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>On 13 Nov 97, James Kramer wrote: > >> 1) COOLING: I know a well-maintained flat four will withstand hot weather >> driving, but I've heard that the tight fittings around the T3 pancake >> design make cooling more of a problem. Any comments? This car will be for >> regular driving in the tropical climate of Queensland, Australia. What >> things can be done to keep the engine running cooler? > >These engines have no trouble with cooling as long as all the >important cooling parts are in place and in good condition. Common >problems are caused by cracked, poorly installed, or missing intake >cooling air bellows, allowing the engine to suck in warm/hot air >from around the engine to cool itself, and from missing sheet tin or >air seals, such as the small tin parts and rubber seals around the >spark plug connectors, allowing a lot of cooling air to leak out >before it has finished doing it's whole job. > Sorry, folks, but this turned out to be long. It must be the rainy weather that put me in a verbose, nostalgic mood. SORRY! If I may add to Jim's excellent (as usual) advice, it is imperative that your engine is running properly to ensure that it will not overheat. Even if all the cooling components are in place, even such "minor" and seemingly unrelated items such as tight valves or bad rings will send the temperature soaring even in cooler climates. I can personally attest to the importance of the air intake cooling bellows. While still in Warsaw, we found and bought our t3 Variant from someone in Krakow. It was a crisp November (~ 0 C) day when we took the train to Krakow to pick up our '65 Variant. Knowing only Beetles previously, I gave the engine a cursory inspection, checked the valves and oil and headed out on the three and one half hour drive back to Warsaw. per moment. Half of the way is hilly (from Krakow to Kielce). The hills were no match for our '70 Super so we headed out without a worry. Just below the Checiny Castle ruins (nice place -- destroyed by the Swedes some centuries back), the Variant started to back fire and lose power while climbing another in a series of hills. The engine died and I had to pull over. I thought that it could only be a clogged gas line so I went back to fix it. Gas lines were OK, but the engine was so hot that some of the oil on the case was smoking. Not knowing why, we let it cool and then tried starting it. No problems. After that, we drove cautiously and stopped frequently on the way back. Subsequently, I rebuilt the engine and found that besides some slightly worn bearings the only other bad thing was that the intake air bellows was not fully installed. This allowed hot air from right above the muffler to be sucked into the engine as COOLING air. I learned a similar lesson here in Croatia when I went to pick up a '72 Cabrio with a "recently rebuilt engine." I had to drive it from the port of Rijeka to Zagreb. With this one, I assumed that the valves were adjusted properly and headed through the hills on the back to Zagreb. Once I returned to Zagreb, I changed oil (noting flakes of metal in oil) and checked the valves. ALL EIGHT valves were so tight that I could turn out the clearance screws two full turns before any slack could be felt. I wanted to check the rest of the engine and replace the muffler and a heat exchanger. Once I felt that each of the head nuts were torqued (loosened?) to a different moment, I decided to break open the "freshly rebuilt block" and found that the 17mm case nuts were loose enough to take off without any effort. The rebuilt case was beat up quite badly and the #2 cylinder (NEW!) was scored. The moral? Follow Jim's advice and be sure that your vehicle, no matter the engine size or type, is, as a system, running as it should. Take care, John