Flat Four Fun -- 36hp Style

My brother gave me a 36hp engine that has been in dry storage (a barn) for years. Way back... it was pulled from a dune buggy to be replaced with a more powerful unit; but we believe it ran decently at that time. The serial number indicates that it's a 1959 vintage. It still turns smoothly with seemingly good compression. The plugs were easily removed and look pretty clean. The tin and heat risers seem to be solid with surface rust. I'm still studying the whole mess; thinking about rebuilding and restoring it to it's original state. It would be a spare for my '56 oval bug. When it's complete and beautiful, I would like to put it on display in a glass case in my garage with a simple system to suck exhaust to the outside -- It would be set-up to run!! Every once in a while, like in the dead of winter, I'd start her up and let her fweem... just for entertainment kicks :-) Sort of a working VW museum piece; a 36hp flat four sculpture on display. Whaddaya think? Crazy?

Here's what it looks like now:

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Happy fweeeeming....

Rich

Reply to
Rich
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Reply to
gregg H

Cool. Cheap entertainment and a lotta fun. Do it :)

I have bits and pieces of engines that blew up that I plate and turn into office supplies for my desk. My pencil holder is a Mahle piston, rod and cylinder off a 912 that detonated. Also have a picture frame made with parts of a 356 4-hole pulley from a rear end collision on my desk - no weirder than that I don't think...

knt

Rich wrote: > I'd start her up and let her fweem... just for

Reply to
knt

whoa, no doubt. turn it into a compressor while you are at it ...

knt

gregg H wrote:

Reply to
knt

On Wed, 06 Aug 2003 13:15:50 -0500, knt scribbled this interesting note:

A rear end collision on your desk is pretty weird!:~)

-- John Willis

Reply to
John Willis

Hey, how about this idea... hook it to a 120v generator, and use it as an emergency power source for my home. Configure it so I can engage the generator when needed for serious business. This is a great idea... anyone ever do something like this?

Reply to
Rich

"Rich" wrote

I think it's a great idea. It'll be the perfect complement to your garage.

-- Scott

Reply to
Scott H.

You can easily buy a generator head from several different vendors, and they are not all that expensive. But it would take some work to get it to function. Most generators heads rely on getting a fixed and unchanging RPM out of the engine, so that they can produce AC at the right frequency. I think it would be a royal pain to try to hook some kind of engine speed regulator up to a VW motor.

Reply to
Patrick

I'd use it to heat up my room while enjoying the fweem and revving the hell out of it! Keeps the adrenalin pumpin ;-)

Reply to
BugThug

it is a good idea to restore an old engine and just keep it for historica sae and if you get it where it's100% precse then in about

15-20 years ppl will be showing up to see yours to make sure theirs accurate sometimes it is best to save a small piece than the whole car good luck and let us know how it turns out and the generator idea is a good one but remember you do have alot of work to do to get it right oh and heres an idea run the generator off a transaxle that way you can get the generator running at the right rpms without having to rev your engine too high
Reply to
badaztek

This reminds me. At Mt. Seymour Ski mountain in Vancouver, BC one of their chair lifts is run by a aircooled vw engine. A friend of mine used to work there and tried to get them to sell it to him. I suppose it was for the novelty. I think its a

1200, could be a 1500. Can't remember.

Reply to
BugBum

Plus, you might need reduction gears to have the engine and generator working at the correct rpms -- depends on the construction of the generator. Gens usually run at 1800rpm (two pair of poles) or 3600rpm (one pair of poles) for 60Hz. Try to find a generator that works on 3600 rpms so that you can couple it directly on the engine. Industrial VW motors had a speed regulator (I think they call it a governor), so if you look arround you might be able to locate one.

Bill, '67 bug.

Reply to
Bill Spiliotopoulos

Bill, Patrick;

Thanks for your thoughts. The generator idea is very interesting; but a bit hair-brained I admit. However, I believe VW engines have been used in this application before. But it's probably not worth it for me to engineer a system. I found a related discussion thread from 1999 when people where fearing Y2K meltdown: Shortened link to Google RAMVA:

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Rich

Reply to
Rich

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