Pistons & Head

Here is the head (can be lifted onto its end with one hand :-) ). I'm no expert unfortunately, the valves look pretty good, but many of the water ways are blocked with a thin layer of "something", looks like metal or could be kalc? 

Blocked - Why is this? weak water pump?

Number one piston below

Number two

Number three - something bottom left corner?

Is it worn?

Number 4

Anything that could contribute to low pressure in 2 & 3?

Broken finger stops play

The strip continued, borrowed a tool to keep the belt pulley in place while I unscrewed the crankshaft nut.

Drilled holes to match the pulley bolts

The tool was long enough to reach the floor so it wasn't going to move. The bolt was still pretty difficult to undo.

I had to put the pulley back on temporarily to be able to get cylinder 1 to TDC.

TDC

Made up the tool recommended in the Haynes WS manual to keep the camshafts in place at top dead centre. I'm still afraid they might move.

Tied the sprockets in place to the timing chain.

Thermostat, water pump and pulley removed ready to remove lower timing case cover.

Cover off

Removed timing chain tensioner and slide rail. Removed sprockets and tied them to the chassis to stop the chain falling down. Undid all the head bolts and realised I hadn't removed the exhaust and manifold.

Then came Saturday and I had the outside of the house to finish washing. Long story short, the ladder slipped and I fell 4 meters onto it. Broke a finger and cut above eye needed stitches. Bruised ribs and leg. Spent Saturday afternoon and some of the evening in hospital. Now I have my left hand in plaster for 3 weeks, cant use it for six after that :-(

Luckily Neil came around and got the exhaust off. Then Fredrik carefully removed the head for me.

I haven't looked at the block so closely but everything looks okay, even the gasket. Will look at the head when I can turn it over!

Hopefully I'll be updating this again soon.

Low compression

Hello there! Hope you have had a great summer (if you are in Europe). The car has been gradually drinking more petrol over the months more than 15 litres/100 km (double what it was using originally) so I have only used it a few times for fairly short trips. The power has been excellent but still it's running very rich. Decided to get it tuned again, which after changing the bad injectors and a few other things, was going very well until it suddenly lost compression in 2 & 3 cylinders. 

The job now is to take the cylinder head off and take a look.

Everything in its place

Out with the radiator

SC and inlet manifold removed

Cam cover removed - so far so good!

This will be the first time I've removed a cylinder head since I removed the heads from my Beetle in 76!