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Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE
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erikgundy98
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 15, 2018 9:54 pm    Post subject: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

Last night I pulled the heads. About 7 hours total, but I made sure to label everything, and took my time in following the Bentley manual.

I chased idle problems last summer, which led me to a compression test, adjusting #4 valve, adding Marvel Mystery Oil and trying just about everything I could to keep from doing this. But alas, since I had low compression on cylinder #4 (about 10psi), I debated (and asked opinions on subi vs rebuild) , and decided on sticking to the original 2.1 motor. It was rebuilt 40K miles ago, so I tested the oil pressure at normal operating temp, and had good oil pressure (~14 at 1000 rpm and 50 at 3000rpm), so after lots of research, advice, questions and videos, off came the heads.

I’ve had the van 3 yrs (still weird calling her a van after years of being around bay owners who despise the term ‘van’), and put 25K miles on it. 238,000 now and a list of “to-do’s” and maintenance ... this starts my long journey of ownership and figured I’d keep all my “stuff” in one place. I plan to paint the van this summer, so here is my current project.

Heads are off to machine shop next week to be resurfaced and rebuilt.

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Looks obvious which one had the problem ....

I was suprised how simple removing everything was. Time consuming yes, but not a hard job getting these off.
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jberger
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 16, 2018 8:39 am    Post subject: Re: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

Ouch.. . check your catalytic converter for rattles... most likely find your valve seat in there. Shocked

I can't say that I've seen a dropped seat in a WBX. Many an air cooled though.
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2018 6:11 am    Post subject: Re: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

Losing that valve seat is not good, what does the piston look like?

It is worrisome to lose a seat.

Dave
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erikgundy98
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2018 9:21 am    Post subject: Re: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

Piston looks good. Still has signs of cross lines from honing. All 4 cylinders look the same- no noticeable gouges or scratches.

The machine shop guy who took the heads, (not the guy who will Work on them), disagreed with the “seat might be in the cat converter”, as he said it looks like the piston seat gradually wore off/ disintegrated. The recommended machinist wil open it up / take apart the head this coming week.

Question about the rings: when the heads came off- only one ring was present. I inspected the jugs- not stuck there. I inspected the heads- not there either. Could this have been put together incorrectly (like missing / forgot the other 3 rings?) or do they disintegrate? Unsure why I couldn’t find the other 3....


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PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2018 10:04 am    Post subject: Re: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

That seat slowly degraded and finally split, chunked up and went out the exhaust.
Easily fixed by a competent Auto Machinist. Cut a new pocket pound in a new seat and guide. Recut the seat. Regrind the valves.
Glad it didn’t go down into the piston.
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erikgundy98
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 9:03 pm    Post subject: Re: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

Machinist evaluated heads today and found cracks in all other valve seats Sad. Now I’m looking for a good set of heads in the Portland area. If I can’t find a good set that can be rebuilt for les than these- I’ll be forced to get new heads (which I am debating doing now anyway).

40K mikes on these AMC heads. No pitting at all, just broken seats and a bad exhaust valve. Sad should have lasted longer then 40K
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 9:30 pm    Post subject: Re: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

Sorry.. I was HALF joking...

You'd be surprised how large a piece of seat will find it's way out the exhaust port. The fine honeycomb of the cat surely collected all the debrisle

J
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 9:58 pm    Post subject: Re: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

Consider checking with Jerry at Northwest Connecting Rod.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/archive/index.php/o-t--t-331465--.html

Note his new phone and location in Kent WA.

“I've found best time to call is first thing in the morning 8 am or after 4pm
there current number is 253-872-4945”

It’s been a few years since I chatted with him but he was very helpful and provided AMC heads for my wbx back in 2006.[/i]
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 11:49 pm    Post subject: Re: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

If the seats are cracked, why can't they just replace the bad seats? If it were me and the van was running fine, I'd put a seat in there and replaced the exhaust valves and go on with my life.

Stacy
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 21, 2018 7:23 am    Post subject: Re: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

erikgundy98 wrote:
Machinist evaluated heads today and found cracks in all other valve seats Sad


Is your machinist familiar with air cooled? You can stitch some pretty large cracks in air cooled heads.

Not if the cracks are inside the intake or exhaust ports, down around the base of the guide boss, but cracks between seats and into seats can be stitched and or ground out and welded.

Of course this puts you in an awkward spot. Assuming this person isn't a personal friend of yours, as soon as you tell them that "you read a thread on the internet about stitching cracks.........." its not going to end well.
I only ask to help you possibly same some money.
Good luck.

EDIT: here's an example of a bad crack that, IMHO, is not repairable with a stitch.

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erikgundy98
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 21, 2018 9:43 pm    Post subject: Re: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

Thnks. The guy I took them to is who was recommended here on the samba, and after talking to him last night, I have to believe he is a straight shooter. Nice guy. Told me he saw cracks in all of them and that if they were salvageable / repairable, he’d do it.

For the price of buying used heads in good condition, and putting new valves in, I think I’m pretty close to the price I would pay for new GoWesty AMC heads.

I think I am going to bite the bullet and go with new heads from GoWesty for 1 reason- I have the first week of April off work, which would give me a lot of time to get the engine back together, and not have to be scraping for time here and there.
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erikgundy98
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2018 10:03 pm    Post subject: Re: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

And now I know why people say “take the engine out- you are so close when you do the heads and it’s just 4 more bolts!”

Yep, cleaning the block with it still in the engine is a huge pain. Doable, but a pain.

