July 2016 engine job ~ 1991 Vanagon Multivan

[Babin]

I had a few gorilla tape keeping the bug out of the holes in the pop top tent. I had purchase a replacement from CIP1 a few years ago. Got that installed last weekend. Without removing the poptop from the van.

1-Remove the old tent. Was really easy, just unscrew all the screws! But I made sure the top rail would stay in place. I just slightly loosen the rail enough to get the fabric and the embeded cord out.

2-Remove the bolt holding the hinge mecanism on the roof (top) part.

3-Pull the roof up enough to allow the tent to slide out the hinge one side at the time reseating the hinge after each. Then remove the old tente completly.

4-Using the cord in the new tent align roughly all 4 corner and insert the corded fabric part of new tent in to rail. Slighly tightened the rail to hold corded fabric but still allow movement. That setup allow to slide and stretch the top part of the tent nicely and aligning all four corner excatly where they should be before securing the tent in it's final position by tightened the screw.

5-Blocking the poptop about half way with a carboard box or else allow access and remove the tension on the fabric needed for the last part here. Using the bottom rail secure all four coner first evenly and nicely (hardest part of the deal). Then the rest of the screw go in easy. Making sure the bottom plastic bead is aligned with the inside of the rail.

[Babin]

Hi All!!

I thought it would be nice to share my body repair experience!

So the van was taken in a friend of mine garage for some minors weekend rust spot repair, esthetically intendend. To prevent rust from getting in there. A small job idea. The van as always been winterized inside my heated garage from october until may, since I've own it anyway.

Turn out after taking the rear bumper off and sanding some small rust spot here and there it was seriously affected, even where it was not apparent at all.

In the end, about 15 thick metal part had to be custom made (bent) before being welded on to replace the rusted cut out part of the rear body. And underneat and near the sliding door. A serious job. Which ended up requiring a complete sandblasting down to the metal, new primer, base, color paint and clear coat.

What an unexpected suprise! Just to finally say a small body work on an old van can quickly get out of control! Even when there is no evidence and it was well taken care of.

I took the opportunity to add a thule roof rack to the pop top, for paddleboard mainly. As you can see on those picture below it now need new wheels and tires. Those 14 in Nokian C-Line where serious crap. They had nothing to do with the mighty Michelin XLT they replaced.

[Babin]

Hi All!

Update on the broken rocker arm shaft. Replaced the stud and installed the spare rocker arm assembly this weekend. Adjusted the valve to 1/2 turn pass contact point. The lifter all seems to have some priming but one exhaust valve on cylinder 1. Turn the engine manually a few times to ensure everything seems well. That particular exhaust valve was not opening that much but the rest looked good.

Fired up the engine! It tooks a fews minute to adjust and stabilize to finally run smoothly, most likely from lifter priming back after a few weeks parked. Warmed it up and took for a spin around the block. Then readjusted the valve again at 1/2 pass contact point. That one exhaust valve was still to soft to my liking but stiffer than originally. Second fire up was nice and smooth.

And suprise! The engine ticking noise is gone.

I planned a small 800km trip on the weekend, that will challenge the repairs before it goes to sleep for winter in it coozy ceramic floor heated garage.

[Sodo]

[Babin]

Hi Sodo!

Thanks for your input!

Here is th broken rocker part better picture. With the stud tread on the right (tiny round part).

And the remaning of the stud. With it's nut and washer on it. After I unscrew it out of the head. With vice grip style plyer (thanks MarkWard!).

I like your theory. But it would be the loose end that broke from the flex. The stud broke on the same side as the rocker shaft. The shaft actually broke exactly where the broken stud was. Only the very tip of the stud broke. So how about the stud tip broke and the loosen rocker broke after from the flex? When I get a new stud and rocker in I will rotate the engine by hand like Hans suggested maybe something else will come up and explain the broken rocker shaft! At least I know the valve are sealing up with 185 psi compression on that cylinder. Keep in mind that I had bent a pushrod on that cylinder exhaust valve a few years back, thus weakening it probably. The pushrod wasn't properly seated in the lifter when I bent it at the time.

[Sodo]

I was confused by which/where etc of the broken parts.
But rocker shafts and rocker studs don't break.

I would have liked to see closeup pics of the broken rocker shaft and of the rocker stud.

Where is the broken stud?
Did it come out of the hole?
What does it look like?
Was it at the broken rocker shaft? Or opposite?
What happened to the broken stud part and its nut, was it just laying there under the valve cover?
It didn't gum up any other moving rockers?

