Haven’t done much work on my poor Squareback for the past few weeks. Besides my boss newly demanding more and more weekends out of me, one of my relatives is ill, so we’ve gone to Rhode Island a couple times to visit. Last weekend was HOT and HUMID and given that I prefer the cold, it’s been way too hot for me to start putting Wilson (yep, that’s the name my wife and I arrived at for my Squareback) back together. So basically I’ve just been hoarding parts for the past few weeks and I think I finally have everything I need to get Wilson back on the road, with the exception of any suspension work should he need it. I’ll have to look back and see if I explained about the “popping” sound I heard when jacking up the car to get the engine out. Luckily, someone on the Type 3 list e-mailed me and said he had a torsion bar if I needed one. Whew. I wonder if people replace torsion bars as their cars begin to sag? Looks like they’re available in stock sizes aftermarket.
July 20, 2003
And there you have it. I finally know the cause of my bad compression on number three cylinder. Check out the broken compression ring. When I pulled the cylinder off the engine, the ring fell to the ground, and just like that came the answer to my questions. Also, wedged down between the cooling fins and the engine block was a spark plug someone had lost along the way. Yet another obstruction to airflow. I’m told that this actually happens quite often. I recall I did lose a spark plug socket rubber boot in there, but I think I’d have to think twice about running around town knowing I had a whole plug lost in there.
Over the past couple weeks I painted the engine tin, washed the new cylinders & pistons, and painted the new cylinders with hi-temp POR-15 Black Velvet. I also took that stuff to the muffler and heat exchangers. While I was painting what I imagine is the heat shrouding on the muffler, the smooth black paint made it easier to see the stamping on the shroud. Turns out this is the original exhaust. It was stamped 1971, with a bunch of other words including “Variant.” Also, made in West Germany. I have no idea how this lasted so long. The thing sure looked rusty, but it certainly is not rusted through. Looks like it’s just surface rust. I wonder if this is one of the galvanized muffler’s I’ve heard about?
Finally got the pistons off the connecting rods today. Yesterday I stopped at the Home Depot and bought one of those seven-piece propane torch kits. Supposed to come with a flame dispersal tool, a spark-maker (what are those things called? It’s 1am and I’m tired…) and a bunch of other stuff. So I open the box today and it’s got the propane tank and the brass valve and that’s it. So I sat there debating whether or not I trek fifteen minutes over to the Home Depot by my work or just try to find some matches and light the thing and get on with it. My in-laws weren’t home at this point, and there were car parts and engine tin all over the driveway. I would’ve had to have packed up everything and spent the next hour taking care of what amounted to ten bucks. I scrounged around the garage and finally found a grill lighter, lit the torch and heated up the first piston. This was a suggestion from the Type 3 list as well. Earlier in the week I had stopped by the house to see if I could just get the pistons off. One came off, the rest didn’t want to, even with lots of “convincing.” It wasn’t smooth as silk even with the heat, but I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to get them off without it. Next step is to actually start reassembly! I have to clean up the areas on the case that seal to the cylinders and pushrod tubes. I’d do the whole case, but I don’t want to get any dirt inside the engine. As it is, I figure it will be a good idea to change the oil almost as soon as I get this going. Maybe let it run for a half hour, then change it. Wow. Run… Let it run… I’m getting ahead of myself. I still don’t know what this car sounds like!
Did some work on my “new” website tonight. It’s pretty much just a redesign. I moved my firewall and web server over to a new OpenBSD machine, so I figured I might as well clean some stuff up. I have to say OpenBSD has the best built-in documentation of any open-source OS I’ve used so far.
July 2, 2003
Didn’t get much done in the last week or so. Took the engine tin to the local “spray ‘n’ wash” and loaded it down with degreaser, then sprayed the hell out of it. Took off most of the gunk, and whatever was left on was easy to scrape off with a wire brush. Took the heater boxes and put them out on the deck to let the sun bake the moisture out of them. Luckily it’s been sunny and in the 80s and 90s recently. After the cleaning, I used the rust remover attachment on my drill and got most of the surface rust off the tin. Guess I’ll POR it and then when I do the engine right in a year or two I’ll have it all sandblasted properly. Hopefully the POR will prevent any further rust in the meanwhile. It all seems like surface rust anyway, probably not much to worry about.
I had a bit of a surprise from the Type 3 list recently. Turns out quite a few people on the list have used the braided fuel line which I used. It cracks *very* quickly evidently. My immediate thought was to just go through and replace it all once again with Goodyear FI hose, but I think I’m going to wait until I replace the bottom end of my engine in another year or two. This fuel line should be good for a year or more and I’ll just keep an eye on it. I really have to stop being distracted by trying to make everything perfect. I know replacing all this fuel line now would mean I hopefully wouldn’t have to do it again for years, but I need to concentrate on getting the car working for now. I’ve had the car for four months now and I still don’t even know what the engine sounds like! I have no idea at the moment what troubles I’m going to have to investigate regarding the rest of the car, particularly the electrical system and the suspension, so the sooner I get all this stuff done and the motor back in, the better.
