Monday, August 30, 2004
Ok, some catching up to do. When last I left you informed I was pulling parts off the engine.
Here's the engine with the cylinders still remaining:
The book says that those should slide off with a little tug. HA! I wish someone was there with a camera while I did this. But two of the cylinders came off with a lot of tugging and wiggling. The other two I first tried this: I sat on the floor, put both feet on the engineand pulled back on the cylinder with all my might. It didn't budge but man did I pull. Since I have brand new cylinders waiting to go in, I reached for the hammer. And I pounded, and pounded, and pounded unitl they came loose. I broke some stuff off of the cylinders, but like I said, I've got new ones.
Once those were off it looked like so:
Notice the pesky flywheel is still on there. That was supposed to come off earlier. My neighbor loaned me his breaker bar and a piece of pipe to get the giant (36mm) nut off that holds the flywheel. It's supposed to be torqued to 300 ft/lbs. That's a lot. And it takes a lot of leverage to get it off. I swung by AutoZone and picked up a 36mm socket. Right next to it was a 2ft breaker bar. Well, I rationalized that I should have it. I never hesitate to buy tools. They last a long time. With that, I had my friend Carl stand on the engine while I pushed with great effort on the breaker bar and sho-nuff the nut came loose and the flywheel off.
Now, splitting the case. The book makes this sound easy. It isn't. There's a lot of nuts that have to come off and then you have to strategically force the engine apart as prying is out of the question. Turns out the German's engineered the case halves to fit together so perfectly that no gasket is necessary to keep it from leaking. Prying would certainly destroy that seal. Again, I reached for the hammer and pounded on some less critical parts of the engine case to pop it apart. I made little headway. A couple of days later Steve came over and we tackled the case-splitting-situation. Let me point out a brief moment of idiocy as I had forgotten one nut. Duh. How annoying. More annoying that Steve found it. Once that was off, a little more pounding and wa-lah! The case is apart:
The case is split and now....clean!!!!!!!
Of course, the pic of the CLEAN engine case is coming. Steve and I each took a half and sprayed it with some Engine Foamy Brite (that's the name of the product) and scrubbed it with wire brushes. It's nearly like new, I shit you not. Wait 'til you see the pics.
More soon. (with a brief interruption by Labor Day weekend)
Here's the engine with the cylinders still remaining:
The book says that those should slide off with a little tug. HA! I wish someone was there with a camera while I did this. But two of the cylinders came off with a lot of tugging and wiggling. The other two I first tried this: I sat on the floor, put both feet on the engineand pulled back on the cylinder with all my might. It didn't budge but man did I pull. Since I have brand new cylinders waiting to go in, I reached for the hammer. And I pounded, and pounded, and pounded unitl they came loose. I broke some stuff off of the cylinders, but like I said, I've got new ones.
Once those were off it looked like so:
Notice the pesky flywheel is still on there. That was supposed to come off earlier. My neighbor loaned me his breaker bar and a piece of pipe to get the giant (36mm) nut off that holds the flywheel. It's supposed to be torqued to 300 ft/lbs. That's a lot. And it takes a lot of leverage to get it off. I swung by AutoZone and picked up a 36mm socket. Right next to it was a 2ft breaker bar. Well, I rationalized that I should have it. I never hesitate to buy tools. They last a long time. With that, I had my friend Carl stand on the engine while I pushed with great effort on the breaker bar and sho-nuff the nut came loose and the flywheel off.
Now, splitting the case. The book makes this sound easy. It isn't. There's a lot of nuts that have to come off and then you have to strategically force the engine apart as prying is out of the question. Turns out the German's engineered the case halves to fit together so perfectly that no gasket is necessary to keep it from leaking. Prying would certainly destroy that seal. Again, I reached for the hammer and pounded on some less critical parts of the engine case to pop it apart. I made little headway. A couple of days later Steve came over and we tackled the case-splitting-situation. Let me point out a brief moment of idiocy as I had forgotten one nut. Duh. How annoying. More annoying that Steve found it. Once that was off, a little more pounding and wa-lah! The case is apart:
The case is split and now....clean!!!!!!!
Of course, the pic of the CLEAN engine case is coming. Steve and I each took a half and sprayed it with some Engine Foamy Brite (that's the name of the product) and scrubbed it with wire brushes. It's nearly like new, I shit you not. Wait 'til you see the pics.
More soon. (with a brief interruption by Labor Day weekend)
Sunday, August 15, 2004
Now I've begun pulling the pieces off of the engine. The book I have is very clear and methodical and so far it's been awesome. I've got cups labeled with every part and screws and nuts and bolts and things go in each cup. I've got piles of engine parts in front of the car and I'm ready to go.
Then the landlord calls.
See, the owner of the building happened upon my makeshift auto workshop. He wasn't too happy. Apparently, and I checked, it says in the lease that one cannot work on one's car in the parking area of the building. Yeah it says that. And that sucks. But what can I do? I must continue on in the face of adversity. While continuing on, one of the nice neighbors we have stopped by to chat while I was dismantling. I told him my plight and he offered up a storage space next to his parking spot. Well, how about that? Now I can put all of the parts in there and worry just about the engine. Well, the carport looks much better now...here's what it used to look like:
But now all of that stuff is put away. Let me list off what I removed from the engine thus far: Clutch plate cover, clutch plate, distributor, carbeurator w/ manifold, fuel pump, exhaust system (muffler and heater boxes), sheet metal, generator & fan housing (previously mentioned in removal process), and the oil cooler (also previously mentioned).