[Babin]

The rocker stud came out quite easily. Thanks!

The piston on number 4 cylinder looks fine. And the sleeve wall on number 2 seems like it is damage perhap the lower compression is from there.

#4

#2

[Babin]

Thanks Mark! Will do!

[MarkWard]

[hdenter]

Do you, or someone you know, have a welder? You can tack on a nut. Perhaps there is enough thread to put two thin nuts on there. With a little bit of searching, you should be able to find a method that will work. Removing studs is a pretty common problem.

Hans
_________________
'79 triple white convertible bug
'84 sunroof vanagon
'85 weekender

[Babin]

Thanks for the reply Hans!

The pushrod are not bent, to my surprise. I had checked last night already.

BUT I had bent a pushrod on that particular exhaust valve before. Maybe resulting in a weakness as you wrote on the rocker...

How to remove the rocker mount stud? There is not enough tread to double nut lock as a grip. There is no square or else on the stud post to grip either. Vice grip on the stud post seems sketchy! Any other suggestion?

[hdenter]

I don't think you need to pull the head to replace the rocker mount stud. It should be removable in place.

Pictures of the ends of the broken pieces might tell the story of why it broke. Most likely there was a flaw in the material that just took time to fail.

If all the valve stems look even and undamaged, I'd bolt on the new rockers. Before firing it up, I'd rotate the motor a few times and watch the valve action to make sure things are moving properly. Maybe put a bore scope down the sparkplug hole and look at the valves...
Check the push rods and make sure none are bent...

Hans
_________________
'79 triple white convertible bug
'84 sunroof vanagon
'85 weekender

[Babin]

Hi All!

My van has been running great. Beside a rusty throttle cable sticking a bit (next winter project). Drove it around quite a bit. Until... Last week I came off the highwayand on the ramp and pressed the clutch pedal. I heard a strange bang at the back. Drove it carefully to work but on the way back as I drove around 100 km/h on the highway I notice a power loss. Then I pulled over to notice the engine had stopped. I got it towed to my driveway right away. And last night I had a chance to look at it closely. Compression has got me to go deeper with 185 (4), 160 (3), 135 (1), 80 (2). I though the #2 needed valve adjustement. But it turned out the #3 and #4 side had a broken rocker arm!!

On cylinder #4 exhaust valve. No wonder it could hold so much pressure. #3 was probably also affected. See the picture. The rocker bolt holder on the #4 side broke right off the tread.

Now two questions!!

1-Any idea what broke the rocker arm. Doesn't seem that common around. A worn out cam shaft perhaps?

2-Can I put a new set of rocker (that I have) on that snapped off rocker holder stud. Otherwise the head has to come off to replace the stud?

Thank you all for your collective knowledge!

[Babin]

About a year later!

I just passed the 8 000 Km mark today and still running as strong if not more than day one. No leak, no oil trace on engine. The last dino oil change, Castrol 20W50, is in there. Semi synthetic is next.

The engine noise is lifter related. When the van sits for a while the noise is louder and it quiet down after a drive long enough. But it never really goes away completely. It seem to get better with time, or maybe I'm getting use to it.

Last week I fixed the gas tank with the awesome van cafe aluminium resealing kit. I also replace one of my fuel expansion tank along the grommet and valve to have a perfectly seal fuel system.

I just went on a 800 km trip and I measured the gas mileage accuratly, to get 12.28 wind facing on the way in and 10.92 L/100km wind at my back on the way back home. This was loaded (gear and passenger) and 75% 110km/h highway, 25oC outside.

I'm on my way to get new tire next week. They will be Nokian CLine Van. 185R14, 8 ply light truck type. I will post the difference after a few week. I currently have Michelin 195-75R14 LTX MS and really liked them.

The brake line project is postpone to a winter garage project.

[Babin]

Little update after my first a few thousand Km.

The last two weeks I (finally) made trips back and forth to the nearby Gaspésie to enjoy the warm weather, for about 2 500 Km of country road driving fully loaded (kids, bikes, camping gears, chairs, cooler, ...). That is pushing the total just over 3 000 Km as of today.

The engine is running very strong. No oil leak. I checked the oil twice so far and it did lower any. I kept and eye on the oil temperature over the last two weeks and it never reach 220F yet. Today about 30 C outside cruising at 110 km\h, the oil is still at 210F. To my surprise, 2 hour later I pulled in a drive thru and the van sat in the lineup for a little while. The coolant temperature eventually went up and the fan started a few time, but the oil temperature never moved up. Again I don't know much, this could be completely normal....