Here is about an hour of hand cleaning the top of the cylinder head. Ugh. But after that his, heads go back on.
(From this)
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To this so far...
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I’m using a small wire brush and carb cleaner... tough to do at the angle, with engine in.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 03, 2018 12:41 pm    Post subject: Re: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

Do you mean you are cleaning the top of the piston?

I just completed the driver side head replacement on a Vanagon for guy this weekend. He had me do the passenger side last fall because coolant was making its way into the cylinder when it would sit. This one was just leaking at the gasket.

We put on a new head each time.

Last fall I tried to talk him into doing both at once to avoid some repeat labor but he didn't want to. Does seem to be happy with the outcome both times, though, so I guess that's a win.

I did them with the engine in the Van. I agree it probably would have been easier to do it with the engine out, but I got there OK. Driver side seemed more annoying than the passenger side, but the overall time spent for each was nearly identical (about 8 hours each start to finish) but I did not clean the tops of the pistons or anything else. Just pop off old head, install new one with new gaskets each time, fill and bleed coolant, and done.
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:00 am    Post subject: Re: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

Green o-rings.... do you lube new ones at all? I’m familiar with lubing the oil filter ring a little, and putting a little oil on the head side of the cork valve cover gasket... so is there a trick with this little green o-ring?

Thanks!
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:03 am    Post subject: Re: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

erikgundy98 wrote:
Green o-rings.... do you lube new ones at all? I’m familiar with lubing the oil filter ring a little, and putting a little oil on the head side of the cork valve cover gasket... so is there a trick with this little green o-ring?

Thanks!


According to the YouTube install video I referenced while doing it, I did use a little oil to lube them.

I just got a finger damp with fresh engine oil and smeared it around the circumference of the o-ring.
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erikgundy98
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:11 am    Post subject: Re: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

Kinda thought so! Thanks!
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 08, 2018 10:26 pm    Post subject: Re: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

New heads from GoWesty;,Injectors came back from Mr. Injector with a clean bill of health; new exhaust from GoWesty as well.

So putting it all together took me the better part of yesterday, and today I got to “start it up!”

I just did the heads, didn’t pull the distributor. Checked timing... roughly the same at 35 degrees (electronic timing light). My advice- get one now and stop tinkering with your old light you timed your bug with. This thing is amazing.

The exhaust pipe burnt off all its nastiness (20 min or so of smoking (it would start smoking, I’d turn van off. Examined pipe- lots of smoke. It eventually stopped smoking.

When burping the cooling system: As I revved the engine, It would get hotter than before rebuild- so I started looking around. Thought I had an intake leak on #4 as it got glowing hot. But checked with carb cleaner- no idle increase, no leak.

The glowing pipe worries me and propmted a lot of reading the last 2 evenings.

2 things to do- get all air out of cooling system and verify timing is good. As I’ve read, I think air in heads could cause overheating right?



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erikgundy98
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PostPosted: Mon May 07, 2018 10:19 pm    Post subject: Re: Keeping the 1990 weekender ALIVE Reply with quote

After the rebuild, I’m having a hesitation when giving gas from idle. Idles great- but doesn’t get up and go from a stop sign.

Prior to pulling the heads, I had the engine running on 3 cylinders (dropped valve seat in #4). But after new go-westy heads, burping air from the coolant system, breaking-in new exhaust pipes, and a trip up to the PNW Springmeet (arriving on trailer due to alternator failure) for a new alternator (300+ mike trip with a small 30-mike tow in the middle), I need to figure out this dangerous “lack of power off the line” issue.

Current: idles pretty good, but not perfect. Right about 950-970 rpm. Timing is set (40btdc w electronic timing light). Vacuum is within speck. Fuel injectors newly cleaned by Mr. Injector. No vaccum leaks around engine. Van has good power at cruising speeds, and idles near perfect. But it’s the 950-1700 rpm that struggles off the line. Rpms drop when you step on gas. Then if hesitates to go until it reaches 1700ish rpm.

Whether giving little gas, or flooring it- it struggles. If I gun it, I can create a backfire (ish) where it really struggles and gasps for fuel/air. I’m not sure which it is gasping for, so I replaced fuel filter, but No difference (and no problems in the night rpms, so no vanagon syndrom bucking etc, so fuel filter was due st 30,000 miles anyway). I went through AMF adjustment https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=356377 today, and while I made a few small tweeks to get CO down, the idle is still good, and response to blip-ing gas is still sluggish.

I have 3 hypotheses:

1- fuel related. Fuel tank and pump appear original, and while I wonder about the possibility of crud blocking the interior screens, a hypothetical clog would show up when at high rpms (which I don’t have)? My problem is at low rpm, but not problem at idle. Just taking off from idle. Should I think fuel tank? Or fuel pump? But again- no problem at high rpm. I checked fuel pressure yesterday- but not with engine running. Had 35 rpm but it slowly dropped to 20 within a few minutes- but I didn’t catch the need to do test with engine running- so I can redo that test Wednesday.

2-The Hall Sensor Black plastic piece is loose on the side of the distributor, but I can’t grt any noticeable change in rpm by wiggling wires, so I don’t really want to spend $160 on a “that could be it” guess. But the ignition starts, idles, and runs great at 2000-3000+rpm.

3- fuel pulp feed wire. (

Suggestions on where to start? Fuel right? What’s the best way to test/verify proper fuel delivery from the fuel pump? Bentley says w/engine running to test psi, but I also read a volume per 30 sec which should be pumped by fuel pump. I assume that must be with engine off... so unless this sounds familiar to someone, I’ll start by getting proper fuel pressure reading Wednesday.

Thanks for any advice.
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