pm

Well you asked for comments.
I would not let a shop rebuild their first Vanagon motor for me! Some repairs are one thing but a total rebuild?
Time to consider a Gowesty motor, 10 cent or Botig conversion. Your garage could handle the install of any of those.
If you motor seized, how much do you think is salvagable, then they have to start sourcing replacement parts, reground crank, did the bearing spin in the case, no point just installing those stretch stock rods, the heads will need work. ....$$$$$$ for something marginal cause they won;t do the details, cause they don't know better, nor will they get the best parts, cause it's not their specialty.
Sorry for your delema, but time to do your homework.

Tue Jul 05, 2011 5:51 pm

Quote: I owned a Fiat Spider for a few years.. Its hard to compare the two, even though at the time I had the Fiat, I also owned an 1981 aircooled Vanagon Westy..

Only one Fiat ? I have owned two X1/9 and one Spider. They don't call them " Fix It Again Tony " for nothing. But I had a lot of fun with them.

Tue Jul 05, 2011 6:03 pm

I never had a problem with the motor itself in well over 225K, it was always something else; brackets, wiring,, hoses, etc. and also trying to keep it in tune to pass emissions. Everything was horribly corroded, just a pain to work on. But the motor just kept on chugging up until I pulled it.

Tue Jul 05, 2011 6:13 pm

My personal problem with the WBX is all them damn hoses and plastic peices. I guess it was good for the first 20yrs then all hell broke loose. Then I emptied my wallet on a complete cooling system over-haul. 10,000 miles later she started pushing coolant. Looked at maxed out rebuilds and they are $4-$5k. Then saw my rusted out exhaust and 20yr old electronics controlling the beast. So now I'm knee deep in a EJ22 conversion.

I never hated the engine, it just lived a useful life and I'm moving on to what's better for me.

Tue Jul 05, 2011 10:13 pm

"Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get" Forrest Gump. Same goes for used vehicles no matter what make or model. I bought my '87 last year and it has been my daily driver since and just keeps ticking along. I also bought a 1995 Suburban from the original owner at the same time I bought my van. Who was a nice liitle older lady. All the work was done at a shop and she logged everytime she filled it up since new. How many gallons, How much per gallon and MPG. Four days after buying it a tire came off on the freeway. After a $450 repair drove it for a month an it started running like crap. Let it sit for 6 months and put new plugs in it and that took care of that problem. Smogged and registered it. It ran for another month and the tranny shit out a week ago. So the point is the waterboxer is a great little motor just like a lot of other motors. ANYTHING mechanical and electrical can fail at anytime with or without warning.

Tue Jul 05, 2011 10:23 pm

Vanjoe... you hit the nail on the head..

Quote: So the point is the waterboxer is a great little motor just like a lot of other motors. ANYTHING mechanical and electrical can fail at anytime with or without warning.

what else can we say about it? Lottery?

:D

Wed Jul 06, 2011 7:48 am

stevey88 wrote: Quote: I owned a Fiat Spider for a few years.. Its hard to compare the two, even though at the time I had the Fiat, I also owned an 1981 aircooled Vanagon Westy..

Only one Fiat ? I have owned two X1/9 and one Spider. They don't call them " Fix It Again Tony " for nothing. But I had a lot of fun with them.
I've owned two.

The first was a 131 Wagon..
Yeah.
A Fiat wagon..

Pretty fun little car, actually.. fit my surfboard inside nicely.. but wound out great bombing HWY 1 to Stinson Beach. Used to "race" my buddy in his Mazda RX2.

Two little sleeper (and fugly) cars... that put many "sports" cars to shame. :lol:
The RX2 drank gas and had ghastly suspension.. but the 131 (heavy) could keep up except thru the worst of turns.

When the time comes.. I'll be steering my kids towards aircooled VWs for first cars.
Easy to learn and work on. Maybe a WBXer if they like the Vannys.

They WON'T be driving 70s vintage Fiats, Lancias, or Alfas.. rest assured.

Wed Jul 06, 2011 8:27 am

Let's not hijack this thread with the usual snide comments about Fiats, guys, I've heard 'em all before. I happen to like my old Italian cars, currently have three that I drive regularly, anywhere, year-round and have had quite a few in the past as well. But I'm an old VW rear-engined guy too (a couple of Squarebacks and the aforementioned '83 Vanagon in my past).