It could be time for a compression test to see if the ring have seal up completely.

The engine noise is still there. I'm starting to wonder if it could be the normal engine noise. I read somewhere that a vanagon sound alike a sewing machine is normal. Anyway, I'm now down to changing the oil and see if it affect the noise. So when I pulled in the driveway today after the 3 hour drive I drop the oil only a few minute after shutting off the engine. To my surprise the oil was quite dark for a fresh engine and only 3000 Km on the oil. We'll see how that goes in fixing the noise in the coming days....

I realized that right after filling up I could smell gas. I used a borescope to find out one of the tank hose fitting was leaking a little. So I ordered a fuel tank resealing kit from VanCafe-RockyMontain, since their kit has a cross over pipe fitting made out of aluminium instead of plastic. It should get here sometime. I tried to calculate the gas-milage ratio over those longer trips on country road (single lane road with various changing speed limit from 50 to 90 Km/h), but since I didn't fully fill up it is only approximate for now. But it looks good with somewhere around 11-13 L/100Km, fully loaded. I'll come up with a precise number after the fuel tank is fix.

I now have a dilemma regarding the brake line replacement material. A few years back, I replaced the master and slave clutch cylinder and the steel line in between. Not knowing any better we used copper-nickel brake line. Now I have bought the brake hose (last flexible part before the galiper) made of braided stainless steel and I plan on installing those in a few weeks and replace all the steel brake line while I'm there. Now is copper-nickel ok? Should I use stainless steel brake line? You know the only do it once idea...

[[email protected]]

[jberger]

IMO the nickie cylinders on air cooled engines make a lot of sense. They are subjected to vicious heat cycles and can benefit from cylinders such as these. The WBX stays much more stable due to the water jacket. Pull a set of stock cylinders off of a 200k mile motor and measure them with a bore guage. They will be almost perfect. Do the same with 80k mile air cooled slugs... not so good. I am curious though, did you measure the LM cylinders before installing them? Also curious about piston to cylinder wall clearance and the thermal expansion of both. Perhaps your slight left hand noise is mild piston slap. Once you step away from stock... it can get very frustrating.

[Babin]

Hi Rob,

If you remember back in 2016 you wrote to me on this thread:

«For the record I have my doubts about case modification being required to use the GW 2.2 piston & cyl set, at least on a 2.1. It is my understanding that they are brand new forged J&E pistons set in bored out used factory liners... Since boring out does not change the outside of the cylinder sleeve/liner, how could modification be required? This may be a different story on the 2.3 and up though.»

At the time we were both wandering if the Gowesty Piston and cylinder set really needed case modification. Since no one answer that question on this thread, I ordered the Gowesty piston and cylinder set last year to find out. They turn out to required engine case machining just as said on their website. As I wrote on a previous post the piston skirt was hiting the case and prevented complete rotation of the engine in my 2.1L. We now know for fact that GoWesty set is not drop in. In my position I could not find a decent machine shop to machined the engine case and I was not willing to do so. That ended up costing me several hundred dollars only in restocking fee and back and forth shipping, with no result. I believe you would have to consider the price of the machine shop on top of the piston and cylinder cost if you were to compare only the price between the GoWesty set and those Nickies. That is without even considering the product itself, because oil temp and durability are very important factor. If you were to add the cost of a decent external oil cooler on top of it you should start to seriously consider Nickies. I'm not pretending I'm objective, because the Nickies suceeded were the Gowesty failed to put my van back on the road. But if you consider the drop in feature, thus eliminating costy engine case modification, and lower engine oil operating temperature perhaps you'll start to see how these Nickies are a much better long term invesment than the GoWesty.

This thread started on a piston and cylinder problem. And it went into a search for the best available option for piston and cylinder replacement for my vanagon. I found out there was nothing great out there. Every set offered out there as a drawback. After 2 years and three set of pistons and cylinder tested out. I believe the Nickies are now the very best option. We'll see on the long run if my mind will change. I'll keep you updated on how thing go.

I still did not figured out how you could show them off..... but I'll think about it...

[Robw_z]

[DanHoug]

oh my, Charles. i'd go for a set of Nickies! very familiar with them from the air head BMW motorcycles and those cylinders just don't wear out. i like the extra surface area in contact with the water jacket too.
_________________
-dan
60% of what you find on the internet is wrong, including this post.

'87 Westy & '89 Westy both 2.1 4spd

Past projects can be found at--
www.thefixitworkshop.com