A quick intro and a couple ???

[Kenney]

Hey all. Sort of a proud owner of a '73 standard beetle. Of course, previous owner's lack of care and maintenance has fallen into my lap.

I can't complain too much, because the car was free. There's some dings and dents here and there, nothing major. I believe 6 layers of paint in some areas. Interior was ravaged by a dog or a grenade. One of the 2. I got the car as the 4th owner in June last year, and now have an odometer reading of something like 98k. Maybe there should be a 3 or 4 in front of that.

Anyways, having picked up the required reading for the car the day I acquired ownership (bentley, idiots book, how to rebuild engine, etc) I've managed to keep this thing on the road every day over the past (almost) year. Being a rotary guy before, alot of this stuff is new to me. So, please, bear with me in case I ask some dumb questions.

First off, the engine (1600DP, 34P3, 009 with compufire) has been running more and more like a jerk over the past couple of months. No idea of actual mileage, but I ran through all the testing procedures except 1. That would be a leak down. I don't have a compressor. I have lower-ish compression on 1 of the cylinders with oil on the plug. Not alot, but enough to cause a concern. My gas mileage is awful. I'm averaging about 12 mpg and the engine's been running a little hotter than normal on short runs.

Would it be safe to just throw some new P&Cs on it and keep on driving? I'm currently out of work, so money's tight and I really can't afford to do anything major on it 'til I get to working and then I can dump a few bucks into it. New P&Cs and an oil change are about all I can afford at this point. This is my daily driver and only car, and I'd hate to do any major damage to it. So, please, give it to me straight. I've been told that re-ringing the pistons is a bad idea, so I plan on avoiding that.

Great site and great community you guys have here. Thanks in advance for any help yor advice you can give me. I'll leave a few pics here for the hell of it.

Kenney

[admin]

Welcome Kenny!

Glad to see some new members posting.  Looking at your license plate, looks like you're a fellow Nevadan.  If you're in the Vegas area, I'm sure we'll cross paths sometime in the near future.

If your rings are shot and you're burning oil, you could try to hone the cylinders and re-ring the pistons in order to save money and increase your compression.  If that's too much effort or the cylinders are too worn with large scores in the walls, you're better off with new P&C's.  If you're still burning oil, then your valve guides in your cylinder heads are the next thing to check out.

Let us know how you make out!

Scott Faivre

[Kenney]

Thanks Scott.

Yup, born and raised on the east side (sunrise mountain-ish).  I hope we cross paths some time. I only know 3 other V-dubbers in town. Always good to make new friends with similar interests. 

I'm pretty sure it's the rings. I noticed that I only really blow smoke when shifting (at lift off especially). Beyond that, it's not burning much oil. There's a little bit of gas in the crankcase now, too. After much reading, I thought maybe the valve guides at first. I'm going to pull the engine apart this next weekend and take pictures. Hopefully, It's nothing serious so I can keep this guy on the road.

I plan to buy the P&Cs and hope this corrects the problem. I'm somewhat familiar with how piston engine valve trains work after my auto shop classes in college and a bit of experience helping friend's with their engines. I'd hate to have to get further into the heads, cause it'd put me behind. If all else fails, maybe I can track down some cheap-o heads to last a few months until I can get a REAL engine put together.

Thanks again, and i'll take pictures along the way so people (maybe newer folks like me, not to insult the knowledgeable vw guys) can see the symptoms and get an idea of what I did to remedy the situation.

PS. - I'm missing the driver's side running board and have a few dents in the front left fender. Some drunk dude on a mountain bike found an easy way to do that by hitting my car at about 20 mph at gowan and simmons. The running board was rusted through and just disintegrated on impact, so it wasn't salvageable.

[Kenney]

It seems I'm at a stand still now.

I changed my plugs back to NGKs (bosch plugs worked, but I noticed a few things and don't care to run them), changed the oil, new fuel pump (old one was worn and there was a little bit of gas in the case), and checked the compression again. After all that, the numbers went up.

I'm not sure where to go from here. I was going to pull the engine and split the case, but most of my money was spent on the tune-up stuff and now i've got nothing to work with.

Oddly, the car runs fantastic, and I seem to have gotten a bit of gas mileage back. From this weekend, I managed to get 22 mpg. It still seems to be running hotter than hell, but it's not pinging. Oil light never comes on and I know it works. I really don't know what to do.

Anybody have any more ideas?

Thanks a bunch. Kenney

[Kenney]

Hey all.

Update time.

After the car sat for a week or so, I decided I needed to get it back out on the road. So, I put $10 in it (brought me up to 1/2 a tank  ) and hit the dusty trails.



