For way more details on the dissasembly part of the fun, see first page. And then I put it back together again
Day far-too-many-to-count
Well, haven't updated this in a long time. Like three months, or something. So here's a summary of all the fun I've had during those three months. Without pictures, partly because I didn't have access to Oliver's camera anymore, and partly because, well, it's nothing we haven't seen before.
So, we left off with a running van, eagerly awaiting taking it down for AirCare so it could be licensed. It failed. It failed miserably. In fact, I'm going to see if I remember how html tables work, to present just how miserably it failed. The first column is the maximum allowable concentration. The second is the average of those cars of the same age and type that have passed air care. The third is my orange beast.
| Test | Max | Avg | Van |
| Hydrocarbons | 136 | 45 | 1711 |
| Carbon monoxide | 1.50 | 0.50 | 1.52 |
| Oxides of Nitrogen | 1899 | 1620 | 2032 |
Well, so in a minor moment of panic, I drove to an AirCare certified Volkswagen-specialising mechanic (Adria Imports on Broadway, for any locals following along), and made an appointment to bring her in. Then I went home, slept on it, and recalled the deal with the hydraulic tappets and pumping up and the concerns I had had about not being able to tighten them enough to be up to spec (see previous page for details). So I popped the valve covers off, and found that sure enough, all the lifter had now pumped up, which meant that the valve adjustments were *way* over-tight, which meant the valves were never closing. Which meant tons of unburned fuel was being pumped out the exhaust and being called Hydrocarbons. So I adjusted those, but still kept the appointment at the mechanic. He re-adjusted the valves I had just adjusted (charging $75 an hour, I might add), replaced the points I had already made a mental note to replace, as well as the condenser and rotor, which I hadn't tested. He also ran compression tests, which I like an idiot had not, because hey! I just replaced the pistons, cylinders and rings, so surely they'll be fine. Well, they weren't. Apparently, I was getting 135-75-115-125. So he followed that up with a leak-down test and found 80% leakage through the rings on cylinder #2.
Well, so $300 later, I knew what the problem was. Unfortunately, it was a problem that required pulling the engine. Which the certified specialist mechanic would charge another $800-1000 for, so I thanked him for the info and drove home. At least, I now had 3 month temporary permits, so I could park on the street at my place, rather than in the carport at Oliver's. On the way home, I stopped at Bow-Wow and bought new rings and two head gaskets. But figured really, while I had the engine out, I might as well replace the rings in cylinder #3, which was a little low (115), though not as bad as #2. So I needed 4 head gaskets, as there's a separate one for each cylinder. And it now appeared that my beloved van was spurting oil like a severed artery, so I didn't much feel like driving her out to Langley. Instead, I left my number at Bow-Wow and they promised to phone when they got more head gaskets, in a day or two. A week later, I phoned and asked them if they had any head gaskets, and they offered to take my number and call when they got more, in a day or two. So now I was feeling rather like not crawling under the van again right away anyway, so I asked CIP to mail me some. Kinda silly paying $15 in shipping for a $10 part, but I also didn't feel like driving out to Langley, and figured the 3-4 days it would take for them to get here would be a nice excuse for a procrastination.
Right, so two or three weeks just fly by while I do other things and keep checking the porch for a package. Eventually, that gets silly, so I phone CIP to see what service the shipped with and whether there'd be a tracking number. The phone jockey got suddenly confused, and asked if he could call me back in half an hour after checking on some stuff...
Twenty minutes later, the phone rings, and a very embarassed phone jockey admits that it appears that the package never got shipped, but that they would courier it overnight at their expense and he'd e-mail a tracking number either that evening or first thing the next morning. Well, evening comes and goes, as does the following morning. I head out for lunch, promising pWeasel that if there isn't a tracking number in my e-mail inbox when I get back from lunch, I'll, I'll... uh, call them again and inquire politely? There are days when I hate being a mild-mannered Canadian. Anyway, I'm halfway through lunch, and CIP calls me to confirm that I recieved my package, because it had been signed by a ``Nicole'' (which happens to be our upstairs neighbour) five minutes earlier. So I guess I forgive them for a minor brain-fart, as they certainly went out of their way to make good on it.
