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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. - ******************************* Jim Adney, jadney@vwtype3.org Madison, Wisconsin, USA ******************************* ------------------------------------------------------------------- Search old messages on the Web! Visit http://www.vwtype3.org/list/