Monday 23 February 2015

Oupa's Ticker (final)

I bought a gasket set to replace all the old gaskets on the engine. I took the engine to the VW Aircooled "guru", Werner Alker, to replace the gaskets and assemble the engine. As mentioned in an earlier post, a pressure washer was used to remove most of the dirt and grime. The problem is that we didn't properly block off all the places where the water could go into the engine before we started cleaning the engine. As a result we could see the years worth of rust on the sleeves. When we removed the push rods we saw that they were eaten away by the cam. This meant only one thing, the engine needs to be opened so that we can look at the cam. Just when I thought things couldn't get worse we noticed a crack on one of the sleeves. Luckily we had a replacement sleeve.










At first Werner thought I would need a new set of pistons and sleeves but after he started working on them he mentioned that it might not be necessary after all. He cleaned all the pistons and sleeves and then he honed the sleeves. Werner then opened the engine and as was feared, the lobes on the cam was worn off.





Except for the sludge in the engine caused by the water everything else looked fine. Werner said that this was the first time in his life where something that looked like a lost cause when he started on it, turned out to be a success.



I left the engine with Werner and he called me a day later to say that he has finished assembling the engine. I took all the tin pieces, generator, replacement exhaust etc. to him so that it can be fitted.




Fast forward a week later. Today 23 February 2015. Oupa's engine is finished and to crown it all off...Werner started it for me. I took a video of the event, the master has done it again. I am overjoyed ....


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