Oil Galley Plug Question

[OG1]

I bought this 85 van recently as a non runner. Previous owner bought it with a severe oil leak/not running. He pulled the motor and put a main seal and clutch in it. When he put motor back in it wouldn't turn over at all. I suspected something wasn't right with flywheel/shims and turns out i was right. There was a large oring between the shims and flywheel that was locking up the crank(I think he misunderstood what oring and where it goes in the flywheel ) Anyhow got that sorted and was spinning the motor over with a wrench and found oil gushing out of what appears to be a galley with no plug in it. Previous owner had said he found loose metal plug in the bell housing but its long gone now...

Anyhow I have 2 questions. I did search and also looked in my bentley with no luck:

1. Is this a galley that used to/should have a plug in it?

Image 3 by brandonott, on Flickr
2. Whats the easiest reliable fix?

Thanks!

[ftp2leta]

JB weld or Aluminum putty. Of course it need to be dry as heck, use brake cleaner. Or, get a plug! Or, find a slightly bigger screw and thread the hole, make sure the screw is cut to the thickness needed. Also use some JB's on the cam plug and the other one on the right. I have seen that so many time.

Ben
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[Terry Kay]

Or to do the job correctly, stroll on over to your local mom & pop auto parts store and seek out a Dormann freeze plug of the proper size & insert it---

No way I'd trust JB weld in this location---unless you want a good oil leak.
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T.K.

[OG1]

Thanks guys. I'll try and find a plug then jb weld over all of them.

[stevey88]

Or do it properly like:

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1107153

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pro-Series-1-8-NPT-hex-hea...mp;vxp=mtr
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Steve

87 Westfalia full camper 4 speed

[OG1]

I have the tools to tap the hole but was concerned about introducing the shavings to the oil system. Can this be done safely with a greased tap? I'm not real familiar with these engines. Thanks

[MarkWard]

You could put compressed air into the oil system at the other end say on the oil pressure switch outlet. With air flowing and grease on the tap, you can probably get away with it. In production, when a plug came out, the case was considered bad by vw. Replacing the factory press plugs during an overhaul is a good idea and you can completely clean the case. Good luck.
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[Wildthings]

Another solution would be to have a new plug made slightly oversized.

On my 1800 aircooled, I JB Welded one original plug back in twenty plus years ago, it is still holding today. I later drilled and tapped another plug on the same engine when a plug blew in Mexico. That time, I pumped grease into the galley and then did the drilling an tapping using a greased bit and tap. Spent a very long time carefully scooping the rest of the grease from the galley making a sure as possible that no cuttings got left behind.

Do you know the history of your engine? If someone has swapped in a 2.1, you might want to go ahead and do a tear down and have the rods rebuilt with new bolts. No use stuffing it back together now if a rod is going to left go in a few weeks to years.

[OG1]

Thanks for all the help/suggestions guys. I couldn't find any expansion plugs that size locally so I went ahead and drilled/tapped the hole for 1/8" pipe plug. For anyone contemplating this, it was pretty easy. First, remove the oil pressure sender from the drivers side of engine between pushrod tubes, then pack the hole to be drilled with grease. Use a size Q drill bit, I drilled in about 3 stages for depth, also packing the flutes of the bit with grease each time. After each stage, blow compressed air in the hole where the pressure sender goes and it will blow the glob of grease and shavings out of the galley hole. Rinse and repeat with new grease each time, and do the same with the tap. Give it a final blow out and cleaning and install plug with teflon tape. Member RSXSR above gave me he idea for the air.

I went ahead and JB welded the other plugs in just for insurance since they seemed to be staying put.

Thanks again for all the help guys.

[Howesight]

Hey OG1:

Glad to see you got the oil leak licked. I reckon the NPT thread pipe plug is the easiest fix going for those oil galley plugs and it's easier than using JB Weld since the NPT plug does not need all the oil removed from the repair area. Although it's best to remove all the factory plugs and replace with threaded NPT when the engine is disassembled, it's not too hard to keep the thread-cutting chips at bay on a "non-rebuild" repair.

One trick that can help with this: grind the end of your tap so that only a small part of the taper on the tap is used - - this means the tap doesn't have to go in so far to cut your threads and since the metal is soft, it still works.

BTW, I tried, as a teenager wrenching on my first VW Beetle, "peening" one of those oil galley plugs into place. Neither I nor the engine I killed recommend that approach.
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'86 Syncro Westy SVX

[Wildthings]

[PocketRocket]

I have been told by some, they have never seen one of the plugs come loose or blow out. Really? That's why I remove then drill and tap the factory oil holes for threaded plugs on all the engines I build. JB weld its just a band-aid not a long lasting repair.

[volkswagatron]

Ive never seen one pop out till now. Had customers call broke down here out of PA today! Oil spewing all over he said, my first thought after looking was oil cooler seal. After getting in to it I found an oil galley plug missing right by the oil cooler.Type 4 engine also