Dowel pins and shim for flywheel

[Campy]

With only about 5,000 miles of use on it, I removed my rebuilt GEX 1776cc engine out of my bus because it had been running hot. It came with an eight dowel hole flywheel and I had forgotten to check the crankshafts end play when I first got the engine. When I pulled and pushed on the flywheel, it felt like it had over 40 thousands of an inch of end play, so I removed the flywheel and saw that the outer shim only had a tiny inner ring of the shim left. I checked the main bearing and it was alright. There obviously was some banging going on but is that why most of the shim had been destroyed?
One of the eight dowel pins on the end of the crank had a shoulder of metal around it where it where it first sticks out of the crankshaft end, obviously caused by the dowel pin not lining up with the hole in the flywheel, which had been forced over it when the gland nut was tightened (at GEX). I noticed that another dowel pin was not centered between the pin on each side of it, being a little to the left. Would this have been deliberately done so the flywheel could only be put on one way, for balancing?
The other problem is that the dowel pins go so far into the crank end, they don't stick out enough to go fully into the holes in the flywheel (they go in about one-fourth of the hole, only). Are there extra long dowel pins and, if so, who sells them?

[Stuntmanus]

[vwracerdave]

Yes SPR pattern 8 dowel has one offset dowel pin so flywheel is indexed for balancing.

While the flywheel is off I would have a friend push and pull on the crank pulley while you inspect the bearing. If the bearing moves in the case, you need to tear it apart and rebuild. If you are confident the bearing is OK, I would clean up the damaged dowel pin with a file, get new shims and set endplay. One or two damaged dowel pins won't be the ideal way, but remember a stock flywheel only had 4.

If you get it back together and running, Drive it easy, no drag race starts. It might get you aother year or two. I would start collecting parts to build another longblock of your choosing.
_________________
2017 Street Comp Champion - Thunder Valley Raceway Park - Noble, OK
2010 Sportsman ET Champion - Mid-America Dragway - Arkansas City, KS
1997 Sportsman ET Champion - Thunder Valley Raceway Park - Noble ,OK
Featured in Dec. 2001 HOT VW's Magazine page 63

Watch my racing video's http://www.youtube.com/user/okvwracer/videos

[Stuntmanus]

[vwracerdave]

Yes SPG....I made a typing error
_________________
2017 Street Comp Champion - Thunder Valley Raceway Park - Noble, OK
2010 Sportsman ET Champion - Mid-America Dragway - Arkansas City, KS
1997 Sportsman ET Champion - Thunder Valley Raceway Park - Noble ,OK
Featured in Dec. 2001 HOT VW's Magazine page 63

Watch my racing video's http://www.youtube.com/user/okvwracer/videos

[Bruce]

If the dowel pin is damaged, it is an inferior soft pin and will shear off with little effort. Your best approach is to pull all of them out and replace them with hardened longer ones.

http://www.cbperformance.com/catalog.asp?ProductID=159

[Campy]

I had already checked out the main bearing and there was no movement, thank God, and I have new shims and a seal. I had used my locking pliers to remove the bad dowel pin and put another one in. It still worries me that the pins don't go into the flywheel's holes very far. There is no such thing as extra long dowel pins? I looked at the ones in the flywheel of one of my other engines and the pins fit in through the holes to the end.
I guess that it is not unusual for a flunky at an engine assembly company like GEX to put the flywheel on in the wrong position and torque down the gland nut.
I removed the heads so I could remove the super cooling tins and found a lot of carbon on the combustion chambers and on the top of the pistons (only about 5,000 miles of use), which I removed. It's a 1776cc engine with a stock 34mm carburetor, which shouldn't have the engine running that rich.
Have a nice VW Christmas.

[Mark]

[Stuntmanus]

[Campy]

Bruce--
I checked out CB performance and they sell sets of eight extral long flywheel dowel pins for $9.95 plus shipping; minimum $20 order. Thanks.
It looks like the crankshaft end was setup to use the longer dowel pins and some sh*t head at GEX installed the standard pins.
After I had removed the cylinder heads, I noticed that two of the long studs for one cylinder were all rusty; they won't hurt anything but that is pretty slipshod. I left them in because I figured that the case savers would unscrew with them and I didn't want to remove the cylinder. Should I at least try to remove them and see if they unscrew out of the case savers, or remove the cylinder as a last resort, or just not bother with it? I have a lot of used cylinder studs.

[Stuntmanus]

[Campy]

I know that the dowels do not affect the end play but the stock dowels are so far in the end of the crankshaft that they barely go into the holes in the flywheel.