I ordered one of the fuel filler neck seals from ISP West and it came in very quickly. Very nice piece too! I also got the last length of fuel line from Tom Miller, as well as some replacement vacuum hoses and fuel injector seals. I think they’re the wrong size though, so I’m glad I also ordered seals from Jim on the Type 3 list. Those should arrive soon along with my oil cooler padding. As soon as I get that I can start putting things back together. Just need to wash the new pistons & cylinders and then put some flat-black engine paint on the cylinder fins to help with cooling.
Stopped by the NH VW Show in Hopkinton last Sunday with my parents & the wife & stepson. That was very very cool. Only one Type 3 represented inside the show, but there was a Type 34 in primer as well. I had never seen a Type 34 in person before, so it was pretty cool seeing one close-up. Lots of very nice Type 2’s as well (as always). Picked up some needed stuff at the swap meet as well — ring compressor (cheap) and one of those sluggers that helps you take off your axle nuts. Also picked up a Type 3 key blank for $9, which is quite a bit cheaper than they usually go for on E-bay.
June 23, 2003
Yesterday was raining again, so I decided to do some small stuff in the garage overhang. Started taking apart the fuel injector assemblies to clean and replace them. It’s a good thing I bought a set of those plastic fuel injector blocks a while back on Ebay. Turns out I needed them, as one of my blocks was split. After cleaning and reassembling the injector assembly for cylinders 1 & 2, I grabbed the intake manifold for 3 & 4 and quickly realized that someone had removed the original braided fuel line that comes attached to the injectors and had replaced it with rubber fuel line and clamped it down. I’m not sure this is safe, so I’m thinking of replacing these injectors with the two NOS Bosch injectors I also got off Ebay a while back. I’ll wait to hear from the folks on the Type 3 mailing list before deciding what to do. Meanwhile, I loaded up all the engine tin and my heater boxes into the back of the Jetta and will go hose them down at the local spray-n-wash the next chance I get. The back of my Jetta is starting to look like an aircooled parts lot. Generators, engine tin, heads, engine block, rubber parts… Have to clean that out soon and figure out where to keep it all.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about this bottom-end rebuild and I’ve actually decided not to do it right now. After talking with my wife about it I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve been losing a bit of focus. My original goal was to get this car on the road and running, not to restore it completely — at least not yet. I think recently I’ve thought that when I put things back together that they have to be perfect and it’s been slowing me down. When I bought the car I originally had no intentions of doing a complete restoration. The goal was to get it running so I could drive it. Replacing the heads was a necessity, and I also think replacing the pistons and cylinders are as well. After that, I see no reason why I can’t get another 5000 miles out of the bottom end and hopefully by that point I’ll have some space to work on the car and it will give me time to save up and assemble a nice stock engine, but all in good time. Now that all the fuel lines are replaced and the engine has been dropped, I think I’m just going to clean all the engine stuff and POR all the high-temp stuff like cooling tin, exhaust, etc after I brush all the rust off, replace everything, then see if I can get the thing running. After that all I’d need is to do a complete brake job and hopefully it will be a decent three-season driver for me for a little while. I have promised it that I will do a complete engine job on it eventually though.
ISP West finally is offering preorders on fuel filler seals, which is something I found out yesterday that I absolutely need. I had preordered one already, but I finally got around to actually looking at mine. What a mess. Cracked, broken… All the rubber in that area is competely shot. Hopefully they’ll ship before I get to fill the tank with fuel again.
June 21, 2003
I finally got the remaining exhaust bolts off the heads last night and removed the heater boxes as well as the heat exchangers. Still amazed by the Kroil Penetrating Oil I got off Aircooled.net I did not have trouble with one damned bolt. OK, so some of you have used penetrating oil in the past, but I haven’t, so I’m still amazed. I have to take a picture of some of these little acorn-type balls that I found all over the car. They were even in the heat exhangers. On the left side HE’s, they were burnt to charcoal. Got a better look at the cylinders as well and I have decided they definitely will be replaced. There’s just too much rust and gunk in there for them to be reliable again. Plus, I already have a new set of 85.5’s, so I’ll just use those. I’m still getting prices on a shortblock as I don’t really have the talent, nor the space to learn right now, to build my own shortblock.
The 3&4 head came off last night, and what a mess. There must have been some kind of leak between the cylinder head and the cylinder itself as it looked like an oily mess all over the head. I imagine this lack of a seal was causing some of my compression problems on cyl3, but I’m not sure that the rings didn’t have anything to do with it either. I guess I’ll start getting the new cylinders ready — coat them with a light coat of POR engine paint. It worked really nice on the exhaust. Dried to a nice thin flat black. I also am trying to decide whether or not I should just take all the tin somewhere for media blasting or if I should just use my rust removal attachment on a drill. I guess I’ll start with that and see how it goes. The exhaust itself looks to be in good shape except for the surface rust, so I’ll re-use that. I’ll have to do a total cleaning job on the heater boxes though. It appears that an oil leak just covered them with oil, which then got covered with dirt and grime, more oil, more grime, etc. The right one weighted half as much as the left one. Guess I’ll take it down to the local self-service car wash and see if I can degrease it, then take it apart.