So, now that I have all the parts, it's a reasonably quick job of dropping the engine out (Note: when doing this, not only should the *#$@&!^#*$))@%#))#$^@%@!$#*( heater control boxes stay with the engine until its out, because it is much easier that way, but the thingy being used to hold the transmission up should be constructed as such: Hang a 2x4 from chains from the van's frame so that it's almost touching the ground, then build up the center of it with bits of 2x4, or bolt a scissor jack to it, or something. Because otherwise, the control boxes will smack into it as you lower the engine, and rip out the little holes in the cooling tin to which they are attached.) Then it's about an afternoon's work to remove each side's valve train, pull the head off, pull one cylinder off, replace the rings, slip the cylinder back on, replace the head gaskets, torque the head on, and replace the valve train. And then it's pretty trivial to wedge the exhaust system up and bolt it back together and oh, bugger. It appears there's one of the nuts holding the exhaust cross-over pipe to the exhaust manifold used to be threaded onto a fixed stud, which has since become less fixed, so the post-nut has been replaced by a bolt. Which has now stripped out the threads into which the fixed stud used to thread. So now, we are no longer crushing the gasket, which means we can anticipate raw exhaust billowing out without going through the cat and muffler, and furthermore leaking all hot up into the engine compartment and overheating things.
Now, it turns out the appropriate way to fix this is to buy $115 in thread-saver HeliCoil inserts, as well as an appropriate drill bit, drill the hole out, tap it to a larger size, and thread in a HeliCoil. However, as I'm feeling rather broke, I come up with an alternate plan, which is to borrow a car, drive the whole thing up to Midas, and ask them to do a quick 5-minute weld to make a really, really permanent stud. Except they don't like that idea, because there really isn't much space around the back to get in and weld. So they offer to drill and tap it. With some trepidation, but by now just wanting to get it done, I agree. Well, drilling and tapping takes a whole lot longer than 5 minutes, and at $75 an hour, I should have spent that $100 on the tap set, because then I'd have them for next time. Oh, well, live and learn, I guess.
Alright, so the crossover pipe now has nice shiny new stud on it, so everything goes together more-or-less smoothly (the studs are a bit longer than ideal, so there's now some *really* tight clearances for wrenches and such, where before they were merely tight clearances, but it's all good). So, engine back together, slide it under the van, spend most of the day playing with a 2-ft pry bar, lots of scraps of 2x4 and a couple of jacks. Hint: Make sure you have *lots* of 2x4 scraps, so you can nail them together into little log house structures. If you just stack 'em up like I first tried, by the time you get 4 or 5 high, you won't dare jiggle the engine back and forth to slide it up to the tranny, for fear of knocking all your stacks over and dropping a really heavy engine on your feet/ hands/ head. Which probably wouldn't be good for the engine, either. So then you'll end up running to the hardware store for more scraps before you continue. Lining up the holes in two dimensions (up-down and left-right) is pretty easy. Making sure the engine and tranny are tilted by exactly the same amount, so things actually slide together, is kinda fiddly, but with an extra jack under the front of the engine/ rear of the tranny, they went, eventually.
After connecting everything and double-checking it, time to fire the engine up. And, to only mild surprise, she starts up just fine. So I run round the back to make sure the nice new studs are sealing up the gasked on the right side so it's not leaking. And find clouds of raw exhaust billowing out from around a gasket on the *left* side of the engine. More blue words, and a trip to the parts store. Luckily, I had the old gasket for that spot, so I could take that along. Also luckily, the spot where it fit had perfectly removable nuts and bolts, so there was no need to slide any part of anything anywhere to separate the two flanges and replace the gasket, which is good, because there's no space down there to slide anything anywhere without removing the engine, which I did not want to do again. Turns out, the California model uses slightly larger-diameter exhaust pipes, so while the hole spacing on the gasket I had first bought was right, the gasket was the wrong shape...
