The Gallery Plug Saga Update

About a year ago I posted about my first real breakdown with my bus on August 12,2003 in Winnie Texas. Here's a little update on that slapped-together engine. I just finished Lap One Of America on October 28,2004 with my new business, Itinerant Air-Cooled Consulting ( I drive across America showing people how to tune up and repair their air-cooled Volkswagens). I helped thirty bus owners on this last lap and my bus just did 20,000 miles (we're at 473,358 miles now) with the very same bashed in gallery plug, blued rods and crankshaft, and extra-used #2 piston described in the below adventure.

My Type 4 engine in my 1973 Bus now has 439,000 miles with four engine >tear-downs on original heads carbs distributor, just changed the >original alternator and crank last summer. >
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>This past August 12th in Winnie Texas, Interstate 10 at 75 mph during >yet another cross-country blast, right at noon my oil light came on >for the first time in 25 years of ownership. I shut that sucker down >instantly and declutched off the road. Smoke pouring out. You know >when you just have to sit there a minute? Went back and looked at this >beautiful faithful engine covered in oil and tinking like mad. >Oil pouring out of the bell housing area. Smoke. >Didn't even bother to crank it. Walked into town accosted a man on a >lawn mower, he towed me off the interstate to a laundromat parking >lot. 97* and raining. Pulled the engine by 3:00 pm. Yanked the >flywheel off and dang if it wasn't a stupid oil gallery plug. >Could not find a pipe thread plug in all of Winnie. Finally bashed the >old one back in with a horrid blob of JB Weld, sweged the case around >the hole with a round chisel, man it looked bad. Rain, oil, slippery >jack, oily rags, wet oily tools and a stupid wind blowing trash and >sand all over everything. Irritated to death. That's when Billy Bob >comes out of the laundromat " heyyyyy, nice little buggy you got >there, having problems?" Engine sliding off my bottle jack, knee dug >into bottom of bumper, oil oozing off foam seal, hands slipping on >everything I touch, " Nah, just checking the oil." >Got it back together at 10:30 am next morning, dropped the sump plate, >looked at the silvery grey swirls yikes, put fresh oil in it, new >filter, started it, knockity-knockity-knockity, can it get worse? ># 2 spark plug wire pull quiets it down, my assessment is that I >collapsed a piston in that instant of no oil at 4,300 rpm with a very >hot engine yesterday. Drove it up and down the drag slowly, knock >seems better when the engine gets warm. Hit the Interstate at 12:00 >noon and find that so long as the engine is around 3500 rpm and under >load, it seems OK. I run it with the access lid open in the rear so I >can hear it and to keep the engine compartment depressurized and >running hotter. The car hates hills and hates cooling down, like at >gas stops, and hates low rpms. Winnie Texas is 1695 miles from my home >in upstate New York. >By Pennsylvania, I have a new problem. Hateful hills must be >negotiated in third gear to keep revs up ( less stress on piston >skirts) but the engine cools down without enough load so piston loses >expansion which makes the engine sound like a Vanagon Diesel. But now >I have a scary little pecking sound when I shift. >So I have to drop revs, keep it under load for the benefit of some >failing rod bearing back there, but the piston hates loads. By the >border of New York State, my engine is unhappy no matter what. >Sweet spot is hot engine at 3,000 rpm under modest load, but I am in >hills now, bad down hills rattling, bad uphills piston slapping, and I >have to shift from 3rd to 4th all over. 38 hours after getting on the >road in Winnie, I am in my driveway at 3:00 am tockity tockity. >I sit and thank my bus for its loyal suicidal run. >The next day, I tear the engine down in my garage. >Piston # 2 has a collapsed skirt smeared all over the cylinder wall. >Connecting rod #1 WILL NOT MOVE on the crank journal. >Connecting rod # 2 inserts had just begun to spin in the rod, the >tangs were worn right off. >Both rods were blue, as was the crank journal on #1, with little bits >of copper smeared around it. >This engine was within minutes of death. >Four days later I reassembled it with new main and connecting rod >bearings, sanded the crank clean, installed a used piston from my last >engine teardown into this # 2 cylinder barrel with the rings off this >collapsed piston. ( had to lighten all the three other pistons to >match the "new" used one at the convenience store deli across the >street) flushed the oil cooler and passages, LEFT THE GALLERY PLUG >ALONE, and now have a very smooth running engine with an additional >3,000 miles on it. These engines are amazing. John Muir was right. >Love will go a long way with a VW engine, but do not push one mile >past what you promised it! > Colin

This slapped-together engine just did the country + Canada including several weeks of 104* heat in Portland Oregon and 120* heat outside Boulder City Nevada to Baker California on Interstate 10 at 70 mph. I miss that lovely heat, froze my butt off in Ottawa, Ontario and upstate New York and Massachusetts. No repairs to the engine were needed. Colin ( Lap Two begins March 15th : ) )

Reply to
Colin
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Neat story - Thanks for sharing. - Bah

Reply to
Busahaulic

LOL! What a great answer!

Max

Reply to
Max Welton

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