About 60 miles, and I only burned up about 2 1/2 gallons. Unfortunately, the engine, during the entire drive, was amazingly hot, I made 6 15-20 min stops in the shade to let her cool down, and I could stretch out in the grass for a bit. I'm just amazed at how hot that thing is, and it never really loses power. It stumbled after coming to a stop light twice, but that's about it.

I'm, hopefully, going to start a new job here shortly, and it's almost within walking distance, so it'll be a while before I have a few bucks to toss around. At this point, i'm under the assumption that my cooling system sucks. It's got a used NOS (great condition) fan, but beyond that, i'm not too sure that it's internal. Maybe my oil cooler's shot. Having gas in the case for a couple weeks, i'd think, woulda cleaned out all the oil passages and cooler.

Any ideas guys? I really wanna keep this thing running, at least another month or 2. Just had to happen when the weather rolls around.

[admin]

I can't view your pictures from work due to the filters that the school uses.  Are you running all of the engine tins and is your engine compartment seal in good shape?  If not, you're sucking all the hot air from below the engine back up and into the engine.

What is your engine timed at?

Scott Faivre

[Kenney]

All the tin's in place. There's a teeny, tiny dry spot in the engine compartment gasket that has a few pin-holes in it, but nothing that would cause air to be drawn in from under the engine.

I have a new gasket, but don't really have a way to replace it ATM. I double checked the timing when I did my last tune-up. Originally, I was running it at 30* max advance, but since the last issue, I brought it down to about 26* hoping a little bit would make a bit of difference. Engine is still running terrific, though. Also, i'm running premium unleaded, and I've yet to here any type of pinging.

It doesn't do too bad on 5 min runs, so I think it might survive my trips to and from work, until I have a paycheck and some spare time to pull this thing, rebuild it, and beat the hell out of it.

Thanks for the help Scott. I'm sure it's beyond the outside of the engine. It's got unknown mileage and is pretty cruddy, so i'll just rebuild it soon.

[Kenney]

After wrenching away at the car ALL day, and just wrapping up a few minutes ago, I managed to get the engine down to an "almost" longblock. It took a bit of work, and wasn't that tough. Everybody told me it wasn't possible to remove the shroud and fan with the engine in the car (not from here) but I did it taking my time and taking a few breaks from almost ripping the shroud out with brute force. 

Here's a concern I have after going through all of this. When I initially started this morning, I noticed a gap in the shroud. The gap was over the 1 & 2 side. The gap was between the bottom of the shroud, and the top of the upper cylinder tin. There were no screws in either side of the shroud to hold it to the cylinder tins. So, in my little adventure today, after getting everything down to, basically, the longblock, I noticed I could sorta rock the shroud back and forth. Well, rather side to side. If one side was seated all the way down in the cylinder tin, the other side had a 3/8" gap where I mentioned earlier.

With the engine down to nothing, I went ahead and put a jack under the engine, pulled it back and lowered it down. The shroud will sit all the way down on the block, but it'll still rock side to side. I managed to get the shroud to one spot where I could get a screw in each side, and be able to screw it in to hold it to the cyl tins. However, on both sides, it's just barely inside each edge of the cyl tins.

Does this make any sense? I'm not sure about the rest of the tins, but the fan and shroud are OEM. I guess I'm gonna finish re-assembly tomorrow morning and take it on another test run around town and see if it still acts stupid. If it does, i'll bring it back here, pull the engine, haul it a friend's house, and just tear the damn thing apart. BTW, I don't have the thermostat or flaps. Didn't have them when I got it.

Thanks for any help guys.

[admin]

Sounds like you've been a busy bee today!  I was busy too, but I was only doing yard work.

I was thinking a little bit more about your engine.  If the engine tins are loose, and aren't sealed up tight, you're probably leaking some air, but if there's big gaps, that could add to the problem. 

Is your shroud a 40HP or a dog house shroud.  The 40hp's always run hotter with the cooler inside the shroud.  Without seeing the motor it's hard to say what else could be adding to your problem.

Is it head temps or oil temps that are getting really hot?

Scott Faivre

[Kenney]

Hey Scott,

I have the doghouse shroud. The tins all seem to fit pretty snugly with barely enough space to shove a nickel between them. All except the where the doghouse sits inside of the upper cylinder tins.

While the engine was stripped down in the car, it was kinda of mystifying to see the shroud rock side to side. Still is. I finished re-assembly yesterday morning and pretty much put the entire engine back to the way it was when I got it.