Well, learning from my mistakes (slowly, but still), I figure I should test the compression right off the bat (well, after a short drive to burn off the oil in the combustion chambers from replacing the rings.) Unfortunately, in taking the spark plugs out, I totally mangle the cylinder head temperature sender, which goes around a spark plug. Not the best place to put one, I think. Maybe it works in other models, but on the van, the spark plug hole is recessed, so you have to bend the sensor a bit, and I think I got it a bit wrong, so it got caught up and twisted a bit every time the spark plug went in or out. So now I need to replace that. On the upside, the cylinder compression seems OK. So I figure I can risk driving out to Langley for a new sender without having the gauge (this is the after-market CHT gauge, not the one the main processing unit in the engine uses for anything). Except that as I start driving out there, I'm still smoking up quite the storm. So I don't like that so much, bail, drive home, and borrow Megan's car to get out to CIP. While driving out, I ponder smoke. It isn't coming out the tailpipe, which is good. It seems that there's oil leaking out from under the valve cover. The oil then runs down the exhaust manifold. Most of it runs onto the heat exchanger, which is hot enough to burn it. Smoke. Some of it runs *into* the heat exchanger, which is very much hot enough to burn it, and is also tasked with warming the air that is blown into the cabin by the heating system. Smoke, pouring out of the dashboard. Ugh. So, since I've already replaced the gaskets under the valve covers to no avail, the next question is whether the valve covers themselves should be replaced. CIP refers me to AirSpeed, a little parts store/ mechanic/ recycling centre for VW parts. They suggest that there's an easy test to determine whether I need new covers, before I spend money on them. You take the cover off, scrape out the gasket, place it back without the gasket, and try rocking it back and forth. If it rocks, it's warped and will never seal properly. I suggest that given what a pain it is for me to get out to Langley, could they tell me how much a replacement cover would be, because it may be worth my while buying it now anyway. Turns out they have a stack of old oily dirty rusty ones, and he'll sell me a pair for $15. That's cheap enough I take 'em, even without running the suggested test.
Get home, pull the old cover off, scrape out the gasket, place it back, and sure enough, clunk, clunk. It's got at least 1/16" of warp to it, so no wonder it's been leaking oil. So I clean up one of the replacements, put that in, let the gasket maker cure overnight, and it's time for another test drive. No smoke! I guess to be fair, there's still the odd drop of oil on the heater boxes, but nothing compared to the burning stream from before. I had also taken a pot of muffler cement, and attempted to slather in on liberally around the edges of the tin, so as to seal off the inside of the heat exchanger from any remaining drips of oil. There's still a bit of smoky smell every now and then in the cabin, but I convince myself for now that that's just old oil burning off, and that there isn't any new oil leaking into that system. Meanwhile, I turn the heat off as much as possible and drive with the window open. I s'pose eventually it will get cold and I'll need to reassess whether the heater system is clean enough to be useful, and what to do about it if it isn't.
In the meantime, time to re-do the compression tests. Ideally, they are to be done warm. Fair enough, so I warm up the engine and go to take out the spark plugs. #1 and #2 come out easily, but #3 and #4 don't. In fact, they are really quite hard to turn, even after they first move a bit. Hmmm. Not wanting to strip the threads, I leave them and wait for the engine to cool. With a cold engine, they are still quite stiff. This is not good. When they finally come out, the threads don't look so clean anymore. And I seem to have bent the connector on one of them. Alright, so we'll replace the spark plugs. While buying the new ones, I note that a drill/tap/HeliCoil package for spark plug holes is only about $35, which isn't that bad. They also had a ``thread chaser'' for about $10, so I buy that, and, being careful to goop it up with *lots* of grease, screw it into each of the two spark plug holes. It pulls out a few small shards of aluminum, but it appears there's still a quite serviceable amount of thread in there. Maybe next time I pull the engine I'll see whether I should drill and tap them for inserts, but for now, the spark plugs can still be torqued to spec without stripping or anything, so it's all good. I give up on trying to run hot compression tests, though, and run them cold. Getting decent numbers (120-130) in all four cylinders, so that looks good.
Then, with that solved, it's off to AirCare again. Hrmph. Another failure. A lot better than the first, but still:
| Test | Max | Avg | Van |
| Hydrocarbons | 136 | 45 | 71 |
| Carbon monoxide | 1.50 | 0.50 | 0.64 |
| Oxides of Nitrogen | 1899 | 1620 | 2372 |
Well, the Hydrocarbons got better, as did the Carbon Monoxide, as one would expect with getting the rings all sealing tightly. Unfortunately, the NOx results seem to be worse than before, and are failing.
Reading the AirCare brochure, it appears that the cheap possibilities include the timing or spark gap being off, or the oxygen sensor malfunctioning. pWeasel suggests dirty fuel injectors could also lead to a lean mixture and be a problem. So, back to canadian tire for a proper timing light, and time to do some tuning and try again.
