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Bad valves in South America (Type 211)

Hi,

I'm hoping you can help me as I've dealt with a succession of mechanics in Chile who haven't understood my spanish or my 211's engine. Currently I'm in a remote part of Chile where there aren't any specialist VW mechanics or spare parts.

I've bought a 1987 Type 211 in Santiago, Chile and am driving it around Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Brasil. I've had some problems with the engine power more than once. Normally when I feel the power get worse it happens from one second to the next, it's not a gradual loss of power.

Various mechanics up and down Chile have fixed/improved the problem with varying degrees of success. There definitely seems to be a problem with the compression in two cylinders. By and large the successful mechanics have spoken of adjusting the valves. The only oil leak the engine has is coming from one of the valves of one of the badly compressing cylinders.

The engine was reconditioned in Santiago at a reputable specialist in VWs just before I bought it 6000 kms ago (about 4000 miles). As far as I'm aware it received new pistons and rings and the body of the engine was replaced with a reconditioned one (not sure of the correct term for this in english so you can guess how I explain this to mechanics in my faltering spanish).

The engine takes forever to start in the mornings when she's cold and there's moisture in the air but she always starts eventually. She does bunny hop a bit until she's completely warmed up. When she's going well I think she's working at about 50-80% of the power she had when I drove her out of the Santiago garage.

I've had various recommendations from fellow travellers; perhaps the compression loss could be due to faulty timing or perhaps the rings/pistons need replacing already (although this seems unlikely). One of the mechanics spoke of a loose head and valves. Presumably the most likely reason is a problem with the valves. I'd like to know if the only way to tell is to take the engine out and inspect the valves or any other advice anybody might have.

Maybe my best bet is to get back to civilisation to find a VW mechanic and take a spanish course.

Thanks for taking the time to read all this,

John.

Reply to
John Reid
Loading thread data ...

Boy is the world small...

Where in shile are you? I am in Santiago de Chile.

You can send me an email for my phone number and call me, or post here yours and I will contact you. email is snipped-for-privacy@nn.cl

Chile is very long, so its difficult for me to go phisically to were you might be, but we have a very active auto-talk group in chile.mercado.vechiculos were I am sure you can find somebody locally to recomend you a mecanic...

I hope its not the one in Huerfanos street. He is the most reputed one, but his aproaches to engine rebuilds are horrible....

Taking it out its not that difficult, specially in that kind of bus. Contact me.

Reply to
Eduardo Kaftanski

oops. I misspelled my own country :)

Where in Chile, I mean :)

Reply to
Eduardo Kaftanski

My email address is bigger than your email address.

(That's gotta be the shortest I've ever seen!)

Aircooled VW owners UNITE!

A beautiful moment in cyberspace again.. lol

Jan

Reply to
Jan Andersson

The have a long country and short addresses.

Reply to
Karls Vladimir Peña

long and narrow... where i live (more or less in the middle) its 40 minutes to skiing and 1 hour to the beach...

(160 kilometers wide average. 3500 k long...)

and the email is at my house server. I have another one shorter: snipped-for-privacy@w.cl

(I had most of the one letter domains on my server some years ago. most I let lapse and did not renew, some I sold (like b.cl)

Reply to
Eduardo Kaftanski

"Jan Andersson" wrote

Yer not huggin' me again ... last time nearly killed me.

:-)

Reply to
Scott H

What type of engine do you have? Air-cooled/water-cooled? Fuel-injected/carbureted? This sounds like classic high-altitude sickness. Do you know your altitude? To compensate for altitudes above 4000 feet, you need to advance the timing between 2*-6* and you need to lean out the fuel mixture. I believe your compression figures also lose about 10% at

5,000 feet. Be patient with your sluggish performance if you are at high altitude and be very sure to richen the mixture and retard the timing when you get below 3,000 feet. If you are at the seaside as you read this, well. . . . remember the above for a future day. Colin
Reply to
Colin

OI would adjust the valves, AFTER I had retorqued the heads. Could be they are loose now since the recon. Torque should always be checked after a "recon". Good Luck.

-- the Grokdoc Tom Malmevik all that groks is god

67 Baja "marti"
Reply to
Thomas Malmevik

Thanks for that. I've an air cooled carbureted engine. Unfortunately I'm at the seaside! Sounds like good advice for when I reach 5000m in Bolivia. Anybody know what the chances of my engine performing up there are?

I'm in a remote part of Chile so I probably won't have internet access for a few days.

John.

Reply to
John Reid

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