I did this, because I had a feeling that maybe there was something I had changed somewhere down the line. I received the car in early June last year, and didn't start making any general changes to the engine until sometime around December. Things like exhaust etc, etc. Since I didn't have these things during last summer, maybe if I didn't have them now it'd revert back to running "normally."

Fortunately, I made a 12 mile test run which includes hills (up and down), a bit of traffic, and a couple of lights. There's a nice stretch of road where you can just cruise, too. It wanted to die at 2 of those lights. Just need to throw the 127.5 jet back in the carb and re-adjust my mixture again. I noticed a bit of white smoke out of the left pea shooter, but only upon laying into the throttle or higher rpm throttle lift-off. However, with all that, it made the trip fine with no noticeable power loss.

When I got the car back home, it was pretty warm, but didn't seem quite as hot as it was. The only real way I have to judge how hot it is, is purely by the smell of the engine. Ya, know, hot metal has that unmistakable smell. I'm really not sure if it's the oil or the head temps that are causing this. I wish I had bought some gauges when I had the chance. Also, before the drive, I double checked the valves, timing and plugs.

I guess i'm gonna leave it parked until I can afford to rebuild it or something.

[admin]

I'd double check for an intake leak.  Check the base of the carb and the intake boots and the intake manifold gaskets.  If any of them are leaking, you will have the symptom of not wanting to idle. 

As for the "smell method" of guaging temperature, we've all done it, but it's really inaccurate.  I had a stock 1600 running GREAT, but you'd never know that from the slightest drip I had coming from the valve cover and burning off on the J tube.  You engine might not be as hot as what you think.

Do you have a oily greasey build up of dirt on the underside of the engine?

Scott Faivre

[Kenney]

Well, I screwed around with it a bit this morning. Pulled the carb, put my other jet back in. Runs like a charm. It was still relatively cool when I drove it around the block, but it certainly warmed up quickly.

I cleaned most of that crap off of the bottom of the engine a long time ago. Usually, from what i've noticed, after changing the oil, once I crank down the strainer plate bolts, after i run the engine for a few minutes, I have to re-tighten the bolts on the plate cause a little oil will start to show.

I suppose you're right, Scott. Maybe this thing isn't as hot as I think it is. The only thing I have to go by is this : Last year in the middle of July, after long drives across town or even a couple of sprints on the 215, I could still touch just about anything on the engine. Not now, though.

Since i'm aiming for a new engine as soon as the funds become available, i'll just drive and maintain this thing as normal, and if it fails, it fails.

Thanks for all the help and input Scott. Much appreciated.

[admin]

My engine is a 1776 with dual carbs.  Last year in the hottest part of the day in the middle of July I buzzed down the 515 from the 15 and Craig Rd in North Las Vegas to Sunset in Henderson.  When I came to a stop at the end of the exit ramp the car would not idle.  It was really friggin' hot!  I waited a few moments until it cooled down and then I started it up again.  After that, I knew it had to be my jetting because the engine's valve adjustment and timing were perfect.  My mixture in my carbs was adjusted to the method I wrote about in the Kadron Article.

I contacted someone about getting new jets and they fattened me up a bit.  Since then, I don't have any further problems with overheating.  It runs like a champ now, but I can definitely feel/smell a hotter engine bay when I get stuck in Craig Rd traffic at 4PM in 99 degree heat.  I idle for 20 minutes.  It sucks!

Scott Faivre

[Kenney]

My little 34P3 carb seems to do alright for the engine being stock. I spent a fair amount of time with a smog machine and the 127.5 main seemed to be fine with the stock exhaust. I say "fine." Basically, it'd pass smog, got great mileage (about 28mpg), and the car made enough power to get me around and piss off a couple import guys. When I bought the new exhaust, it seemed a little sluggish, and, again, going by the smog machine, it needed to step up one on the main. A little too fat for the stock exhaust (which is back on there now) and caused the engine to run pretty fat.

I'd love to step up a notch or 2 in the carb department, but I don't know if it'll work out. I got a set of nearly new (never ever used on anything) 36 Dells, but they may be way too much for this tired little engine. Not sure what to do with them at this point.

I know what you mean about craig. trying to cross 15 at 4-5pm is ridiculous. I love getting stuck on hills in the middle lane. 

I did some cross city driving today and had no issues with the car. Every time I had to stop for a light, the heat would just come rolling over the car like tidal wave. Seemed to do okay at about 23mpg, but i'm not thrilled. Thought about pulling the turbo moped out of storage for a few months driving until the monetary situation gets rolling. That thing turns heads at least as much as a VW.