Except, when I get home, the van won't start. Turn the key, and get a ``click'', and a bit of whirring of the fuel pump, and that's all. Now, this had happened once before, and it turned out to be dirty battery connectors, so I re-clean those. Nope. Pull out the multimeter and recruit Morgan to help, as this requires some observation of the multimeter while turning the ignition. Decide with Morgan's help that the connector at the starter motor might also be dirty. Clean that off, and we now have starter motor turning the engine over, but it's still not catching. Grumble. After much fruitless troubleshooting of the coil and distributor, it turns out to be a truly dumb problem. The HT lead from the coil to the distributor wasn't pushed on far enough. In my defense, there is a noticable click, which is probably the contacts on the lead engaging a groove in the plastic housing of the connector on the coil, and then you have to push it on quite hard to get it to clic solidly onto the connector itself. Silly. So, engine starts, drive around the block to warm it up a bit, hook up the dwell-tach, and.... Engine refuses to start. Re-do all the trouble shooting, everything seems right. For some random reason, I poke the dwell-tach meter with the multimeter, and am somewhat surprised to find no input resistance at all. Now, I don't claim to remember very much at all from the two semesters of electronics I took during undergrad, but this doesn't seem right. So I unhook the dwell-tach, turn the key, and the engine, she roars to life. Turn her off, hook up the dwell-tach, and get nothing but starter motor. Bugger. Off to canadian tire to exchange the dwell-tach. Bring the new one home, and it has the nice infinite input resistance I'd been surprised to not see in the other one. So, the instruments I'm using to tune the engine has a short in it, which prevents the engine from starting. Could I have worse luck with this stuff?
Anyway, another week has gone by while I trouble-shoot electrical systems, but now, she runs again, and is tuned up perfectly to the specifications in the book. The other thought was to run a bottle of fuel injector cleaner through, so I buy one, fill up the tank, and spend the weekend offering rides to anyone who wants to do any errands, because I got a tank of gas I gotta burn... Not many takers, but I did return the many many car uses I got from Megan so she could get some furniture out of storage...
So, we're now up to Monday, September 12th. And the three-month temp plates I was about to get at the end of the previous page are due to expire on the 20th. But the engine is tuned, the fuel injectors are cleaned, and I've filled up at one of the gas stations advertising a 10% ethanol blend. I'm not sure if all stations use ethanol blends, but only one advertises it, but heck, I'll give that a try. Roll on down to the AirCare centre, and... failure #3:
| Test | Max | Avg | Van |
| Hydrocarbons | 136 | 45 | 76 |
| Carbon monoxide | 1.50 | 0.50 | 0.64 |
| Oxides of Nitrogen | 1899 | 1620 | 2364 |
Well, as this is printing out, the AirCare tech asks if I retarded the timing. So I assure him it's exactly where the specifications say it should be. And he explains that with everything except NOx passing, I should try retarding it 3-4 degrees later than the specifications, and then drive right through again, and it would probably pass. I'm a bit dubious, so I drive back to Adria Imports to see what options they might have to offer. Mark suggests exactly the same thing. Apparently, the old air-cooled technology just tends to run hot, and hot combustion chambers lead to NOx, and retarding the timing cools the combustion chamber, letting you pass. Of course, it also reduces power even below the anemic levels these buses normally boast, so after you pass the test, you just put it back to where it should be...
Oh, well. This feels a bit like cheating, but if two independent, AirCare-certified technicians say this is how you deal with the AirCare program, I'm willing to try it. So I drive home, brew up some coffee, retard the timing to about 0, drive back to an AirCare centre, and... pass with flying colours:
| Test | Max | Avg | Van |
| Hydrocarbons | 136 | 45 | 42 |
| Carbon monoxide | 1.50 | 0.50 | 0.49 |
| Oxides of Nitrogen | 1899 | 1620 | 1600 |
Well, so there we go. She is now street legal, and, after setting the timing back to 7.5 where it should be, drives reasonably decently. Pretty much 4 months to the day after I bought her. So much for a 3-4 week job, and then I'd have all summer to use her for camping and interviewing and actually getting my thesis done, but what can you do, eh?
So now it'll be time to start working on the more fun stuff, like customising the camper parts, and making sure all that works. Oh, and I guess I'll do a bit more research into them thar NOx emissions and see if there's any way to get them down while still maintaining the driveability of the van...