It looks like this now:
Nice huh? Oh, lest I forget, while removing the clutch plate cover I had to loosen some mighty tight bolts. When loosening mighty tight bolts a wrench can sometimes slip off at high velocity. Well, mine did so and I dragged my knuckles all along the clutch plate cover. Ooooo did I rip a big chunk of skin from my middle finger's middle knuckle. Funny thing, there was no pain. None. It bled like a mofo tho. After cleaning it out and trying a band-aid I knew I needed something more. I wrapped the finger in paper towel and masking tape and kept on workin'. Can't be slowin' down cuz of a little scrape. Here's a blurry pic of the little scrape:
The dismantling continues soon!
Then the landlord calls.
See, the owner of the building happened upon my makeshift auto workshop. He wasn't too happy. Apparently, and I checked, it says in the lease that one cannot work on one's car in the parking area of the building. Yeah it says that. And that sucks. But what can I do? I must continue on in the face of adversity. While continuing on, one of the nice neighbors we have stopped by to chat while I was dismantling. I told him my plight and he offered up a storage space next to his parking spot. Well, how about that? Now I can put all of the parts in there and worry just about the engine. Well, the carport looks much better now...here's what it used to look like:
But now all of that stuff is put away. Let me list off what I removed from the engine thus far: Clutch plate cover, clutch plate, distributor, carbeurator w/ manifold, fuel pump, exhaust system (muffler and heater boxes), sheet metal, generator & fan housing (previously mentioned in removal process), and the oil cooler (also previously mentioned).
It looks like this now:
Nice huh? Oh, lest I forget, while removing the clutch plate cover I had to loosen some mighty tight bolts. When loosening mighty tight bolts a wrench can sometimes slip off at high velocity. Well, mine did so and I dragged my knuckles all along the clutch plate cover. Ooooo did I rip a big chunk of skin from my middle finger's middle knuckle. Funny thing, there was no pain. None. It bled like a mofo tho. After cleaning it out and trying a band-aid I knew I needed something more. I wrapped the finger in paper towel and masking tape and kept on workin'. Can't be slowin' down cuz of a little scrape. Here's a blurry pic of the little scrape:
The dismantling continues soon!
Friday, August 13, 2004
It has begun.
The rebuild kit awaits a removed, cleaned, and disassembled engine.
And on the day of the 12th, the Bug's engine was carefully extracted.
It goes like this:
Steve came over to help remove the engine. We inspected, jacked up the car, then inspected some more. We carefully read the instructions in the book and then began pulling cables and labeling them.
Each wire and hose that was disconnected got a piece of masking tape marked with its respective connection.
Oh yeah, we disconnected the battery too as to eliminate the possibility of the electrical shock.
Next we drained the engine of the remaining oil (far more than I thought would be in there), placed the jack under the engine and began searching for the engine mount bolts.
This is where things got sticky. See, we undid what we thought were the two bottom bolts, then went after the top. Now the top, right bolt was easy enough but then we encountered this strange headed bolt on the top, left. Well, after a lot of deliberation, removal of the alternator/fan/fan housing/oil cooler we found that the strange-headed bolt was no bolt at all, but a round piece of metal welded onto the engine mount that provided for a longer bolt. The bolt itself? Missing. So, three bolts were holding the engine on. We then also came to the realization that the two bottom bolts we removed were not the engine mount bolts but something else (very minor) all together. After finding the lower bolts the engine was finessed from the chassis.
Check back soon for the beginning of the dismantling process!
The rebuild kit awaits a removed, cleaned, and disassembled engine.
And on the day of the 12th, the Bug's engine was carefully extracted.
It goes like this:
Steve came over to help remove the engine. We inspected, jacked up the car, then inspected some more. We carefully read the instructions in the book and then began pulling cables and labeling them.
Each wire and hose that was disconnected got a piece of masking tape marked with its respective connection.
Oh yeah, we disconnected the battery too as to eliminate the possibility of the electrical shock.
Next we drained the engine of the remaining oil (far more than I thought would be in there), placed the jack under the engine and began searching for the engine mount bolts.
This is where things got sticky. See, we undid what we thought were the two bottom bolts, then went after the top. Now the top, right bolt was easy enough but then we encountered this strange headed bolt on the top, left. Well, after a lot of deliberation, removal of the alternator/fan/fan housing/oil cooler we found that the strange-headed bolt was no bolt at all, but a round piece of metal welded onto the engine mount that provided for a longer bolt. The bolt itself? Missing. So, three bolts were holding the engine on. We then also came to the realization that the two bottom bolts we removed were not the engine mount bolts but something else (very minor) all together. After finding the lower bolts the engine was finessed from the chassis.
Check back soon for the beginning of the dismantling process!
