'73/1500

[Tom]

If you decide you want to change the heads I have 2 brand new (Chico performance) single port heads and 85.5 pistons (also new} I'm looking to sell.

[beetlejessica]

So today was a huge success!!

We got off the train at 9:23 in New Hyde Park and our train door opened onto this sign



And we couldn't determine if it was a good or bad omen. What we were picking up definitely wasn't left by accident...but a minute or so later, and here's Jessica in an "Amazing Race"-type moment:



Seriously the cleverest, kindest, most generous thing we've encountered in ages. Must be a Nassau County thing, because I grew up in Ronkonkoma and I didn't know any guys like GlennA out there.

We were in New Hyde Park by 9:23, on the train back to Jamaica by 9:35, at Sears on Queens Blvd. buying a beter vise grip and a stud remover by 10, back home and eating breakfast by 11:30 (got lost staring at tools in Sears) and working on the car by 12:30. Getting the old studs out was a pain in the ass....the stud remover worked for one but not the other. Finally, it was the vise grip and some penetrating oil that got out the second one. Then getting the new ones in was a pain. All we had was the vice grip and it took a long time figure out that the best way was to do quick small turns until it went snug. Putting a new spacer on the rocker and shimming up the #1 exhaust was no big thing either. As of now, everything is fine. We drove around for a bit and the engine sounded good, felt good, produced no weird noises...If we're lucky, we'll be fine until we gather the money for a new engine or otherwise figure out the head stud.

Can't wait until next weekend when we put on our new muffler and tighten up our steering box. In any case, December 4th is now officially "GlennA Day" in north Brooklyn! We're incredibly grateful for all the help and advice...and if anyone on DasVolks gets a cold and needs some homemade chicken soup, don't be afraid to ask because we make a mean one.

[Raj]

great news!

Thanks GA.

[Glenn]

DVG to the rescue... again.

[Glenn A]

Thanks GA.

No prob Raj.

[AoT]

What a great story this has been, have been reading it from the start, but mechanically out of my league to post any options but know the frustrations of tools and lost hours.

The thread on the technical aspects has been amazing and glad to see that it is moving along with the GA fix! What a hoot that was!!

Hope you get some time to enjoy all your hard work!

Audrey = AoT

[Big_kid]

I love a happy ending, but that's for another thread.

Glad to read this worked out well too!

[Raj]

Any update on this Jessica? How is the repair holding up?

[beetlejessica]

Hey Raj, what's up?

Thanks for asking about the repair....so far it's holding up fine. No unusual noises or anything coming from the "GlennA Cylinder Head".

Now we're on to the next round of little issues.

We were thinking of making a thread on here if anyone would be interested of the pitfalls and pratfalls in the comedy of errors that is bug ownership. Like the VERY next day after the repair, Daniel drove the car to work. When he went to wind down the window, the crank broke off in his hand. On the way home, the knob on the vent window broke off in his hand. And on the way to work the tell-tale sound of a bad front wheel bearing "wuh wuh wuh wuh" suddenly decided to make itself known. Why this would all happen the day after such a big repair weekend is known only to the VW gods. Thankfully we have enough of a sense of humor to take it in stride and for some weird reason every time something happens it only makes us love the car more in the end.

Who doesn't love it when Mr. UPS or Mr. FedEx leaves a box of parts at the door? We've been ordering from Bug City lately and since they're so close the stuff arrives next day!

[Big_kid]

Pitfalls and pratfalls are what owning these old cars is about- Post away!

[Raj]

When he went to wind down the window, the crank broke off in his hand. On the way home, the knob on the vent window broke off in his hand. !

Looks like Daniel needs to stop hitting the gym! j/k
You gotta love these things..... it wouldn't be an old VW if it weren't for these fun little events!

[AoT]

We were thinking of making a thread on here if anyone would be interested of the pitfalls and pratfalls in the comedy of errors that is bug ownership.

I think more than half of my posts on the wonder thread is about the Murphy's law effect on VW's!!

Sounds like you're still having fun.

[beetlejessica]

Hi there and Happy New Year to everyone!

I hope everyone's doing well and feeling good after their celebrations and whatnot.

Things are okay over here except for the small matter of a stripped exhaust stud. We figured why not start off the year with our new muffler. Everything was pretty good except you know that sinking feeling you get after realizing that "hey, this thing's really taking a while to tighten up" and then it suddenly loosens a little and you realize the damn thing is stripped? And would you believe it's on the same head we had the rocker stud problem on?

Daniel is assuming the worst and that the hole is stripped. When he was trying to take off the copper nut, it got to the end of the stud and then the stud and nut started spinning and the whole thing came out. He also noticed some silvery thread looking material inside the hole but the stud looked okay. We tried to put it back in with some red Loctite today but it stripped. Of course it has to be the lower stud which is already a PITA to get to. Grrrr.

We're thinking the most straight-forward solution is to extract the stud, tap the hole to 10mm, and put in a step stud. Does that sound right to you guys? We were gonna buy a 10mm tap, tap wrench, and try these studs from Napa:

http://bit.ly/vLR4aN

Only worry is that the 10mm side is 1.5 pitch not 1.25. Is that a problem?

[Glenn]

He also noticed some silvery thread looking material inside the hole but the stud looked okay.

Sounds like a heli coil. The good news is the stud didn't snap. Yes, tap it for a M10 and install a 10/8 step stud.

[Raj]

He also noticed some silvery thread looking material inside the hole but the stud looked okay.

Sounds like a heli coil. The good news is the stud didn't snap. Yes, tap it for a M10 and install a 10/8 step stud.

agreed.

[beetlejessica]

Awesome! Thanks guys.