Back on topic: Who are the 'competent engine builders' alluded to in a few of the other posts? I researched this extensively and all I came up with can be summarized as follows:

Chris Corkins (aka "tencentlife") -- Very competent, very honest, but a one-man show with a long backlog of orders.

Ken Morgan(?) (aka "Jake Lake" or "jlb") -- Wide range of reviews, from competent to shoddy, from honest to crooked, from reasonable turnaround time to years! Whom to believe?

GoWesty -- Usually competent but some early failures reported, relatively expensive, seem to sell kits but not completed motors.

GEX (the former German Engine Exchange, I presume?) -- Mostly bad reviews, unfortunate because their prices look good. Long ago I bought a rebuilt 1600cc long block for my Squareback and it worked fine, but that was over 20 years ago.

That's about all I could dredge up. What have I missed?

For now, my friendly local European repair shop is proceeding with the motor rebuild. I believe they can and will do a good job, although it will be expensive. Yes, I'll be paying extra for their learning curve.

Don't think I purchased my Vanagon with blinders on. I knew going into the purchase that I was getting an excellent vehicle hampered by a mediocre engine. That's the nature of the beast. You defenders of the WBX motor, I think if you can take your blinders off and be truly objective, you might come to the conclusion that something remarkably like the Subaru flat-four (or flat-six) is the motor that VW SHOULD have designed for the Vanagon, rather than taking a pre-WWII air-cooled motor and building some water jackets around the cylinders in a futile effort to save money. Sorry for the harsh words, but that's how I see it.

Wed Jul 06, 2011 8:35 am

VW should've just dropped the boxer concept at the outset and opted for its excellent inline VAG 4/5 cyl engines when the T3 first went on sale. Having said that, the WBX is a good engine and it offers great service life for a large number of these vans. I'm not a particular fan myself, but these things have earned my grudging respect.

Wed Jul 06, 2011 8:49 am

No matter how much money you dump into your Vanagon, it's still cheaper than buying a new $25k+ car and taking the hit on depreciation and interest. Look at the cost of ownership of any new car vs. the Vanagon and the van wins every time.

Wed Jul 06, 2011 8:52 am

Who to say Subaru didn't get the water boxer concept from VW and learn from it ? If there was a next generation of the VW waterboxer, it would be as good as the Subaru 2.2.

Wed Jul 06, 2011 9:06 am

stevey88 wrote: Who to say Subaru didn't get the water boxer concept from VW and learn from it ? If there was a next generation of the VW waterboxer, it would be as good as the Subaru 2.2.

That is what Japan does best. They reverse engineer many things. Do a google search on NSU/Wankel engines. Look familiar?

Wed Jul 06, 2011 10:15 am

Porsche consulted for Subaru on thier engines, Subaru didn't copy, they paid for it.

Why are you asking (OP) if you already have the shop doing the rebuild?
How would you feel if every reply was that the WBXr was junk and you were wasting big bucks on your chosen course of action?

Wed Jul 06, 2011 10:51 am

dspieg wrote:
Three days and less than 25 miles after my purchase, the engine seized
Has your mechanic diagnosed the cause of failure?

I don't know what pisses me off more. Hearing about an engine failure from a new (used) car owner. Or seeing wbx bashing threads in this forum all the time.

These are old machines but when properly maintained most original wbxers will last a long time. Many rebuilds don't do that well however. There are only 2 or 3 engine builders in N. America that I know of that I'd trust.

Wed Jul 06, 2011 11:21 am

dspieg wrote: Don't think I purchased my Vanagon with blinders on. I knew going into the purchase that I was getting an excellent vehicle hampered by a mediocre engine. That's the nature of the beast. You defenders of the WBX motor, I think if you can take your blinders off and be truly objective, you might come to the conclusion that something remarkably like the Subaru flat-four (or flat-six) is the motor that VW SHOULD have designed for the Vanagon, rather than taking a pre-WWII air-cooled motor and building some water jackets around the cylinders in a futile effort to save money. Sorry for the harsh words, but that's how I see it.
WTF?
"Take your blinders off"?

I am putting in an SVX.. the Subie 6 cyl with 230hp.
I have it on the stand. I drove it in the donor. Nice.

