Gather 'round kiddies

Well, sure. I just now did the most embarrassingly boneheaded move a fellow can do, so I need to pull the engine and fix what I just did.

(What did I do? I wanted to see if maybe the lack of compression was due to valves being too tight. Used the eraser end of a pencil in the plug hole to assure that the piston was at the top before checking. Felt the end of said pencil snap off as the piston approached top. Left the last inch in the cylinder. With the brass ferrule.

Since I had the valve cover off anyway, I checked and, yup, the valves are very tight and most likely not closing. Might no even have a damaged valve or piston.)

But you see, I have to pull the engine and the head anyway: I have to remove the /evidence/.

Well, that's the danger, isn't it. Nicer to find out myself first.

All right guys, I need volunteers to hold him down while I ask him real nice to tell me . . . :-)

Oh -- I was missing a bit of information. A "puebla-assembled" engine is something like a professionally-assembled or factory engine. Not to be confused with a "locally assembled long-block," which may have been built in the shed behind the house. Which implies that a juicer is not likely to have been assembled in that shed.

Why oh why do I think all this sounds way too familiar? Ah, that's it! You are doing things *my* way!

"Always the hard way with you, young man.. always the hard way..."

:)

Jan

Didja hide the evidence?

usually yes :)

Jan

You are wise, Obi-Jan.

-- Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott

Thought he was the Emperor, Being the King and all. I bet he had foreseen your quest for head pull motivation. Now that you take the head off, inspect the pistons and valves also. Hell, why not the piston rings also.

--------------------------------------------------------

Puebla = "Detroit"

Go to Mexico City. Hang a left toward Vera Cruz. About an hour down the road you're in Puebla (the city) and Puebla (the State, as in the United States of Mexico [seriouisly. See their Constitution] )

Although Puebla has more than enough museums, universities and concert halls to make it a great city in its own right it is also an industrial center and site of one of the most modern automobile factories in the world -- the new VW plant. ('New' because VW has been building cars in Mexico for more than 50 years.) The 'new' plant is actually about ten years old now but its highly automated engine assembly facility is truly state of the art.

The Puebla plant is where VW crate engines come from.... just as the Toluca plant is where GM crate engines come from :-) (If you're talking industrial engines.)

-Bob Hoover

Me too. Which reminds me. Jan, how did you like that batch of homemade ground sausage I sent you? :-D

What can I say, except:

(In Johnny Carson voice), "I did not know that."

Urp. 'scuse me . . . I feel queasy again.

Define "inspect." Am I looking for great big obvious melted charred cracked bent shattered warped stuff that even an untrained chimp (me) could see? Or inspection light marble table dial indicator stuff?

If you have 0 compression, I think the reason will be clearly visible. A hole in the piston, major crack in the head, open floating valve=20 or burned valve (valve with major V-shape "crack" in edge).

I've always viewed valve adjustments as opportunities to see valve trouble coming before it gets here.

Max

We'll put our crack team of untrained chimps right on it.

Heh. After breaking that pencil off in the spark plug hole today I've had to, regretfully, give up forever the idea that someday I might be the kind of competent mechanic who a person could bring his trusty old Volkswagen to.

I am more the type who you won't let near the car without first slinging a net under it to catch the parts that break and fall off.

Don't kid yourself. _Anyone_ who has been brave enough to venture beyond his competence as informed as he can be, is a hero. You are one of them. Besides that, you are candid, honest. That's a rare quality. You evince the kind of mechanic we need. You can only get better while the arrogant are stuck. And you will get better. You have assimulated and practiced a huge amount of expertise. DONT' STOP, ROCKY! Yer my hero.

Dang. There's a movie in there somewhere.

Max

In My opinion, a pencil including brass ferrule, is considered "digestable." That meaning it lacks the structural integrity to do any serious damage where it's at, and if the engine actually fired, it would be digested instantly. A bolt is not digestable. The other end of the pencil would have caused less agony, but grab a-hold of one of those brass ferrules and rip it apart. What's it gonna do? It COULD do some serious damage, but the odds are way against it. Say it gets hammered and beaten until it's flat and then manages to lodge between the piston and the cylinder wall above the top ring - it could do some serious damage. Even if the pencil got partway through a valve opening on the first stroke, by about the twentieth stroke it's gonna be gone. Me? In the situation you're in, I'd try the air leak tests Bob outlined regardless of what you do after that. You SHOULD have the knowledge that they will provide before taking it to a shop. If the valves were simply too tight (I doubt it!) you'd be able to loosen them up (I doubt it!) and with a fully charged battery, chew that pencil up and start that engine running all at once. I suppose that I would pull it apart since that was what I felt I was gonna have to do anyway. If I had just been totally through a new engine and dropped a pencil or a pen in there, I'd start the sucker with it in there. That's me. I wouldn't be happy, but I'd be amazed if any damage resulted from it. Not advice - just sharing my thoughts! -BH

Mike Rocket J. Squirrel Elliott wrote in message news:ptednVMKNYAUpCzdRVn snipped-for-privacy@adelphia.com...

TV remote.