Engine Rebuild

A few pics and some comments.

First the good news...the engine rebuild goes reasonably well. The polished crank and cam were re-installed in the align bored case. New lifters installed, and the case reassembled. Permatex 3H is some great stuff for sealing the case. Had a little trouble putting the distributor drive shaft back in. I'm using Tom Wilson's book on rebuilding VW aircooled engines. While the book is excellent as a whole, there are occasionally places where some of the language is a bit unclear. I'm an engineer and I like things to be painfully clear, even redundant. So, I'll put the distributor drive shaft as per John Muir's Idiot's Guide.

My car is an Auto-Stick, so what would normally be an oil pump is actually an oil pump and a hydraulic fluid (transmission fluid) pump at the same time. I was able to locate the proper seals and gaskets, and rebuilt the pump. The pics below show the rebuild.

I had Volks-Tech of Burlington, NJ do the engine machine work: align-boring (1.00 mm over stock), new crank bearings, new cam bearings, installed case saves, but I did not have them do a 'deep stud' - I missed that part of Wilson's book. My engine is a 1970; meaning it has both an oil pressure relief valve and an oil pressure control valve. The relief was actually stuck in the case; I had to use a large tap to pull the valve cylinder out. Otherwise I cleaned the hell out of the case, as it was incredibly dirty, as if someone had dumped a quart of mud in the oil filler instead of oil. Every nook and cranny, shiny clean.

I've chosen to paint the case using Eastwood's Aluma Blast - just like the tranny case. So that's what these pics show.

Still yet to do: install new pistons and cylinders (stock sizes). The heads were rebuilt by Volks-Tech using Gene Berg parts (the good stuff). I'll rebuild the top end and install swivel feet valve adjusters.