Cylinder Heads and Tyres

After another (very long) gap I have spent a few evenings working on the Beetle. In my last post I was cleaning the valves and considering getting the cylinder heads blasted to remove the carbon build up. In the end I used paint stripper to soften the carbon and then scraped it out. I had to repeat this process many times to remove the bulk of the carbon build up from the inlet ports. The following image shows the result. It's not perfect but it is definitely servicable.

I spent some time measuring the valves for wear - they seemed fine. The same cannot be said for the valve guides. The exhaust guides are well past their best and will need to be replaced. I'll do this by drilling the guide with an 8.5mm drill bit before tapping an M10 thread into them. Then I should be able to use a home grown puller to remove them - though that will be another post.

This evening I made I tyre bead breaker from three pieces of wood. This home spun tool worked fine on a wheel/tyre that had been joined since at least 1986. A couple of tyre levers ensured they finally parted company; see the following photographs.

The centre of the wheel above is supposed to be black, but the rim should be L680 Cumulus White (Kumulusweiss). There are also a few dings that need to be removed. That can wait for a future posting. However I cleaned the wheel and there was a lot more paint left than I thought.

Valve Cleaning

Firstly I should point out that I don't need my valves to be shiny, I just need them to be functional. Therefore I decided to give them a quick clean using a non-metallic scouring pad. To speed up the process I put the valve in my drill (I used a cardboard cuff to protect the valve stem from the chuck). The results aren't perfect by the valves look a lot better.

Restoration restart

It's been many years since my last post. I'm ashamed to say that I have made no progress in that time due to a combination of parenting duties and lethargy - mainly the latter. However last weekend my daughter headed off to University and so I thought I should give myself a kick.

When I last wrote I had split the crank case and was about to start cleaning. After lifting out the crank shaft and the distributor drive I noticed that the bottom of the fuel pump pedestal was still in the case. This is made of a hard plastic and it had split in two when the fuel pump was being removed. Removing this chunk of plastic turned out to be simple, but only after I'd watched this video.

I then set about stripping down the cylinder heads. I removed all the valve strings and then the valves. However the inlet valve for cylinder 1 did not slide out like the others. I had to use some 600 wet dry paper on the top of the valve before it would come out (to be safe I'll replace the valve and it must have been damaged in some way).

Tonight I started cleaning the cylinder head for cylinders 3 and 4. After a quick wash round with white spirit the top looked presentable and I could see no damage.

I then flipped the head over and started on the combustion chambers. Here's what they looked like before cleaning.

The combustion chambers themselves aren't bad however the inlet ports are full of carbon. Here's a close up of cylinder 4. Notice that there is barely any opening. I can only assume this engine was run with badly set valves for a long time. This is may be why the car was laid up in the first place.

I cleaned using WD40 and a non-metallic scouring pad (for cleaning pots and pans). This was the result. Notice that I've chipped some of the carbon away but there is still a lot to remove. I'm pondering whether to take both heads to be soda blasted.

I'll give the same treatment to the other cylinder head and then clean the valves.

Crankcase Split

A couple of posts ago I'd removed the oil pump from the crankcase. This was the last step before splitting the crankcase. I removed all the fasteners - there were many...

The bottom of this picture is the back of the engine (pulley) and the top is the front (flywheel). The small fasteners around the edge make the case oil tight and the six bolts in the middle ensure the crankshaft is secure.

I had the engine attached to my stand with three bolts - two in the left hand side and one in the right hand side. Before splitting the case the right hand side bolt was removed. I was pleased that the whole engine didn't fall on the ground at this point.

Next I worked round the case lightly hammering on a piece of wood to try and get the right hand case moving. Initially the only gap that appeared was at the old cooler. There was no sign of movement at the flywheel end at all. I noticed went round the seam removing any signs of sealant and sprayed liberally with WD40. I repeated the this hammering and spraying cycle a couple of times a few days apart - by which time the flywheel seam had opened about 0.5mm. Today I did the same again and the WD40 had clearly done its job as the right hand case came off almost immediately. The following photographs show each half.

The crankshaft and camshaft should simply lift out of the left hand case. Then I need to remove the oil pressure relief value and start the cleaning process. The plan is to start on the right hand side by scraping out the bulk of the joilly before bathing the case in solvent (probably white spirit as it's reasonably cheap). I'll then repeat as often as necessary and blow compressed air through the oil channels. Then repeat on the other side. In my future I see many trips to the dump with cans full of an unpleasant smelling black liquid.

Carburettor Rebuild

The carburettor rebuild was pretty straight forward. I didn't remove either throttle as they both moved easily. However I did spend a lot of time withe carburettor cleaner removing all the black deposits that had built up over the years - as shown on the following images.

The final photograph shows all the rust and sediment that had collected in the float chamber. This was actually quite difficult to shift, I had to resort to scraping it off with a screwdriver. Another area that was particularly cruddy was the chamber the accelerator diaphragm covers. It looked like some sort of reaction had taken place but after a bit of scraping it turned out to be much worse than it looked. Importantly the sealing surface was smooth and so I don't think it will leak fuel (though only time will tell). 

After thoroughly cleaning everything I checked that all the channels and tubes were clear using compressed air. Then I put everything back together with new diaphragms, gaskets etc. The following shots show the final result - not gleaming but quite acceptable.

Carburettor Cleaning and More Joilly

Due to my summer holiday and the Glasgow Fair I have not got round to taking the axle shaft in for machining. Instead I have busied myself with some of the loose ends (of which there are many). The Solex 30 PICT-2 carburettor has been sitting in a sealed black back since it was removed from the engine. Last night I decided to clean the gunk that had accumulated on it over the past 45 years. The shots below show before and after the first pass of cleaning (using a toothbrush and some solvent).

Before 

After first clean

I was surprised at how easily the bulk of the grim came off. There are, of course, many pockets of dirt remaining but I'll probably deal with those during the strip-down.

Tonight I decided to return to dismantling the engine. It has been sitting under a blue sheet for many months and I was pleased to see it was still under there when I looked (and without any resident mice). The oil pump had been the stumbling block when I last worked on the engine. I had failed to prise it out of the case due to the lack of leverage (due to an absence of lugs or overhangs on the pump itself).

Although the case cannot be split with the oil pump in place (as the pump forms a bridge between four studs - two in one half of the case and two in the other half) I decided to loosen all the case fasteners to reduce the clamping effect on the pump. There are a large number of fasteners - though I didn't count them. They come in two sizes. There are small nuts (on a combination of studs and bolts) around the edge of the cases - presumably to keep everything oil tight. On the right side there are six large nuts on long studs - I assume these deal with the engine forces. Once I had loosened all these fasteners the oil pump did show some signs of movement and after 5 minutes jiggling with my bare hands the pump was free. The image below shows the rather unpleasant site inside the case.

Jolly Joilly

The pump doesn't look too bad, but I will need to read up on how to test its serviceability. Here's a picture of it and its sheen of joilly - clearly all that shines is not gold...

Back of the oil pump

The Right Tool

At the end of my last post all that was standing between me an the removal of the axle shaft was a rather large circlip. I had probably wasted about 45 minutes trying to extract it using a cheap set of circlip pliers. I am now the proud owner of  a better pair of circlip pliers - namely the Knipex 44 11 J3 (pictured below).

 It turns out these were the right tool for the job. Extracting the problematic circlip took all of fifteen seconds (and ten of those were spent getting myself into the correct position). Here is the the proof...

Next time I'll be reporting on whether or not the axle shaft could be machined for a reasonable amount of money or whether I needed to splash out for a new one.