I STILL like the WBXer and have ALWAYS enjoyed driving the van with it..
If I had space I'd keep a DOKA or single cab with a WBXer in it, too. A stocker, if you will.
And I still plan on transferring this WBXer into a Manx style.

I only mentioned the Fiats because YOU mentioned Fiats.
So.. eh.. Why did you bring them up in the first place?

Harsh words?
Not really... you just come off like a douche, is all. You ask for opinions.. you got them.. Then you want to diss everyone who has a soft spot for the little sewing machine motor.

Frankly.. Why did you start a thread where you don't want feedback?
You could have searched.. Its all been discussed ad nauseum.
Or just wait another day or two til the NEXT guy poses the same philosophical rehash on WBXers.

WBXer - good
WBXer - bad

yawn.

Enjoy your thread. Its all yours, now.

Bye.

Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:39 pm

There are no Wasserboxer defenders on here. Just owners who have put a lot of miles on theirs and can speak from experience. You would do well to listen to what they have to share rather than argue with them. The failure you experienced is not at all typical of this engine. The bottom ends are good for 160-200k. I'm working on a 91 right now that has 192,000 miles on the original engine and it's still going.

If the Wasserboxer was all bad there wouldn't be people on here saying otherwise. It does have it's design flaws, but seizing up at 100k isn't one of them.

D

Wed Jul 06, 2011 2:24 pm

Apologies to all of you whom I apparently offended --- you guys sure are thin-skinned. Jeez....

Now, I've asked a legitimate question and received no replies; namely, who are these competent rebuilders? As I tried to explain in my previous post, the information I've found has been pretty contradictory.

As for what happened to my engine, I talked again today to my friend/neighbor/shop front guy, and all he could say for sure is that somehow a valve contacted a piston, and the shrapnel from the collision did a lot of internal damage. What isn't clear is why the valve hit the piston. This same guy actually came over to my driveway a couple of days before the failure and listened to the motor while it was idling, and he agreed with me that it was valve noise we were hearing and not, for instance, rod knock. He didn't think at that time the engine was in imminent danger of self-destructing.

Why am I using his shop? Because I know the guys, they've competently repaired a wide variety of older vehicles (including some very arcane machinery) over the years, and they're local so they will take responsibility for any problems that might crop up. They will learn, and I will pay, but in the end I believe I'll get a good rebuild and they'll have learned enough to help me in the years ahead if and when I have more "issues".

I am not arguing with the people on this board who are pleased with their WBXs, I've just been citing the many, many gripes about the motor that I've read on this very same board, as well as in other places. I'm not making this stuff up. I only mentioned the Fiats as background to try to explain to you guys that I'm not some Camry-driving Jiffy Lube-using non-mechanically included rich guy that expects a 25 year old Vanagon to run perfectly for a million miles without so much as a dipstick check. Pardon me.

Wed Jul 06, 2011 3:16 pm

IIRC the WBX isn't an interference engine which basically means that if a piston hit a valve, then the valve retainers failed or the head fell off a valve.

Wed Jul 06, 2011 3:19 pm

dspieg wrote:
GoWesty -- Usually competent but some early failures reported, relatively expensive, seem to sell kits but not completed motors.

:?:

http://gowesty.com/ec_view_category.php?id=82 shows both rebuild kits for your engine as well as turn-key crate motor replacements.

Wed Jul 06, 2011 6:04 pm

Now, I've asked a legitimate question and received no replies; namely, who are these competent rebuilders? As I tried to explain in my previous post, the information I've found has been pretty contradictory.

I don't understand this statement. You have gotten plenty of replies. The reputable vendors are all over on this site. This topic has been discussed over, and over, and over again just like the tire debate. Some guys like the waterboxer and some guys hate them. Its up to you to decide now if you like it or not. And my opinion on having someone build one of these motors that hasn't before is a gamble in itself. Not saying they are bad mechanics. I just know myself I wouldn't make that bet. Before dumping $5000 more into your van on a rebuilt why don't you find a good used motor for $500 and give it a run? Then you can decide if it is for you. And if you like then have a Tencent motor built. I believe Ben always has good running VW waterboxer that come out for the Subie swaps. Just some advise. :idea: