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!

Short to-do-list

 

Hi and hope you had a great Christmas and New Year. After last year's long list of things to do, including change of clutch, ARP bolts, bearings etc. I decided to take it easy this winter and have the car ready and waiting if there was a nice sunny day. At the beginning of January the temperature was down to -18 oC but unfortunately I didn't have a chance to drive the car but last weekend the sun was shining so a trip to Rosenhill was in order. 

I actually hadn't done anything until today. In the autumn after the inlet manifold split I changed one of the gaskets for the supercharger but there was another I forgot about. Fuel consumption is not great so I thought I would replace both supercharger gaskets as well as the inlet manifold gasket, oil filter and oil. Not sure if fuel consumption will improve but it's worth a try.

Inlet manifold, plenum and supercharger in one nice removable chunk.

There is a spacer plate between the SC and plenum so a gasket is needed both sides of it. I'm not sure if and when the SC oil needs changing. I have no idea when it was changed last. Any advice would be greatly received.

I forgot to mention that I got a excellent write up in CKC's December's issue. Adam Wilkins, Feature Editor was very kind to meet me at TDI in July last year and take some great photos. 

I'm very proud of the five page spread inside.

On the road yet again!

My favorite metal shop in Huddinge just outside Stockholm kindly welded up the plenum. I was away on business so it didn't matter that it took a couple of weeks. They did a great job and it cost about a quarter of what TDI charged me.

They first cleaned away the TDI old weld, then welded and filed it down flat before adding a reinforcing L-shape piece of aluminium along the edge.  

I got it all back together Sunday afternoon and was down at Rosenhill 30 minutes later. She has a hell of an acceleration, up to around 7200 rpm so it's well tuned now. It gets to 60mph (100kph) in second no problem. Still not sure about the time it takes but it's quick and fast enough for me!

I'm sill a little concerned about the plenum cracking again. If it does it's obviously under dimensioned and needs modifying or replaced by 3mm aluminium.

I'm now considering what needs doing over the winter. There were too many jobs last year so I'll take it easy this time. There are a few paint jobs that need doing, a couple of rusty spots and perhaps fix the rev counter and fuel usage gauge wiring problems. The gauges I bought from Prosportgauges are pretty bad. All of them are showing signs of wear; it's almost too difficult to read the gauges through the scratched plastic lenses. It's not as though I have misused them. Maybe they can be buffed and polished but I expected more for the money.

Anyway there will be a few trips before the car is stored away for the winter. Until then I'll be enjoying the sun and fresh air.

Bye for now!

Small setback

Hello there! Hope you had a great summer. Here in Sweden August has been very much better than July, problem was that most people took their holidays in July! The car has been running pretty well since the tune up. I had to swap back to the original crankshaft sensor as the cheap replacement I bought from ebay wasn't functioning properly and was confusing the ECU. Talking of the ECU, that was also faulty, a dry joint somewhere was making it cut out which made it impossible to start the car. Long story short, that has now been replaced so generally the car has been flying although fuel consumption has been quite bad. At least until this morning! 

There have been a few occasions when the turning the engine over it has coughed and spluttered and backfired before starting but today it backfired and then when I tried to turn the engine over again it revved to 5000 rpm and stayed there. This is what happened outside my mothers house in July so I knew exactly what  the problem was - a cracked plenum!

It's cracked along the same weld line as before and I was charged a lot to fix it that time by TDI.  I'll try and get it welded again but I think the aluminium is too thin. Maybe it can be reinforced somehow.

I need to check out the super charger too, there seems to be a bit of an oil leak coming from somewhere. Gasket leaking perhaps?

Inside the blades look in extremely good condition.

It's a pity it has happened now with so many months of driving left. Hopefully though I can get it welded soon. I'll try my favorite company in Huddinge 

Restaurangmaskiner Kurt Norén AB.

More news to follow ...

UK or bust - again!

Well Neil and I finally did the trip to England. Neil on his Suzuki Bandit and me in the little car. Left home almost midnight on a Sunday and drove through the night down through southern Sweden, across Øresund bridge to Denmark and on to the Rødby to Puttgarden ferry.

Breakfast! - First McDonalds into Germany at Fehmarn-Burg.

Grabbed 20 minutes sleep on the ferry and continued down through Germany along autobahn 1 which I must say is a pretty boring motorway but if one wants to get some miles out of the way it's probably the only way to go. Once down at Osnabrück we turned right and headed into Holland. Eventually arriving at our first stop at Manfred and Villeca's holiday home in Rijssen about 5 in the afternoon. A little worse for wear but a few chilled beers solved that - thanks Manfred!

Nice new tents and award winning camping stools!

Next day we said goodbye and headed for The Hook (of Holland), first time ended up on the wrong side of the estuary so initiated a "quick" correction to get us back to where the Stina line ferry would take us to Harwich. Then I was on to my mums in Kent and Neil to Liverpool.

Peter changing out the plenum for a much better version. A few small mods before taking her to TDI for a well deserved tuneup. 

Accelerator snapped yet again and we realised it was most likely because I hadn't added a throttle stop. Thanks for the help to drag me back out of the car Andy, oh and the B&B.

The dyno was invented by a guy at Scania and he created his own company out of his idea. It's a much safer and more accurate way to set up the vehicle as well as test it as there is no risk the car will fly off the rollers.

During the tuning process, many parameters were tweaked and tweaked again.

Nice to have it professionally setup.

Almost there.

At the same time I took the opportunity to have the geometry setup up, which I have only ever done myself. It feels and drives so much better now.

Then it was touring around, visiting friends and family and time also to take in a trip to Silverstone for the Formula Student event. Unlucky for Charmers university from Gothenburg their electric car had problems after the mandatory water test which is part of the scrutiny process. Unfortunately it couldn't compete in the full competition.

Fantastic how the electric cars out performed the petrol engines on acceleration and cornering. 

There was chaos in Calias with operation stack so we decided to take the Harwich to the Hook again with a stop with Manfred  and Villeca's new site at Harderwijk in Holland. Then it was time for the long drive home (1500km), up through Holland, skipped through Germany and into Denmark. Instead of taking the Puttgarden to Rødby ferry we drove up through Denmark to Fredrikshaven and took the ferry to Gothenburg.

Nearly home. 3 hour ferry to Gothenburg and then home by 10am.

In total 2600mile (4200km)

Small hickup

Hi, I hope you are enjoying the weather wherever you are. Here in Sweden it's been very much up and down from dull, drizzly days to fantastic warm days, warmer than Malaga on some occasions. I've been out to a couple of car meets, the first one Sundbygård that meet every Wednesday over the summer months: http://www.sundby-gard.se 

Sundbygård

The last one being Nyköping car meet also Wednesdays approximately 100km south of Stockholm. 

Nyköping 2013

Everything went well on the way down but on the way out of the meet it started coughing and spluttering and finally smoke poured out of the engine compartment and there was a very strong smell of petrol. To cut a long story short the fuel pipe into the inlet manifold had come off and was spraying fuel over the underside of the bonnet and therefore over the whole engine. Taking the bonnet off the engine was wet with fuel. Why it didn't just burst into flames was probably because the engine was warm from travelling only a kilometer or so. Any hotter and it could have ended in disaster. Easy to tighten up the clamp on the pipe but unfortunately the banjo connector moved and began to leak. Found some new washers at Kaarlo's mums house so the day and the car were saved.

All fixed but a close shave!

Getting ready for the trip to UK so it was good the fuel pipe came off now and not on the way. I have booked Peter at GKD to do a few engine mods, remove MAF, Begi and change injectors, so tuning will be much easier. Also booked TDI tuning to do both tuning and suspension geometry. Decided not to do a drifting course. If there is time for a track day that will be enough.

Two new Yokohama Advan Sport V105 ready to go on, now I'll have them all round.

Neil, Kevin and I will be at Silverstone the weekend of 12th July as there is the Formula Student 2015 which Neils son Magnus and Lund University will be participating in. See you at the camp site or in the bar!

 

Soft top solution

Just a small update on the soft top. I didn't like the soft top supports sitting on the rear of the boot when not in use so solved it with boat supports, shrink wrap and aluminium pipe.

These are chrome boat supports that fit a 12mm internal diameter pipe. The one to the right has an internal diameter of 18mm so I added an extra layer of shrink wrap under it to fill the space. Quite expensive but look good.

I used the old bracket I made out of stainless steel. 

Instead of painting them black I did what Peter at GKD suggested, I covered them in black shrink wrap!

The small support fits nicely together with the help of the chrome support.

Top up, where is it all going to go?

First stage, unclip the windscreen and then the rear poppers.

Fold up the soft top

Anette made me some nice black nylon bands. 

Supports folded down and then ...

Split in two! I bought 12mm aluminium bar, one end is fixed in one pipe and the other slides into the other to join them. When the soft top is on it naturally holds everything together.

Bars and soft top folded away

Boot cover in place and everything hidden away!

I'm very pleased with the result. I just need a solution for the doors when they are not in use. Maybe they could be folded in two as well!