Brought home a Jan/ Feb 54' Jupiter Grey Euro

[sled]

good eye Rome, yes the wires are in the wrong position, they appear 90 degrees out.

even with a centrifugal-only advance distributor, the number one TDC rotor position is the same, pointing over your right shoulder when facing the engine.
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drive your split.

[Bub]

You guys. I clocked the distributor drive so the badge is facing that way.
The plugs are correct on the distributor....this is only about the 140th VW I've owned (thought I have swapped the plug wires wrong a million times). The notch on the distributor is directly under the #1 plug wire. While I had the heads off I did check to make sure that the cam was timed right- I suppose it's possible it's like ONE tooth off; I dind't open the case.
Which is why it's sort of funny it won't really run. It actually starts, but just sputters..and will continue to sputter even if you literally pour gas down the carb. And I've swapped 3 carbs out now. All the exact same result- except for the one that leaked real bad.

But fairly sure it's spark. When I took everything apart the coil was wired backwards (15/1 connections), I think it is half fried. I need to get my multimeter out and test it and dig around for another condenser.

Also going to loosen up some drivetrain mount stuff and see how much I can tilt the back of the engine down. Maybe I have the trans nosecone bolted down too high, fairly sure those hole are slightly slotted.

Here you go- rotor pointing at #1. Firing order 1-4-3-2- Yellow marks are TDC.

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[motofly196]

1st thing I do when I get my hands on an engine with the distributor clocked like that...I pull the drive gear, and re-clock it to the proper orientation. It's good that you know it's that way...but the next guy who isn't familiar with doing that will be scratching their head for quite a while. Or...when you're engine isn't running you might be over-looking the simplest of things.

Maybe the last guy adjusted the valves with the distributor rotor pointed at the #1 hash on the distributor rim? This is just one thing that could be off...

[Bub]

[Bub]

Anyways....I got it running to the extent I wanted. I knew it was just a preliminary assembly of everything and it would be VERY unlikely it was going to be great and run smooth.
But It runs. Or it DID run. I didn't like it. Didn't like what I saw..I figured I need to dig in a little deeper or lose sleep over it.

So. I did.

And I'm just going to leave this here.
I don't know whether to be terrified or impressed. I've balanced rods before; I think we used to get them withing .5grams typically. I tore a 356 engine down once with one rod something like 30 grams off.
But this. THIS. I don't know. Dammit. Hilarious.

Or not, I can't decide.

p.s. Do 36hp cranks have the dished washer just ahead of the small end bearing? I can't remember....but it wasn't there!

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[motofly196]

Yes, 36hp use the dished washer on the snout. They are a little different from 1600, they can slide on without removing the woodruff key.
I'd be interested to know if those rods are balanced or not...that's a lot of material removed. Jose at DPR balanced mine by removing material on the big end. That rod has the entire line removed...that's gotta be quite a bit of weight. How did the rest of the internals look?

[Bub]