AVP motor report & questions (pictures)

airkooledchris · Samba Member Joined: January 25, 2005 Posts: 2711

I am going to give AVP one last chance to make right on this whole deal, but obviously im not holding my breath. im not sure what I could have done personally to make that main bearing loose, but its been like that forever so if it was my own doing I guess it was within the first few miles of use.

the other odd noise turned out to be my alternator, which really really made it sound like I had piston slap on #1 side, so that was the slightly good news.

thanks for the notes also guys. mel - when you get around to re-assembling your own, id love to hang out a bit if you don't mind and just take notes and watch the process to get familiar with it.

were basically ready to finally start taking some bigger camping trips again further away from home now that our baby is 2+ yo, and now I have to wonder if its a worthwhile risk.

when going with a budget rebuild I told myself not to care if it only makes it 40k miles or so, and I was willing to live with that if it happened, but ive essentially had crap since day one which is irritating. makes me want to just do it myself next time around... in kit form or otherwise.

SGKent · Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 5:47 pm Post subject:

I didn't want to say this because I normally don't want to come across like I don't make mistakes - I do. I worked as a machinist with some of the best when I was in my late 20's and early 30's. We now live in Sacramento and interviewed AVP before we decided who would do the work on our 1977 engine. We were not impressed so we took our engine elsewhere. That said, seeing the pictures in this thread it is hard to understand how the problems you experienced happened.
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“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin

airkooledchris · Samba Member Joined: January 25, 2005 Posts: 2711

SGKent · Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 10:14 pm Post subject:

airkooledchris · Samba Member Joined: January 25, 2005 Posts: 2711

on a side note, I spoke with the folks at AVP about my overall engine experience and they are willing to work with me. I am 2 years and 4k miles out of my warranty period, so the fact that they will even consider it is pretty cool.
in short, if it turns out the issues with the motor are obviously all my own fault (meaning it apppears to have been simply ran way too hot and there is no main bearing issue or any other assembly problem) - then im to cover the cost of the parts, but they won't charge me any labor.
if I can pull it myself and get it down to the longblock, they will have a frieght service come and pick it up from me directly - however if I have to pay someone to either help or just do the uninstall (and subsequent reinstall) - they will pay half of that charge if it was a mistake of their own doing and I have to foot the whole bill for that if it was by own doing.

they said also they would provide full photographic documentation to show exactly what went wrong, regardless of whom is at fault.
when asked what the worst case scenario might be, IE its all my own doing, I have to get new P&C along with the usual gasket set, it should still come in under $500.

the cool thing is that they don't mind if I wait until after the camping season, if I wanted to just push it along as is for a while and then address it later in the fall.

AVP puts these little taddle tale tabs on the motor to see if its been overheated and the only one I could find last night before it got dark on the bottom of the case under the 3/4 side seemed to still have most of it's 'goo' in the middle. hopefully the others wherever they are hiding will show the same.

theizzardking · Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 12:33 pm Post subject:

hey that's good to hear man!!! as far as shops go anyone that's willing to work with ya down the road regardless of terms and such is a good shop imo, everyone screws up it's all about how far their willing to go to make it right, from what i'm seeing you really couldnt ask for more! good to know!
you should give them the cred to for going the distance for you in their feedback thread or just link to this if you haven;t done so already! you going to any shows this summer in your bus? wanna meet up?
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"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin
'71 westie "the wanderer"

raygreenwood · Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 1:22 pm Post subject:

airkooledchris · Samba Member Joined: January 25, 2005 Posts: 2711

Ray - ahh, I see now, you were replying back to 'wayradmike ' regarding his pics of his own head issues...

theizzardking - not sure, it depends on how safe I feel travelling long distances this summer in this build. ill usually make a big trek down to monterey, ca in Oct for the sports car championship. the only VW show I would usually hit in the summer is the kelley park show in San Jose, but ive been there a number of times already and would rather hit something north closer to fall if I find anything....

edited to add: if this does end up going well with AVP ill be sure to update my feedback to reflect this new experience, but even given this promising conversation - so far it's just words, so ill hold off on saying one way or another but I am at least hopeful

tcraft · Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 5:22 pm Post subject:

On my second AVP (77 FI) I cooked the 1st one all by myself -
ordered a 2nd with the hydraulic upgrade 2 years ago-and it has been perfect ever since I put it in- distributor slot was properly indexed on receipt.
Adjusted the valves 1 1/2 turns after a few hundred miles.
Compression is close to spec and even and the power and performance
are great. AND- not more than a drop or two of oil seepage- a bit of wicking at the case half -
Maybe I was lucky- but I am satisfied -so far.
have had some other accessory problems- but unrelated to the engine.

-
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77bus- I love it-then I hate it-then I love it-then...

airkooledchris · Samba Member Joined: January 25, 2005 Posts: 2711

how did you cook your first one?

tcraft · Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2009 4:32 am Post subject:

I am almot too embarrassed to say- anyway- the shop who helped me install it only put (as it turned out) 2 qts of oil in it..ran it for about 1000
mi's that way until the oil light started coming on and I was ready for the 1st oil change-(stupid me for not checking the level way earlier)
Anyway- it had been running ridiculously hot obviously. The shop agreed we would run it for awhile longer to see how it would be-another year-
and determined the valves were toasted and started hammering.
They agreed to foot the bill for a new one if I paid for the labor-
Since then the 2nd engine has been perfect..
_________________
77bus- I love it-then I hate it-then I love it-then...

tcraft · Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2009 4:34 am Post subject:

Oh- bought both thru BD as for some reason the price was lower than thru AVP directly at that time.
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77bus- I love it-then I hate it-then I love it-then...

airkooledchris · Samba Member Joined: January 25, 2005 Posts: 2711

wow, the shop was 100% at fault and you still paid all of the labor for them to do it again?

that was pretty generous, unless your taking some of them blame for not checking the oil level sooner. though really with just 2Q of oil in the case, your oil light should have been flickering instantly.

How many miles do you have on this one now, and what are your compression numbers currently?

the light seeping from the case half I have had on mine since early on as well. there is also leaking happening from the jugs and the main seal already blew out once and had to be replaced. possibly because it was one of those cheap black ones and not the red variety that supposedly last a lot longer.

tcraft · Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2009 12:29 pm Post subject:

I should have checked the level of course- But there were mitigating factors-they have done me lots of favors including using the lift free
when not in use- and sometimes the use of tools- plus free tweaking here and there.

I am not at home but the compression was all low 100 something- and now have maybe 6000 miles on the engine...
_________________
77bus- I love it-then I hate it-then I love it-then...

chongzilla · Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2009 11:13 am Post subject:

I purchased a 2.0 liter with hydrolic lifters (i would recomend hydrolics to anyone) from AVP and could not be happier with the reliablity and preformance. Also AVP was very easy to work with. I needed a front seal because i switched to a 228 flywheel insted of the 210 and it showed up in the mail the very next day. Im pretty sure they didn't have to send that but i asked anyway. I did have an exhaust stud pull out but I was not to upset because that has happened on all the vw motors i have ever owned. I think I am just cursed to alway replace one or two.

the motor now has 15k miles and still going strong.


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AVP motor report & questions (pictures)
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