Guessing these are blind holes right? In which case a plug and a bottom tap?

[Glenn]

I think the bottom one is a blind hole but the top is not.

[AoT]

I had a problem with one of my exhaust studs and wound up having to use a step up stud. Got it tapped out and problem solved. My situation was made easier since I had the engine out for lots of other work. Hope it works for you.

[beetlejessica]

Well AoT, we're waiting for our step studs to arrive and already have the taps. In our case, the engine is in the car but we'll just take the muffler back out (it fit quite well going in the first time so ). Saturday's looking like the day...51 degrees of (relative) warmth. I'll try to remember to take some pictures!

[beetlejessica]

Well, NAPA never came through with our studs but Airhead Parts did so on Saturday we took a ride to grandma's uninsulated and unheated garage in Bay Shore to do our tapping and re-studding and stuff.

On our way to pick up enough beer to make it a smooth operation we started hearing another type of tapping which we tracked down to the valve cover on 3/4. It was out of sync with the rest of the engine….every so often we'd hear four taps….tap, tap, tap, tap….followed by a pause of up to 30 seconds then the same taps. Then it stopped so we turned off the car, bought the beer, went to grandma's house (5 mins drive from beer place) and didn't hear the noise again.

We were focussed on our exhaust stud replacement but just before we were going to remove the tin Daniel had the bright idea to check the stud one more time. It wasn't wiggling or loose (the red loctite helped I guess?) and there were no signs of exhaust leaking so we decided to leave it for now b/c we'll be pulling the engine in the next month or so.

We decided to pop the 3/4 valve cover to investigate the tap, tap, tap, tap noise and here's what we found...check out that nut above the center of the rocker



The nut came off with a poke from Daniel's index finger. Obviously that was the source of the tap but why it was four taps long pause four taps is mysterious to us. Sounds like awful morse code for "your engine is dying stud by stud".

To make matters more interesting, this stud/nut is the one exactly opposite the loose one on the other side (the one with the sheared-off looking head in a picture somewhere else in this thread) like it was one extra long stud going from head to head with problems on both ends. The nut is now on as best as possible w/o taking off the rocker arm (we don't have back up rocker studs in case something goes wrong like last time), there are no weird sounds and we're driving fine.

So...any idea about what the hell could be going on? Obviously that thing's been working it's way off for a while now and at least one stud on each head isn't properly torqued which ain't good. During our last incident, Manny posted that we should do a compression test which we've been avoiding. Like not going to the dentist when your tooth hurts b/c you don't want root canal I guess.

Like I said, we're going to pull the engine when we have some money in the next month/six weeks (tax return!) and start investigating the heads, the studs, whether the case is cracked, whether we should rebuild, start over, and all that stuff.

For the moment, we're not daily driving in the hopes of getting enough time out of the engine to last us until we get our cash. Obviously, these two studs are telling us something but we still don't have other symptoms that tell us the end is coming in the next 2 hours. Even if it is 2012. What does anyone think?

[Raj]

thanks for the update Jess.

first... i'm glad to see that the tools for the job were identified quickly and swiftly gathered ( the beer). Your hubby is man after my own heart.

second .... Its odd that the other head nut was loose. I'm glad you guys werent too scared to investigate and determine the cause. kudos. I dont think its related to the other side. It just happen to happen. Were you able to torque it down? or at least determine that the stud wasnt spinning?

[Brown]

I'd say one engine with two head bolt problems means a questionalble rebuild somewhere down the line.

[beetlejessica]

Hi Raj and Brown...thanks for the replies.

We didn't even try to torque the nut down because we were away from the house, the engine was warm, and we didn't want to adjust the valves with the engine warm after taking off the rocker arm or risk stripping those damned rocker studs again. But we were able to determine that the stud is NOT spinning which is good news b/c that means we only have the one spinning stud on the other side.

Are these things signs of a questionable rebuild? I guess we'll know for sure when we get to pull the engine. Does the plan of driving less and keeping a close eye/ear on things until we get the engine out sound like a good one or are we in a situation requiring more immediate action?

[Raj]

Does the plan of driving less and keeping a close eye/ear on things until we get the engine out sound like a good one or are we in a situation requiring more immediate action?

I think thats a good plan. If the car is your only means of auto transportation but its only used for recreation than I would just drive it as is, but know that she potentially is on her way out. Bring the AAA card and fully charged cell. Also, I echo Manny in performing a compression test. Its a good indication of the compression and internals. If the car is primary transport for things like getting to work and backing beer runs, I would conserve her as much as possible. Save her for the most important trips.

During the rebuild you'll prob need to address the case stud, so I suggest getting a 8mm std case ( correct for car, and better than the 10mm). While your at it, get new P/Cs, and CW rebuilt crank, rebuild rods, and finally new heads. That being said, your bottom end ( i mean your motor's bottom end, sorry......) for the most part, is not going to be reused. So enjoy it while you can. Not for nothing, i have driven VW's ' on there way out' for years. Come to think of it... most of mine are still going that way!

[beetlejessica]

I hoped that the engine was the one big thing we wouldn't have to worry about for at least a few years and a lot of miles as long as we kept up with maintenance...Darn engine only has 15K miles on it altogether and we've been good to it as far as tune ups, oil changes, not over-revving or lugging, not overheating, etc. so it's all a little mysterious to us.

Overall, we're gonna love building an engine (and shopping for these: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/ ... id=1053617) but in the short term I can't help feeling a little

We're gonna get over ourselves and do that compression test this weekend.
We definitely owe you a beer or three for all your help....hope we're not taking up too much "bandwidth" w/ our difficulties.