[T3] Report on Mike Wodkowski's engine

["Jim Adney" <jadney@vwtype3.org>]

I finally finished taking apart Mike's engine, so I can report on what 
I found.

Report on Mike Wodkowski's engine

Mike's 72 type 3 engine had been rebuilt a couple of years ago and 
run after that with dual Weber carbs. Mike had had continuing 
difficulties with it and eventually traded it in for a complete 72 type 
3 engine with FI which I had built. This is what I found when I took 
his engine apart.  

The thermostat linkage had come apart so that the cooling air flaps 
were open all the time.  

The rearmost cylinder head stud on the lower right side had been 
pulled out of the case about 1/4".  

There were 2 different brands of cylinders and 3 different kinds of 
pistons in the engine. The #1 piston had a broken top ring and I 
THINK it was installed upside down.  

The fan housing screws were loose and would have come all the 
way out soon, making the usual racket and requiring disassembly 
to fix.  

Both heads were the late (72-3) style with the breathers, but both 
were rights, thus there was no boss for the FI temp sensor. 
Someone had drilled and tapped one of the cooling fins for a temp 
sensor and there was one still in there, with its lead cut off. I have 
not disassembled the heads, but they look to be in reasonable 
condition.  

There were a couple of stripped studs in the oil sump.  

The bearings were all standard. The case has never been align 
bored, but it should have been. There was a wear ridge on the #1 
main bearing saddle where I am not used to seeing one. The ridge 
on the #2 saddle was the normal one which would have required an 
align bore, but the #1 ridge was actually worse. The bearings 
themselves looked pretty reasonable, but it was clear that they had 
been loose in the case, so oil pressure could not have been good.  

The six O-rings that seal around the 6 main bearing studs were all 
baked so hard that they actually made a small "clink" when 
dropped on the concrete driveway. I doubt if they had been 
replaced at the rebuild. I had to break them to get them off the 
studs because they would not stretch at all to get over the threads. 
 
The front seal was the late red silicone style and looks "new." I'll 
reuse it. The flywheel shims look just fine, and I think we measured 
the free play when we took the engine apart and it was just slightly 
over spec. I think it would have been fine but for the main bearings 
being loose in the case.  

The crank gears are in fine shape, but the spacer ring between the 
gears was quite loose. I like to tighten those up when I do a rebuild 
just to keep things stable.  

Given all the things that were wrong, I'd say that this engine swap 
was done at a good time. Left alone, the loose bearings would have 
done this engine in soon, and the broken piston ring and pulled 
stud probably would have lead to significant loss of power.  

-
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Jim Adney, jadney@vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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