Failed AZ Emissions (air-cooled)

[RCB]

Brady, PM sent.

[bfulton]

Just for the sake of record keeping. I wanted to update this thread on the progress. Brian @ European Automotive took care of removing and installing the #3 exhaust valve, great guy, can't recommend him enough. Finally got a chance to wrench on the van last Wednesday, dropped the engine support, lowered the engine, reinstalled the head and got the engine running again, but shut it down quickly as I had stripped a rocker arm stud on installation.

Yesterday I replaced the stripped rocker arm stud and adjusted all the valves. pulled off the exhaust and began to cut off the questionable catalytic converter. ran the engine again and it ran much better, though loud as a lot full of Harleys without the exhaust in place.

Saturday is my daughter's 2nd birthday party, so no more work until Sunday, which will hopefully have me reattaching the exhaust with the new Cat and ready for another go at the smog check station.
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1980 Vanagon Westfalia (As-You-Want Brown)
Rebuilt 2.0 AC Motor
SLOWLY rebuilding the rest of it

[bfulton]

Cut the welded on cat off the exhaust tonight. Too dark to see what's inside, but I'll have more time to grind down the flanges and reassemble it with the new cat on Sunday.
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1980 Vanagon Westfalia (As-You-Want Brown)
Rebuilt 2.0 AC Motor
SLOWLY rebuilding the rest of it

[bfulton]

Sure enough, lots of fractures, chunks missing and floating around and full on holes in the catalytic converter guts. Really crossing my fingers that the new cat gets us through emissions and onto our first summer travels.
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1980 Vanagon Westfalia (As-You-Want Brown)
Rebuilt 2.0 AC Motor
SLOWLY rebuilding the rest of it

[bfulton]

It PASSED!!!!!

Brought it to a VW mechanic with an exhaust sniffer and it was still WAY TOO HIGH, then he started pulling wires off the coil and pulling #4 didn't make a difference in the way the engine ran, so he pulled the plug and did a compression test, 0!?!?!?
#3 had 130#, so the engine is currently running on 3 cylinders, but I pulled the #4 injector wire and the sniffer showed great results. Left it off, drove to the emissions test facility and wizz bang boom, it Passed!

So yes, it's running on 3 cylinders and I need to look at the valve train for #4, but that seems trivial compared to the year long process of passing emissions.
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1980 Vanagon Westfalia (As-You-Want Brown)
Rebuilt 2.0 AC Motor
SLOWLY rebuilding the rest of it

[RCB]

[bfulton]

Went and got my registration and license plate, got back and adjusted the valves on #4, it was just too tight, but when I back the adjusting screw out to adjust, the tip of the valve stem is almost on the rocker arm, not much room for play, has anyone seen this happen to just one set of valves before?
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1980 Vanagon Westfalia (As-You-Want Brown)
Rebuilt 2.0 AC Motor
SLOWLY rebuilding the rest of it

[bfulton]

Took our first family trip in the vanagon and had our first night of camping. Drove up to Williams AZ and caught the Grand Canyon Railroad up to the big hole

Drove up there on three cylinders (busted connector fixed by electrical tape for now). Needless to say it was "slow". But since I've never driven or ridden in a air cooled westy, I didn't have anything to compare it to.

Drive home was stop and go as our Head temps and Oil temp kept creeping up on us.

Made it there and back though with a nice, chilly camp out which is success in my book.

Family concerns are as follows:
1. Noisy - No A/C, so we travel with the windows down, but even at idle at a stop light, not too realistic to converse with our 2yo in the back seat.

2. Oil temp sender is located in the sump plate and consistently sat ~300f.

3. CHT sensor is on #3 spark plug and fluctuated between 245f-305f.

Now that we're at home, I've picked up the lower warm air duct which I didn't know I was missing, and an engine seal, which I neglected to purchase. My concern is that at idle in my driveway (granted its 105f outside) the oil temp seems to sit at 275f and my CHT sits at 250f. Do these numbers seem out of line with others?
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1980 Vanagon Westfalia (As-You-Want Brown)
Rebuilt 2.0 AC Motor
SLOWLY rebuilding the rest of it

[Steve Arndt]

Your CHTs are low, and oil temps very high.

You should check your oil temp sending unit and gauge together in boiling water. I've seen VDOs over 50F off.

How long since you have inspected the thermocouple under the spark plug? They can fatigue and break leading to low readings.